The Tories are embarking on an ‘education week’, which means they won’t just be fighting Labour but also the Lib Dems, as the latter like to strike up a fight whenever something involving Michael Gove crops up. Indeed, some Tories suspect the Lib Dems in the Education department as being the source of today’s Independent on Sunday splash about Michael Gove continuing to meddle with education policy – though others point out that he’d probably receive most of them anyway through ministerial ‘write-rounds’ (more on this here).
Today to launch the education week Nicky Morgan appeared on Marr, where she said she was ‘absolutely fighting for the schools’ budget to be protected, on which more later, but the line that’ll get the most pick-up is the one where the Education Secretary insisted that ‘I am very much in charge of the Department of Education’, as it suggests that she is standing up to Gove. She told Marr:
‘I think this is a complete load of nonsense. Michael has been nothing but supportive as have other former education secretaries. I am very much in charge of the Department for Education and we are all as Conservative colleagues united in what we want to see. Michael has been nothing but supportive whenever I have asked him a question, he’s been very helpful. But he’s very clear – he’s is the chief whip, and I have to say, having been a whip, the chief whip has a very busy role.’
Morgan’s drive on standards in reading, writing and arithmetic sounds nice and Gove-esque, so perhaps that’s an attempt to reassure those still mourning his departure even if as former Gove SpAd Dominic Cummings says, it is anything but, but it’s also the sort of thing that parents are generally in favour of, too, and so the drive to make education voter-friendly rather than off-putting continues. The ‘fight’ to protect the schools budget should be seen in that context, too. Morgan is ‘very much in charge’ of the Education department, but if anyone’s holding greater sway, it’s Number 10 and CCHQ, not the chief whip.
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