Michael gove

How will Michael Gove respond to Ofsted’s attack on councils?

Ofsted’s annual report, due out later today, will launch a scathing attack on those responsible for underperforming schools. But rather than taking aim at the teachers or the schools, it’s the local authorities that the watchdog has got set in its sights. The report will say that there is too wide a gap in standards between different councils. Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw told the Today programme this morning: ‘There are not only differences between local authorities, there are differences between local authorities with similar demographics, and we will be looking very carefully at what is happening in those local authorities with the same sort of population, same levels of

Spectator Parliamentarian Awards: Boris versus Gove, round one (with audio)

Years from now, political historians may regard 2012’s Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards as the first round of Boris Johnson versus Michael Gove in the race to be Tory leader. Gove was the event’s compere, and he gave a masterful off-the-cuff speech, full of wit and light. He said that the Spectator, which is once again being edited by a comprehensive school graduate, is a meritocratic beacon in an otherwise privileged world. The Guardian, for instance, has never been edited by someone from a comprehensive school, and no common oik has ever been the BBC’s DG. Gove’s self-confessed ‘Marxist vision’ is of a Utopian England where the Guardian and the BBC

Camilla Swift

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards | 21 November 2012

The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards are being held this afternoon at the Savoy Hotel. In total 14 awards were presented by Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, who was invited to be  guest of honour in recognition of his parliamentary achievement. The award winners were: 1. Newcomer of the Year – Andrea Leadsom MP (Con) 2. Backbencher of the Year – Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP (Lab) 3. Campaigner of the Year – Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP (Lab) 4. Inquisitor of the Year – Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP (Lab) 5. Speech of the Year – Charles Walker MP (Con) & Kevan Jones MP (Lab) 6.

Michael Gove: an adult in a parliament of toddlers – Spectator Blogs

Michael Gove, the most important and successful Aberdonian politician since, well, since I don’t know actually, is also that rarest of things: a grown-up cabinet minister. He knows the importance of praise. Consider this passage – highlighted by John Rentoul – from a speech he gave on Child Protection this morning: Just as the Labour Government early in its life felt that teachers needed to be told how to operate – down to the tiniest detail of what should happen in every literacy or numeracy hour – so the Labour Government towards the end of its life felt it had to produce thousands of pages of central Government prescription on

How teachers felt forced to ‘cheat’ on GCSE English marking

Ofqual’s final report, published today, on the GCSE English marking row, underlines why the qualifications need an overhaul and makes extremely awkward reading for the teachers who were so upset by their pupils’ results this summer. It concludes that the redesigned English GCSE was ‘flawed’, and that teachers felt under pressure to over-mark coursework to a higher grade than it deserved. The report suggests there was a culture of over-marking which led to other teachers doing the same: ‘While no school that we interviewed considered that it was doing anything untoward in teaching and administering these GCSEs, many expressed concerns that other nearby schools were overstepping the boundaries of acceptable

Is the government being inconsistent on teacher training?

To be fair to Kevin Brennan, he seems to have updated his attack line on Michael Gove since his ‘don’t-call-teachers-names’ press release that Labour sent out overnight. The party’s shadow education minister is now attacking the Education Secretary for inconsistency, arguing that his announcement today on improving teacher training contradicts the decision to allow academies and free schools to employ unqualified teachers. He has just told BBC News: ‘But what’s rather strange about what the Government is doing is at the same time it’s saying there should be more rigour in the testing of teachers as they go in to the profession, it’s saying more and more schools can hire

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove to toughen up teacher training

Michael Gove is announcing tougher tests for trainee teachers today, with calculators banned from maths assessments, and the pass mark in tests for English and Maths being raised to the equivalent of GCSE grade B (which still doesn’t sound that taxing), along with a new test in verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning. The Education Secretary says the changes ‘will mean that parents can be confident that we have the best teachers coming into our classrooms. Above all, it will help ensure we raise standards in our schools and close the attainment gap between the rich and poor’. It’s part of the government’s drive to demonstrate that it is, in David

David Cameron is the leader battling inequality

The great paradox of British politics is that the left moan about inequality, but it’s the right who will remedy it. Ed Miliband is proposing the restoration of the old order, where the poor get the worst schools and the rich get the best (and the opportunities that flow from it). Labour plans to tax the rich more, and give money to the poor as if by way of compensation. The Tories want to revolutionise the system, so the poor have the same choice of schools that today only the rich can afford. Labour wants to make sure the unemployed are well looked-after. The Tories want to make sure the

Conservative conference: Michael Gove’s facts on the ground

The speed with which Michael Gove is going about his education reforms means that he is creating facts on the grounds, facts which Labour will—I suspect—have to accept by the next election. Parents with children at new free schools and academies are not going to vote for a party that is going to abolish their child’s school. For example, the mother of a child at a Birmingham free school—Geraldine Henry—spoke at Tory conference today in favour of free schools. I expect that Henry would never have expected to find herself speaking at a Tory conference but she clearly felt compelled to come and promote and defend her son’s school. As

Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: Michael Gove indulges in his favourite sport of trade union-bashing

As I was running the daily leaflet gauntlet at the entrance to the Tory conference this morning, a man thrust a flyer for the Trade Union Reform Campaign in front of me, saying hopefully ‘trade union bashing?’. He clearly hadn’t got Robert Halfon’s memo about not bashing the unions, and neither had Michael Gove when he addressed delegates a few minutes ago. He indulged in his favourite sport and took direct aim at the teaching unions, claiming that some union secretaries had told him not to praise high-performing schools as it risked making other schools feel uncomfortable: ‘How can we succeed as a country when every time we find success

