Tom Watson was right: Gove is a 'miserable pipsqueak of a man', and he should resign

By David Higgerson on Jul 8, 10 07:30 PM

Tom Watson might have apologised for calling education secretary Michael Gove "a miserable pipsqueak of a man" but in the heat of the moment, the truth often comes out.

Since arriving at the Department for Children, Schools and Families in mid May, and promptly spent a small fortune renaming it before lecturing everyone who'd listen on the need for cutbacks, Gove has done little to impress.

As I've covered on this blog before, he scrapped some quangos which covered things such as maintaining teaching standards and the regulation of qualifications without actually coming up with a plan for who'd do the work in the future.

He hid behind the line that 'teachers should be allowed to teach.' The fact we learnt this week that headteachers tend not to refer bad teacher to the local council for review but instead ship them on to other schools suggests that regulation is required.

Then we had his flaky idea around free schools, so a small band of parents in Notting Hill who think schools aren't run well could come up with their own schools, and be paid to do so. Forget making existing schools more attractive to all parents, just hand over millions to create state-funded middle class ghettos.

Up next was the idea around academies. Some 900 school dashed to apply, desperate it would seem for the freedom to break away from local authority control, even if the extra money they'd get as a result would probably have to go back to the council as they were the only ones who provide the services schools need.

And as for the ability to pay teachers more - that's great for the academies involved, but what about those which can't pay more? Given that academy status is only available for the best schools, all this will do is widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

So far, so miserable for the probable winner of 'cabinet member with the face most people would prefer to punch rather than speak to' award for 2010. But up until now, we've only been dealing with Gove's bad judgment when it comes to policy.

This week, however, he's shown himself to be little short of incompetent. The slashing of the Building Schools for the Future plan was never going to be popular (outside the Cabinet room that is) but it was, at least, consistent with the 'bitter pill we all need to swallow' line.

After all, this was a cut which puts thousands of jobs on the line, probably breaks the hearts of thousands of students and leaves the Tories open to the suggestion that they're taking schools back to the 1980s. Portable classrooms, over-sized classes, books shared one-between-three - oh yes, I remember school in the 1980s.

Given so much was riding on this announcement, Gove should personally have ensured the numbers were right. Announcing it on Monday, and then having to add more schools which 'had been saved' less than 24 hours later was unforgivable.

To then try and brush it off with a half-arsed apology on the telly was also unforgivable, not to mention incredible bad judgment. You could put it down to early days inexperience, but then again throughout the election campaign, David Cameron and co were at pains to say they were experienced enough to govern.

Eventually, Gove returns to the Commons to apologise. It's no wonder Watson got mad - he's one of the MPs for Sandwell (better known as areas such as West Bromwich to the rest of us). Gove had treated the pupils, teachers, parents and voters in Watson's area in an ignorant fashion.

Gove, while grovelling, insisted he would personally take responsibility for the errors and visit the schools personally.

The Tories are mad keen at the moment on likening the public sector to the private sector. Expect worse pensions, expect shorter redundancy deals, expect more cuts etc etc. Is it wrong to assume that had Gove presided over such a balls up in the private sector, he'd be out of a job?

No - because there's competition for every job out there. Gove has presided over a mad dash to wreck a Labour policy, perhaps with good reason. But he's executed it badly, and ineffectively. Labour didn't go 'education, education education' in 1997 for no reason - they did it because, along with the NHS, it's the one department which everyone cares about.

The NHS has been given a 'carry on as you are' indication from the Government, the education department hasn't. A careful, considered, sensible politician who can cut with care is needed at the DfE. Gove has proved he is none of those. If Cameron is keen to show he's the right man to make tough decisions, he needs to look very closely at Gove's performance.

One week he has culture secretary Jeremy Hunt blaming Hillsborough on the fans - and showing his ignorance for a key policy area - the next it's Gove making a mess of a key policy. If only Labour had more than an angry Tom Watson arguing against them.