Really, if you're going to make claims about stuff, it's as well to ensure you can back it up with more than a poll from UKTV Gold in 2008.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/13/michael-goves-claim-teenagers-ignorance?CMP=twt_guGove's claims on ignorant teenagers shown to be based on sand after FOI request.[/url




• Apols for new thread – can't find anywhere else to put this.

[i'After another four weeks, she received a response detailing "the other [usurvey's[/u [sic the secretary of state referred to".'[/i

It's like he's trying to make himself look stupid.

He doesn't have to try too hard

Where's Ajw when you need him?

Expect to find the Freedom Of Information act rescinded in the near future, certainly before the next election propaganda is due to be delivered and we are all told how happy we all are.

"Survey after survey" has shown Gove to be a total ars3.
I refer, of course, to my frequent and in-depth sitting-room surveys, where I ask "who thinks Gove is an ars3?" and 100% of those who vote say they do.

Every time there's a Gove story in the papers, I find myself wondering if picture editors deliberately seek out pictures that make him look like a weird simpleton. Then I remember: that's just his face.

Gove responds to critics by revealing the source of his surveys:

Gove is a bumbling idiot.
Everytime he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.
Yesterday was another pearler on the Andrew Marr show.
He was basically stating 3/4 names who agreed with his views on his batty curriculum changes and when the host started naming those who didn't agree he said and I'm paraphasing here 'Well they don't agree with me so they are wrong'.
Foot in mouth with that guy over and over again and how a clueless stuck up toff can make decisions when he has no idea how 95% of the population can't afford private tuition is beyond me.

Are the skills required to research sources to back up your propositions part of the new Govericulum?

Mrs Dally went to a briefing / discussion when they were in opposition. Mr Gove was the main man and he fell backwards off his chair! I asked whether everybody laughed but apparently they were too polite. I said pity I wasn't therre 'cos I would have!

I'd find this story more amusing if this utter tosspot wasn't in charge of our children's future. You think things are bad now, you wait until the changes this ignorant, arrogant, opinionated w[ia[/inker is putting in place start to bear fruit.

Yep I have a 3 and a 2 year old and this fool is giving me serious concerns.
Also who the hell does he think he is? saying 'Children should be reading Middle march and not Twilight' I mean what an arrogant turd.
I would love for him to say that to me as he would get short shrift I'll tell you.

Would you have a fight with him?

Lately, Gove seems to have been making a habit of quoting his prejudices as fact.

Only last week he was busy making a speech in which he critcised the use of Mr Men characters in teaching year 11 students about Hitler and the Third Reich.
Either he hadn't noticed or he deliberately ignored the fact that what he was saying was not true.

The year 11 students learn first and then prepare a presentaion to introduce year 6 kids to the subject using Mr Men characters.
One might not agree with that part of the curriculum, one might wonder why that approach was taken ... but the dim bstrad should have at least checked his facts first before blundering in, Theresa May style.
When challenged on the point, he blustered on in high moral tones that he had every right to demand higher standards. (Loosely translated, it means that all children should be educated in the same way that he was so that they accept the establishment status quo and stop questioning the world around them)

Before challenging the curriculum, Gove ought to make himself aware of its content first, then he wouldn't look quite so much of a total pr1ckk.

But, hey, when preaching to the converted, being utterly wrong doesn't seem to matter much, so long as you sound convincing and [iThe Telegraph[/i, for example, went along with Gove's initial criticism but has yet to correct its own misleading description of the Mr Men exercise.
The message went out there and won't be corrected by the right wing press.

Exactly that. Hence the cuts in funding for school sport, selling off of playing fields and/or building over the top of them. I get the impression he wasn't much cop at sport and therefore it's worthless.


A lie is half way round the world before the truth has got out of bed. (probably slightly misquoted)

No but I wouldn't hold back and I would tell him exactly how utterly out of touch he is.
I can imagine words like Toff, Bumbling, Clueless, Posh, Oxbridge etc would be part of it.

Some within his party think he needs to be the new captain of the ship?

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/14/david-cameron-exit-michael-gove-europe[/url

Lordy me today.
Gove is a idiot.

Indeed, but at least if he was in charge, we would have a Government











I'll get me coat, then

And that, I suggest, is actually the core of the problem.

I'm absolutely of the opinion that every child – not just a select few from some sort of 'elite' (usually a financial one) – should have the opportunity to be introduced to, at school, serious literature and serious music and art and all manner of other things. The Classics too, for that matter. But:

• it has to be age appropriate, within the school system;

• outside of school, I would equally think that that main thing is that children are reading. Hence my reason for never seeing the Harry Potter phenomenon as anything other than positive. And again personally, I don't care whether children recreationally read classics or graphic novels (and the French in particular have a much healthier attitude to the latter, understanding that they can often be 'art', for want of a better phrase) – if they're reading for pleasure then that should be applauded.

There's very simple answer to kids' education in the public sector:

If Gove wants them to be educated to a similar standard as those in private education, then throw the same amount of money, per child, at the gig.

I somehow think he ain't going to do that

I never saw it as anything other than positive when I saw [ichildren[/i reading the books.

I feel the same about [iLOTR[/i.