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A quite remarkable and complacent letter from Michael Gove

July 18, 2012 5:23 pm

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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!

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