From the Mail on Sunday to Channel 4 News, the only "education expert" of whom the media have ever heard is Toby Young, who is one purely because he says that he is, and whose own experiment in school-running is an abject disaster almost completely ignored by those same media.
Anyway, I have been having a few slices of Michael Gove. Or, as he is otherwise known, toast. He has been made to apologise publicly to the Prime Minister. There is no coming back from that.
"The Trojan Horse" is the title of a chapter of his thoroughly pernicious book, Celsius 7/7, which marks him as a dangerous extremist who ought to have no connection to the edication of children or to the government of this country.
Gove's other great work is Michael Portillo: The Future of the Right, which is merely, if uproariously, hilarious from the title onwards. Not least for what it leaves out.
That brings us to the spirited defence of Gove by Damian Thompson, of all people.
I remember Gove speaking at Durham many years ago, and he was noticeably camp even by the standards of his hosts.
I remember Gove speaking at Durham many years ago, and he was noticeably camp even by the standards of his hosts.
He used to share a flat with Ivan Massow and Nick Boles, before The Times conveniently supplied the fragrant Sarah Vine, assisting his political progress no end. And look at the forces protecting him now.
Gove is also an outspoken admirer of Tony Blair and of Blair's veteran Trotskyist bagmen, Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers.
Fresh out of Oxford, Gove applied for a job with the Conservative Research Department. But it turned him down, being unable to find any evidence that he was a Conservative, or even political at all.
So he joined The Times instead.
Yet look at him now. And still having frequent, off-the-record meetings with Rupert Murdoch. When not throwing a wobbly at those of his nominal partisans who had voted with Labour in order to prevent a war against Syria.
Whereas Theresa May was the Conservative candidate here in North West Durham in 1992, living just around the corner from where I am typing this. She is one of the Conservative Party's own, and she has earned her spurs.
She is not going to beat the Police Federation, of course. But no one ever does. That can hardly be held against her.
Neither Gove nor May has behaved well in this latest affair. But one of them is not a Tory, and is in fact very much the Cabinet placeman of some of the most un-Tory forces imaginable: Blairism, neoconservatism, Rupert Murdoch, everything represented by Damian Thompson (and I do not mean the Catholic Church).
The Conservatives are so convinced that they are going to lose the next General Election very heavily, that their Leadership Election is already being conducted in the full glare of publicity.
At this rate, it looks as if the product of the machine over 40 years is going to win, and the infiltrator who has barely been alive that long is going to be torn limb from limb in the process.
At that point, both main parties will have rejected Blairism, neoconservatism, Rupert Murdoch, and everything represented by Damian Thompson (and I do not mean the Catholic Church). Jolly good.
You have no fear, no fear of any kind. You are completely unique.
ReplyDeleteNotice that Thompson caught up with you a day late on how these schools were community not "faith" and that was the root of the problem.
He is not there yet about the importance of LEAs, but he is a product of the semidetached Catholic private schools rather than the state ones that are fully integrated into dioceses and parishes.
My personal favourite is that you tweeted this to Sarah Vine. A truly Lindsayian touch.
ReplyDeleteThe Trojan Horse didn't happen because of a lack of LEA control.
ReplyDeleteIt never happened before the state took over Church schools in Britain 50 years ago on condition it wouldn't interfere with them.
It happened because of mass immigration introducing radical Islam to Britain.
The fact that British people now think the only solution is to give more nightmarish powers to the state spy agency Ofsted and give more power over schools to politicians and "LEAs" bears out Ed West's argument that multiculturalism leads to the loss of our liberties as the state must impose basic values from the centre since there is no longer any agreement about them among the people.
Singapore here we come.
Soon we'll have 'dawn raids' by Ofsted on terrified teachers.
And state rules dictating what we should eat and what women can wear on their heads ( it's already been proposed).
And Britain will be officially finished as a free country.
Calm down, dear.
ReplyDelete"I remember Gove speaking at Durham many years ago, and he was noticeably camp"
ReplyDeleteSays David Lindsay, epitome of macho masculinity.
One does one's best.
ReplyDelete