Michael Gove did not kill Of Mice and Men or To Kill A Mockingbird

I suppose I should be grateful that the liberal intelligentsia doesn’t bother to check any of the facts if an opportunity presents itself to attack Michael Gove. They have a fixed idea about him, which is that he’s a Tory philistine who wants to turn the clock back to the 1950s, and they leap on any story that confirms that view, regardless of how far-fetched it is. The reason I’m grateful is because it enables me to scratch out a living putting the record straight.

Last November, Polly Toynbee wrote a column in the Guardian claiming that Gove intended to strip English literature from the national curriculum, an act of cultural vandalism she compared to ethnic cleansing. Why had he perpetrated this terrible crime? Because he doesn’t want children to use their imaginations, of course. ‘Literature is to become an optional extra, and probably not a highly regarded one, for fear it might let the imagination roam dangerously free,’ she wrote.

Complete balls, obviously. In the national curriculum being introduced in September, all children are required to read two Shakespeare plays between the ages of 11 and 14, compared with just one at the moment. Far from being an ‘optional extra’, literature is something all children will be expected to study as part of the new English Baccalaureate. At present, almost a third of pupils don’t study any literature between the ages of 14 and 16. But more will next year, thanks to the changes Gove has made to league tables that give extra weight to GCSEs in English literature.

It wasn’t just Polly Toynbee who failed to understand this reform. Various liberal grandees signed a letter to the Sunday Times decrying the Education Secretary’s mindless attack on literature, including Michael Morpurgo, A.C.