Michael Gove: why I’ll never run for leader

Today’s Guardian magazine runs a Michael Gove profile, colouring him blue on the cover as if to alert readers to the threat he poses. “Smoother than Cameron,” it warns. “Funnier than Boris. More right-wing than both. Are you looking at the next leader of the Tory Party?” There is nothing unusual about leadership speculation following a  prominent Tory frontbencher, but there is something unusual about the way Gove has ruled it out in almost any way imaginable. He has combined General Sherman and Estelle Morris, saying he wouldn’t and couldn’t do  the job. It is now being said that Gove is protesting too much, but he has been clear about this

Gove kicks back at school bullies

A Labour conference delegate was heckled from the floor when she mentioned her school. Joanne, an immigrant who came to this country seeking political asylum and is about to read law, came face to face with the vested interests that blight education reform: the hall did not like the fact that she went to an Academy school. A delegate started shouting about comprehensive schooling, much to the horror of those around her. Michael Gove has come down on the girl’s side, he has just told me: ‘Heckling a schoolgirl because she goes to an academy is disgraceful. But it also shows the real face of Labour – a party where

Isabel Hardman

He’s behind you! Michael Gove is the pantomime villain who inspires Labour

There was plenty of panto on the conference floor this week in Manchester. Ed Miliband encouraged delegates to boo several villains in his speech, and one of them was Michael Gove. In fact, Michael Gove popped up as the villain on Tuesday and in the Labour leader’s question-and-answer session yesterday, too, and again when Stephen Twigg spoke just before the close of the conference today. This is odd: of all the reforms that the coalition government has introduced so far, Gove’s have been the least surprising to Labour members given he’s pushing ahead with what Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis started. There was one baffling moment when a delegate started

Life imitating art

Twitter superstar @SteveHiltonGuru disappeared with his real life namesake – the departed Downing Street policy wonk; but he’s back for one week only. After teasing Westminster for months, the brains behind the spoof account of the brains behind Dave, has written for this week’s Spectator about how he did it. @SteveHiltonGuru may be gone, but he was certainly not forgotten if the real Hilton’s departure bash is anything to go by: ‘At Hilton’s leaving party, I was delighted to hear Michael Gove’s speech based on the character I had created. Steve had been true to his Hungarian roots, the Education Secretary said: half-Buddha and half-pest. I wish I’d thought of

Michael Gove accepts his private emails can be searched

Michael Gove is withdrawing his appeal against the Information Commissioner’s ruling that his private emails were searchable under the Freedom of Information Act, I understand. The Education Secretary has decided to do this because the Cabinet Office has concluded that anything that constitutes ‘information’ falls within the scope of the act which removes Gove’s ground for appeal. In other words, if two ministers, or a minister and a special adviser, email or text each other from their personal accounts or phones and that conversation involves any discussion of government business—however, fleeting or peripheral—then those texts are FOI able. I’m informed that new Cabinet Office guidance to this effect will be

Rallying the Liberal Democrat faithful

One of the striking features of the opening rally at Liberal Democrat conference was how it was figures from the left of the party who attacked Labour most vigorously. Simon Hughes, the deputy leader, scolded those who think that governing with Labour would be easy; pointing out that the parties are at odds on nuclear power, Trident, civil liberties and a whole host of other issues. While the party’s president Tim Farron demanded that Labour apologise for the expensive failure of the NHS PFI projects, the Iraq war and a whole host of other issues. Nick Clegg himself was on fairly confident form. He began with a couple of gags

Our debate on welfare reform is a dismal scandal – Spectator Blogs

On balance, Iain Duncan Smith’s spell as Tory leader can’t be remembered as an unmitigated success. Be that as it may, sometimes there are second acts in political lives and, just occasionally, these are worth celebrating. IDS is one example of this. Nevertheless, even a man as palpably decent and well-meaning as IDS doesn’t always pitch his argument about welfare reform in the best, most sensible or plausible fashion. This is unfortunate, not least because it allows his opponents to question his good faith. And good faith matters in politics. Especially when you’re attempting to overhaul welfare. At the best of times this is a sensitive issue requiring a deft

Isabel Hardman

Gove develops interim GCSE plan

One of the biggest gripes about Michael Gove’s GCSE reforms from those on board with the changes is that they won’t come into effect until after the 2015 election. Supporters wonder why there is such a lag between ministers reaching agreement about scrapping an exam that they currently believe is not fit for purpose, and pupils sitting down to take the new qualification. The answer is that it was part of the deal that was reached with Nick Clegg, who was initially upset about the direction of the changes. The Independent reports today that Gove does have an interim plan, though. To underline the fact that he has little faith

The English Baccalaureate Certificate is coming regardless of what happens in 2015

There’s much speculation today that Labour’s decision to oppose the coalition’s GCSE replacement the EBC means that the new exams will never happen. The argument goes that if the Tories aren’t in government, Labour — or a Labour-led coalition — would simply keep GCSEs going. (This depends on Labour continuing to oppose the new exams which they may not if they prove to be as popular as some pollsters expect them to be). But keeping GCSEs going is nowhere near as simple as it sounds. The exam boards will now turn nearly all of their attention to winning the one available English Baccalaureate Certificate contract for each subject. Those boards