Anonymous sources in Downing Street have confirmed that the plot to trap Gove on the continent has fallen to ruin.
The secretive aides described how a "typhoid Mary" was unleashed on the city of Porto in order to infect Gove and force him to quarantine hundreds of miles away from his colleagues.
Ironically the government's inept Test & Trace system informed Gove of the Covid contact four days later than it was supposed to - by which point the backstabbing halfwit was back in Britain.
Optimistic plans are currently in the works to lay a trail of jelly beans from Gove's office to a box propped open with a stick.