Michael Gove admitted he thought he had been the victim of a TV prank when he was re-added to the Tory front bench.
The new Environment Secretary returned to front-line politics less than a year after being sacked by Theresa May during a Cabinet reshuffle.
The former justice secretary was ditched by Mrs May in one of her first acts as Prime Minister after he effectively scuppered the Tory leadership hopes of Boris Johnson - his fellow Vote Leave campaigner - by withdrawing his support and announcing his own candidacy.
The Sunday Times reported that Mr Gove initially thought a phone call summoning him to Number 10 was a "wind-up".
He then received a second call asking him to meet a civil servant near Whitehall.
Mr Gove told the paper: "I then thought this is a massive wind-up.
"Dom Joly has been rehired to do Trigger Happy TV and I will walk through the underpass and there will be a giant inflatable red box and they will say 'Gotcha!'."
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