Gove has gone!

[bleedingheart]

Leaving education role, moving to chief whip I think

Time for this:

He is the type to go on about how easy it is to be a teacher and loads of people are apparently going into teaching. I, on the other hand, am worried about who will teach in 20 years as I see people leaving teaching in droves, having had the life sucked out of them.

Mummytime, a leafy part of London with ridiculously over priced houses. Shame on me, no idea which party runs the council but our MP is conservative, was Labour before the last election or maybe the one before that.

Two parents I know in my DCs' state school are teachers, one at a state secondary and the other at an independent prep, they welcomed the reforms as do most of the other parents in our school and those I meet at the DCs activities. No idea how our teachers feel about them though ...

As far as Labour are concerned, the answer seems clear. They have no experts, just well-meaning amateurs.

So tell us. claig, precisely what expertise ex-journalist Gove brought to education?

He learned on the job and mastered his brief

Cameron himself rightly described Gove as "one of my great brains" and Heaven knows Cameron hasn't got many of those. We won't see the like of Gove again in education.

Did anyone else think of this when they heard Gove was going to be chief whip?

He learned on the job and mastered his brief

Which is precisely what Labour ministers did. Apart from those such as Alexander Irvine and Lord Mackay who had fully mastered their brief during years of experience in contrast to, for instance, failing Grayling.

'Which is precisely what Labour ministers did'

If they did, it was certainly not apparent. Spin, bluff and baloney Labour had aplenty, but where mastery was concerned, their cupboard was empty.

Right now in Labiur HQ the nonentities are opening up the champagne and celebrating Gove's removal. They must think that Christmas has come early. But they are counting their chickens before they are hatched. Gove is down but not out. He will resurafce and upset their party without a doubt.

On the contrary, there were a number of very able ministers in the Labour government. And when you support a government boasting the likes of Gove, Grayling and Fox it's very much a case of pots and kettles.

It would be the stuff of Labour's dreams for Gove to resurface. Every time he opens his mouth he loses the Conservatives thousands of votes.

'On the contrary, there were a number of very able ministers in the Labour government.'

Please stop. I'm in stitches. Are you trying to do me in with laughter?

' And when you support a government boasting the likes of Gove, Grayling and Fox it's very much a case of pots and kettles.'

Granted, Grayling and Fox are no Farage, but Gove puts the fear of the Almighty into the Labour front bench and sets their teeth chattering as can be seen on PMQs every Wednesday.

Now that really is amusing. If you think you are seeing Labour teeth chattering at anyone, you are imagining it. Not quite sure why you think Gove should have this fearsome effect at PMQs alone anyway, given that PMQs are, believe it or not, generally for the PM - unless of course you've noticed how Hunt regularly wiped the floor with him when he was answering Department of Education questions.

Have you, for instance, seen the transcripts of Gove's performances before the Select Committee when his attempts to explain his department's woeful record on giving information got torn apart? And did you by any chance notice the strongly criticised use of private email addresses to avoid Freedom of Information inquiries? And do you remember his home flipping activities which came to light in the MPs' expenses scandal? And the vanity Bible project?

And that's all before we start looking at the regular car crashes that came along with his academy and free schools programme.

Yes, for Labour, Gove was the gift that that just kept on giving.

'Not quite sure why you think Gove should have this fearsome effect at PMQs alone anyway, given that PMQs are, believe it or not, generally for the PM '

Gove doesn't need to speak in order to set theLabour front bench's knees a-knocking. He merely has to adjust his spectacles and fix them with one of his legendary stares. I have witnessed Gove turn Ed Balls into a quivering blob of jelly in this way on a frequent basis.

As for Tristram Hunt, he is like a public schoolboy in debate with the headmaster when he tries to debate Gove.

Gove even took time out of his busy schedule to correct some "errors" in public schoolboy Tristram Hunt's new book

"Back to school: Labour's shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt publishes history book riddled with errors - discovered by his Tory rival Michael Gove"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2644042/Back-school-Labours-shadow-education-secretary-publishes-history-book-riddled-errors.html#ixzz37a7eHNzD

No wonder Labour fear Gove. Nothing gets past him, which is probably why Cameron referred to him in reverentail tones as "one of my big hitters" and "one of my big political brains".

I have witnessed Gove turn Ed Balls into a quivering blob of jelly in this way on a frequent basis.

You really haven't, you know. If you've seen Balls shaking. it's with laughter. He regularly winds up members of the Government and they fall for it with great regularity.

' If you've seen Balls shaking. it's with laughter.'

If a cold sweat, uncontrolled trembling of the hands and a haunted, horror-stricken facial expression is what passes for laughter for Ed Balls, then his sense of humour is even more offbeat than I thought.

' He regularly winds up members of the Government and they fall for it with great regularity.'

He certainly regularly winds up poor long-suffering Ed Miliband, but the only falling that members of the Government do to any Ed Balls intervention is to fall about laughing. Shakespeare himself could not have created or even imagined such a comic figure as Ed Brawls.

Poor old Cameron, if Gove is the best he can produce by way of brains.

As for Gove trying to have a go at Hunt in relation to his book, that really was pathetic. Hunt has a PhD in history from Cambridge, is Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King's College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. And Gove set his highly paid (by us) minions trawling through his book to find every misprint.

This is the man who overspent by a billion pounds on the regularly failing free schools programme. Never has Labour had such an easy target.

Sorry claig, if you're seeing all that when Gove or Balls are in the House of Commons you are, quite simply, living a rich fantasy life. Everyone else sees the opposite.

And are you going to carry on ignoring issues like the expenses scandal, the manifold academy and free school scandals, and the billion pound overspend?

I am not saying that Gove has not made mistakes. He has backtracked and flip-flopped more times than a circus gymnast, and he has upset a lot of people. But Cameron describes him as "one of his big brains" and watching him mop the floor with public schoolboy and Oxford historian, Tristram Hunt, is nearly as much entertainment as watching that old comedy classic "Only Tristram and Horses"

Sorry, I didn't realise he was Cambridge. I thought he was Oxford like so many of our political class.

Again, your perception that Gove mops the floor with Hunt is entirely mistaken. Gove makes it so easy for him.

The thing is, you just can't try to dismiss things like billion pound overspends as "mistakes". That's a billion pounds that could have gone into decent funding for disabled children and those with special needs. That's not a mistake, that is an absolutely fundamental failure.

And I have to say that the more you quote Cameron pathetically worshipping Gove's alleged "big brains" the more risible you make both of them.

I am laughing at Cameron's "big brains" comment intentionally.

But, have you read the impartial, neutral politica observer, Quentin Letts, assessment of the Gove/Tristram clashes in the House? I think Quentin has it about right even though he goes a bit too easy on Tristram

"No Labour figure since Blair had looked quite as at ease on the TV studio sofas. Like Blair, Hunt seemed to have the ability to reach beyond the party’s core vote. He was house-trained and seemed reasonable, a moderate for the modern age."

So went the theory, anyway.

Yet in the Commons, he struggled. His opponent was Education Secretary Michael Gove, as good a parliamentary debater as exists at Westminster. Suddenly it became clear that Hunt was inexperienced in the theatrics and animal aggression of the Chamber.

If only he had not ignored the debating chamber of the Cambridge Union! He was unable to match Gove for swiftness of repartee and soon found himself hampered by his party’s policies, too.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2688285/Tristram-Hunt-dubbed-Tristam-Flip-Flop.html

the impartial, neutral political observer, Quentin Letts

Sorry, claig. I have been trying not to disengage with usual your cloud cuckoo-land style of debating, but really? Quentin Letts, neutral?

Really?

Writing for the Mail, the Mail on Sunday and the Telegraph makes him very firmly a right wing pundit and on the extreme end of that spectrum. If you deny that, you are reading more selectively than anyone I have ever come across.

There are very few, if any, impartial political commentators. The Guardian and the Mirror are leftie, the Mail, Mail on Sunday, Times and Telegraph are rightie and the only vaguely neutral paper is the Indie. I'm a left-winger, that is my choice, but I would never be so foolish as to describe any Guardian political commentator as 'neutral'. They are biased, and it is their job to be biased.