Gillian Keegan: how’s the ‘hot mic’ thing gone down with you?

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For my part, I don’t think it was very ministerial, and I do wonder how No. 10 all talk to each other these days (do they just swear all the time?) BUT she is a bit right, isn’t she?

The DfE have finally acted to make the public aware that their children are not safe in school. That’s more than anyone else in the Conservative party has done since they cancelled ‘Building Schools for the Future’ in 2010 and during their 13 years of government.

So how’s it gone down with you?

Honestly I felt about the same. I’m no fan of the Tories but I’m not shocked by a bit of fucking swearing and I couldn’t disagree with what she said.

Well put @MyOtherTherapistIsAHorse . Choice language.

when I watched it, I felt it was intentional and she meant that it was heard, for her personal image reasons.

Seeing as she’s been in Spain all week not sure how exactly hard she’s been working on the problem.

She then did a further interview where she clarified it was headteachers sat on their arses not responding to her questionnaire who were the problem, definitely not her govt.

Honestly? It was like a scene from The Thick of It.

Don’t care about swearing but do care that she opens her mouth and says daft stuff - comments after exam grades this summer really annoyed most teachers. But to be honest, all my teaching colleagues have had quite enough of this government and want them bloody gone! I feel sorry for the hard pressed school site teams, who she’s trying to pass the buck too - there’s not that many of them in the biggest schools; they’re in the middle of refurbing what they can in school in the summer on a shoe string budget; and this is a specialist problem that they can’t necessarily turn on a dime to solve if there are no experts knocking around to help after advice change.

“Does anyone ever say ‘you know what, you’ve done a fucking good job because everyone else has sat on their arses and done nothing?”

No, not when you're Gillian Fucking Keegan, they don't. Because you've spent the last year fucking things up as much as possible in Education.

Yes! Like when Ken Clarke and Sir Malcolm Rifkind called Theresa May a ‘bloody difficult woman’.

Although it also reminded me of when Andrea Jenkynd stuck her middle finger up at the press. The department is ‘Education’, ffs- you can’t go round swearing all the time.

She’s trying to blame local authorities and teachers - an absolute disgrace of a minister in a disgrace of a government 🤬

“Does anyone ever say ‘you know what, you’ve done a f good job because everyone else has sat on their a* and done nothing?”

That's a question for teachers to be asking the DfE, surely.

Get it off your chest, @DivingForLove ! Don’t suppress the expletives! Be more like Gillian…

And I agree, but the others have been dreadful, haven’t they? Worse, surely? We can’t forget the Gavin Williamson years so soon. I bet he left his tarantula and his whip in her office.

No wonder she’s furious!

Does anyone remember that in 1974 there was another concrete problem in schools?

The swearing I didn't mind (assuming she genuinely didn't realise about the hot mic).

The whining that it's all everyone else's fault and the peasants aren't sufficiently grateful that after A PIECE OF SCHOOL FELL DOWN she's finally doing something about it...

That just makes her look out of her depth and not grown up enough for a job with responsibility.

She’s not grown up enough for a job with responsibility, @PerkingFaintly. We can all agree on that.

They've been in charge for 13 years, and yet every time there's a new Prime Minister or Secretary of State, and there have been a lot in the DfE, it's like they expect us to forget that they are the same party as the ones who went before and see them as some sort of fresh new hope. It's ridiculous.

She's a vindictive, incompetent, petty-minded oxygen thief. Emblematic of the type of scum that inevitably proceeds to the top of a toxic organisation like the Tory party.

What happened?

Will she have to go because of it, though? Will we get another Secretary of State for Education?

The govt have just been criticised for changing the Children’s Minister again so if they remind people that there have also been a million Ed Secs in the last couple of years, people might start to think they don’t give a shit about kids or their education

Roof collapsed at Camden School for Girls, IIRC. Different type of concrete, was banned after a few collapses.

My view is that, if she'd have done her job properly and those who had the job before her had done theirs properly, she would have been congratulated.

She's getting a hard time because she and the rest of the government are dashing about like headless chickens. They knew this was coming, they cancelled the Building Schools budget back in 2010.

So, no, I don't believe she's right in her views, I think the ministers in charge, whoever they are, deserve every criticism they're getting and she needs to be held to account for her words.

When and if she does a good job of getting it sorted with minimum disruption and no danger to kids or staff, then she can whinge about not being appreciated. Until then I hope the media keep the pressure on her. Maybe she'll get off her backside and get things done then.

@noblegiraffe do people vote on education, these days? Haven’t the Tories figured out that most people don’t care about education.

I wonder if Tony saying ‘Education, Education, Education’, was actually him saying: ‘you, the voter, need to care about education’ rather than ‘vote for me because I care about education’, iyswim.

And where are Labour on this school buildings issue? Do they not think anyone votes on this stuff, either?

Yep. High-alumina cement. My school went to a 3 day week while bits of it were propped. At the same time, there were 36 in my secondary class, we had to share textbooks one between two, and couldn't take them home because there was only enough for one class. We had to carry extra chairs round with us. And classes were being taught in the hall and canteen even before the propping we were so short of classrooms. Meantime, the likes of Johnson and Sunak were at Eton and Winchester. Tories were in charge then too, oddly enough.

When and if she does a good job of getting it sorted with minimum disruption and no danger to kids or staff, then she can whinge about not being appreciated. Until then I hope the media keep the pressure on her. Maybe she'll get off her backside and get things done then.

Well said @LondonJax