Saturday 10 July 2010

What a difference a day makes

Daily Mail, 9 July 2010:

Pressure mounts on 'cavalier' Gove as Cabinet colleague criticises school blunders

Pressure on Education Secretary Michael Gove intensified today after he was criticised by a Cabinet colleague over his mishandling of the classroom-building programme.

Mr Gove will embark on a tour of the country to say sorry in person after giving schools false hope that their projects would be spared the axe...

Mr Gove, who was branded a 'miserable pipsqueak' in parliament over a series of blunders he made with the axed £55bn scheme, will go to nine schools in Sandwell, West Midlands and one in Doncaster, South Yorkshire to say sorry.

Daily Mail, 9 July 2010:

Councils caught up in school building cuts fiasco prepare to sue after Gove gaffe (... and the builders could be next)

Beleaguered education secretary Michael Gove faces being sued by dozens of councils facing cuts to their school building programmes.

His department could also face legal action from builders who had signed contracts for new schools which have now been suspended half way through.

It is the latest fiasco to hit Mr Gove, who earlier this week was forced to apologise after giving 30 schools false hope that they would not be axed.

Daily Mail editorial, 8 July 2010:

A promising start

At last! After 13 years in which Labour placed social engineering and pupil-power above education, common sense is breaking out in Britain’s classrooms...

The Mail applauds Education Secretary Michael Gove on a promising start.

6 comments:

  1. Must be easy being a tabloid journo, you can change your mind as often as you change your socks depending on the mood of time.

    Nice work if you can get it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting that there appears to be no comments on that first article.

    If you're really sad like me and look at the DM site throughout the day, you would have noticed that the Gove stories were initially buried far down in the 'Today's headlines' section. Just like the story about Alan Budd's 'independent' OBR.

    If you want to feel really ill, check out Peter Oborne here...just how far has Oborne got his tongue up Cameron's posterior?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1293515/The-Coalitions-fatal-flaw--leaders-launched-coups-detat-parties.html

    Funnily enough that doesn't seem to be accepting any comments now either...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hadn't realised that Glenda Slag wrote the editorials too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think the problem the DM has with Michael Gove is that the paper loves any minister who tries to cut public spending but I'm guessing many of the papers local publications are being bombarded by parents complaining about how the cuts are going to hurt them.

    One of the building projects scrapped in my local area was meant to be a new build to allow two fairly small secondary schools to merge. The merger would have saved a great deal of money because staff costs and heating costs would have been cut dramatically, plus eventually the two old schools could have been knocked down and the land sold off to offset many of the costs of the new building.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Crispin, is that in Shipley by any chance? The local MP for there, Philip Davies, (a right clown) has made that point.

    Being attacked from the left by him is quite an achievement.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

Comments are moderated - generally to filter out spam and comments wishing death on people - but other messages will be approved as quickly as possible.