Education Secretary Michael Gove said that he believed fallen chief whip Andrew Mitchell did not called police “morons” or “plebs”, contradicting evidence given by officers.
Gove argued that people often had “different recollections of the same event”, highlighting 1950s Japanese film Rashomon in which several characters provide differing accounts of the same incident.
Mitchell quit on Friday after admitting to swearing at officers who would not open the main gate out of Downing Street, but denies he called them “plebs.”
When asked on BBC Radio 5 live whether he trusted Mitchell’s account, Gove said: “Yes I do.
“I trust Andrew, and I’m always inclined to give him the benefit of any doubt.”
The minister added that Mitchell “should have stayed on.
“The prime minister wanted him to stay on, and I felt that he should have stayed on, but Andrew made the judgement,” he explained.
“And in a way, being chief whip, operating in the whips office means that you need to have a feel for interpersonal relations in the party, and Andrew himself came to that judgement.”
Gove backs Mitchell account of 'plebgate'
