Jan Moir’s profile of Michael Gove, in today’s Daily Mail, is a work of… well, it’s Jan Moir’s profile of Michael Gove in today’s Daily Mail. Here are the five weirdest passages:
1) The I-can’t-tell-if-she’s-being-cutting-or-if-she-actually-thinks-it sycophancy:
It makes the boyish and bespectacled Gove seem rather more interesting that your average grey politician, even one who today is wearing what he describes as a ‘deliberately dull’ tie to avoid accusations of ‘peacockery’. Hilarious.
2) The random Molesworth quote:
Gove says his lack of leadership ambitions is a liberation, one that sets him free to concentrate on the job in hand, the perilous task that consumes him every day: the overhaul of the failing education system in this country. And it desperately needs it, as any fule kno.
3) The idea that a government minister doing his job deserves as much coverage as a government minister not doing his job:
Today he feels vindicated, but wryly notes that had the judgment gone the other way, it would have dominated the news agenda on the BBC and other Left-wing media outlets all day. ‘Ohhh, it would have been all “GCSE fiasco!”, I think. It is impossible to avoid the word fiasco these days.’ In the end, the triumph was barely mentioned. The focus is always on what Gove gets wrong, not on what he gets right.
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4) Gove was that guy you hated in University:
When he first went to Oxford, he amazed everyone by wearing a three-piece tweed suit to lectures.
5) EW EW EW EW:
An old edition of Cherwell, the Oxford student newspaper, contains details of a purported five-in-a-bed romp in London and — more embarrassments — claims that Gove‘s nickname was Donkey because of certain physical attributes. The Education Minister waves this saucy notion away.
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