The contest to find the next UK Conservative Party leader is heating up.
(Image source: standard.co.uk)One of the favourites to succeed Theresa May as British prime minister has admitted taking cocaine.
Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, has told the Daily Mail he used the drug on "several occasions" more than 20 years ago.
He says he "deeply regrets" it.
Other Tory leadership hopefuls, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, have also admitted previous drug-taking.
But Sky's political reporter, Rob Powell, says it's particularly awkward for Mr Gove;
"He's a former Justice Secretary and he said to the Daily Mail this morning that he acknowledges taking drugs is serious and drugs damage lives.
He's said that past mistakes shouldn't rule him out from running. He's urged people to judge him on his record as a politician."
However, considering the past misdemeanors of Mr Gove's Tory leadership rivals, Powell says the revelation might not be too damaging;
"Rory Stewart said last week that he had smoked opium while he was at a weeding in Iran.
Boris Johnson, the front-runner, about 10 years when he was running to be the mayor of London, seemed to admit that he had taken cocaine while he was at Oxford, but then rolled back a bit in a subsequent interview."
One party colleague of Mr. Gove's agrees with this assertion. Therese Coffey thinks his confession shouldn't affect his future;
"I think Michael has done some really great work as the Environment Secretary and we will continue to work on that.
Of course, he wants to become the leader and the prime minister and I think some of the openness will resonate with people who recognise that sometimes when we're younger we do silly things."
