FROM being the scourge of teachers in England, who wanted to remove climate change from the geography curriculum, to the wellie-wearing Green crusader, Michael Gove has come a long way in a short space of time.

When he was given the environment brief last year, Sir Ed Davey, the former Energy Secretary, warned it was like “putting the fox in charge of the hen house”.

The 50-year-old Scot recently revealed how when Theresa May re-appointed him to the UK Cabinet, she urged him to “get stuff done”. And he is.

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Whether it’s announcing the Conservative Government’s 25-year Environmental Plan, placing CCTV in all slaughterhouses, banning the sale of microbeads, reintroducing beavers in the UK, looking at the ban of puppies in pet shops, or, as he is today, announcing a stronger prohibition on ivory sales to help protect elephants, Mr Gove appears to be a man on a mission.

He has yet to hug a huskie or even a tree but it could only be a matter of time.

The Edinburgh-born former journalist was recently spotted ambling down Downing Street with a reusable coffee cup in his hand. Westminster within minutes was surmising what this could mean and, sure enough, soon Whitehall was flagging up a possible ban on single-use plastic cups; the so-called latte levy, which is now subject to another consultation.

Given the success of the levy on plastic bags, it seems only a matter of time before we will all be carrying a reusable cup to our favourite coffee house.

After admitting to being “haunted” by the final episode of Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, which gave a grim picture of what the use of plastics is doing to the seas and oceans, Mr Gove made yet another announcement last month that all drinks containers in England, whether plastic, glass or metal, will be covered by a new deposit return scheme.

Ironically for a leading Brexiteer, it is Brexit, which is causing the green crusader some anguish.

After the deal on the transition period materialised last month, it was the Government’s “betrayal” on fisheries, which caught the headlines.

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Mr Gove, the son of a fish merchant, had been among those Cabinet figures, who had promised Britain that it would take back full control of its waters on Brexit Day, March 29 2019, only to have to concede, due to the “intransigence” of Brussels, that this will not happen until Christmas 2020.

And, of course, it is on fishing, agriculture and environmental protection which form the nub of the “power-grab,” Nicola Sturgeon is accusing the UK Government of, that is threatening a constitutional crisis on the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Yet all the headline-grabbing green initiatives are beginning to give the Westminster village the impression that Mr Gove is not only on an environmental mission but a personal one too.

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For the politician who repeatedly declared from the rooftops that he had no ambition to be prime minister but then stood to succeed David Cameron in the No 10 hot-seat, the suspicion is the profile-raising has a greater purpose: to see Mr Gove in Downing Street once his colleague Theresa May decides to call it a day.