Michael Gove
Michael Gove has not had a fun time recently. The education secretary has suffered a mauling by his shadow, Ed Balls, over his plans to stop rebuilding projects for over 700 schools. Gove made a grovelling apology to the Commons two weeks ago after being forced to release several versions of a list of affected schools after each one was found to contain errors.
This weekend, things got worse for Gove, with the Tory chair of the education select committee warning the BBC that his Academies Bill was being rushed through parliament.
Perhaps all this explains why the normally charming and unflappable Gove sounded so rattled on the Today programme this morning. When Sarah Montague asked Mr Gove about the consequences of the bill, he replied:
It’s very revealing of your mindset, Sarah, that you believe that local authorities are the only way to improve schools.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey