You are here: Home » News »

A quite remarkable and complacent letter from Michael Gove

July 18, 2012 5:23 pm

Tags:

Share this Article

Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee, wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove expressing concern over leaks from his department over plans to abolish GCSEs – which came out as thousands of students were about to sit GCSEs. Here’s Gove’s remarkably complacent and dismissive reply (plain text version below):

Graham Stuart MP
Chairman of the Education Select Committee
House of Commons

16th July 2012

Dear Graham

Re: Recent leaks on GCSE reforms

Thank you for your concern. After two years in Government, I have come to the conclusion that leaks appear to be part of political life.

MICHAEL GOVE

http://twitter.com/Lance63 Lance Dyer

Why are all these Tory Ministers so incompetent, rude and out of touch with the vast majority of the population?
Perhaps Gove is the sole living proof of ‘creationism’? Seems no other explanation!
- Daniel Speight
  
  He certainly looks kind of strange. It’s hard to see natural selection being responsible for that.
  - treborc
    
    I know a school with funny looking children or so I have been told, I coach them at football, some of them are great kids, and I hope God or natural selection did not do it to them, they have Downs syndrome.
    
    Grove is a very very poor politician Twigg is not far behind I pray it’s more their ability then personal looks.
Dan Filson

There are leaks BY the minister or his acolytes and leaks by civil servants horrified by his actions. Which category was this particular leak?
- http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan
  
  This is totally about Gove releasing something seeing how it flys and then seeing how bad it was drops it.
  
  Hence he could not be bothered to reply as it is clear he leaked it.
  - treborc
    
    Well most political parties do that, ED has been doing it for a while, the problem for Gove is of course he’s an idiot
    - http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan
      
      and yet we have not hit him once despite the mass privatisation of education in this country destroying the hopes of anyone who does not have the cash.
      - Ibid
        
        Because all they have to say is “we ‘re continuing New Labour’s work” and they’d be right, as evidenced Twigg’s excuse for opposition.
      - treborc
        
        I suspect people are just to fed up to bother fighting any more.
      - Sres
        
        If only grammar schools still existed
      - Robin
        
        If only you’d been properly educated you wouldn’t have forgotten the full stop at the end of your sentence.
http://www.facebook.com/ian.robathan.5 Ian Robathan

Actually the bigger story is that Gove is allowing creationist schools, funded better than any state school using state money.

Will Stephen Twigg stay silent on this as well ?
- treborc
  
  Then we will hear the word it’s worth looking at, we cannot just reject it because it’s Tory.
  - timsharp1
    
    I don’t think Michael Gove is the right place to start when looking for genuinely nickable Tory thinking – his policy initiatives would have been laudable to right thinking people in the early twentieth century – copies of the King James Bible – A new Royal Yacht – but so far he seems to many people like a very uninspiring minister and for that reason he should remain.
Brumanuensis

Part of me admires his bluntness. Part of me is disgusted by his continuing arrogance and complacency in office.
Derek

You have to wonder why they have put the most ignorant of MPs in charge of Education. The poor fool proves this every time he opens his mouth. As for Creationism we should note how dangerous this can become by just looking at America and some of the very dangerous proponents of this nonsense. We think Islamic fundamentalists are dangerous – check out some of the lunatics in America whose beliefs start with Creationism.
- treborc
  
  Grove and Twigg says everything we need to know about career politicians really
AnotherOldBoy

An excellent riposte from Mr Gove. Will Mr Stuart show us his letter to Mr Gove?
- Nemo
  
  Were you a bullied child at school, Mark. I bet you that Michael was.
Robin

It took two years for Gove to realise that the Coalition government leaks like a sieve!

Not the sharpest tack in the box is he?
Luther

What a strange little fellow. Can you believe some see Gove as Cameron’s successor?
James

Gove is the Ronnie Corbett of British politics.
- Julie
  
  Really? I laugh at Ronnie Corbett’s antics.
JC

So are leaks a good or a bad thing? Given that no party has been able to stop them in recent past, it seems reasonable just to accept their inevitability. It seems to me that the majority have come from LibDems disenchanted with the idea of being in government. When they have to accept a decision they don’t like, they leak in order to try to stop it.

Moral of the story: don’t get into coalition with LibDems ever.
Pingback: Gove on Leaky Whitehall Life - Guy Fawkes' blog()
http://profile.yahoo.com/7EOO5H2RW6Y7F4MZMFC2OYEYLU ian

as is flipping homes apparently.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526953026 Mark Crompton

He’s just approved three new free schools: Santa College, Tinkerbell Academy and another where everyone believes we’re all in this together.
- Jon
  
  At least it was only egg.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526953026 Mark Crompton

He’s just approved three new free schools: Santa College, Tinkerbell
Academy and another where everyone believes we’re all in this together.
- treborc
  
  Head teacher Tony Blair.
VVVVV

I love Michael Gove. He reminds me of Jimmy Krankie.
- Wee Jimmy
  
  Fan’dabi’dozi!
Pingback: Gove on Leaky Whitehall Life - Guy Fawkes' blog()

Latest

Comment
The next chapter in Labour’s internationalist story

By Joe Walker

Internationalism, a movement advocating greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the benefit of all, has been a strong tradition within the Labour party from the beginning. Our values and ideals have always looked beyond our shores and have contributed to influencing and shaping Britain’s role in an increasingly interdependent world. We have a record that we can be proud of. We supported the establishment of the League of Nations in the inter-war years. We backed Indian independence and […]
Read more →
News
Labour-run council becomes the first to offer discount rates for paying the living wage

Brent’s Labour-run council will today become the first in the country to give discounted business rate to companies that pay the living wage. Under this policy, if employers in the area pay all of their workers £9.15 (the London Living Wage) or more, they could save up to £5,000 on business rates. 30% of this will be paid by the council, while government policy means that central government will pay half and the Greater London Authority will pay the remaining […]
Read more →
News
Labour will force a vote to stop shale gas extraction

Over the weekend, Jim Murphy announced that a Scottish Labour government would put a stop to fracking. Now Caroline Flint, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Maria Eagle, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have announced Labour will force a vote to stop developments regarding shale gas extraction. In an article for the Guardian, the two leading Labour politicians explain that “shale gas extraction cannot go ahead in the UK without […]
Read more →
News
Mandelson says Labour need to prepare for a coalition with the Lib Dems

Peter Mandelson, former Labour MP and now peer in the House of Lords, has warned that Labour should prepare for a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. Mandelson, who also voiced criticism of Labour’s mansion tax proposals last week, stressed that he still thought it was possible for Labour to win an outright majority but that they should be prepared for all eventualities. Mandelson was one of the leading figures who attempted to orchestrate a coalition with the Lib Dems in […]
Read more →
Featured
15 Labour MPs release statement calling for change in party policy direction

A group of 15 Labour MPs have issued a public statement this morning, expressing concern about elements of Labour’s policy agenda, and urging a change of course in three key areas. The letter – signed by MPs on the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party – calls for an alternative to Labour’s current deficit reduction plans, public ownership of the railways and a return to collective bargaining and employment rights in the workplace. Update: This post originally listed 16 MPs […]
Read more →