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A letter is bouncing around Whitehall, and I thought CoffeeHousers might care to see a copy. It has been penned by Michael Gove, and is being dispatched to all headmasters today. It urges them to Keep Calm and Carry On during the impending strikes over teachers’ pensions. “My view,” pens the education secretary, “is that we all have a strong moral duty to pupils and parents to keep schools open, and the Government wants to help you achieve that.” You can read the full thing below. While much of this missive is dry, dry stuff — certainly drier than Gove’s usual prose — it’s also quite revealing of the government’s

One of the many problems with the equalities act is that it requires a level of consultation and a number of equalities impact assessments that are not compatible with speedy decision making. Word is seeping out tonight that the coalition is now having to ‘reconsider’ its decision on Academy funding because the Treasury, the Department of Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government did not tick all the right boxes before announcing the new settlement. The reverse is the result of a legal challenge by various local authorities. But this is a pyrrhic victory as the likely result of it is that local authorities actually receive less money

To present the government side in the Shoesmith case, former minister Kevin Brennan MP has written an extensive defence of Ed Balls’ decision to sack Sharon Shoesmith. Brennan’s argument is predicated on Ofsted’s report. Brennan writes: ‘Faced with such a report, the Secretary of State had to act decisively. Anyone who doubts for a moment the decision Ed Balls took should look again at that report and its implications for the leadership of child protection in that borough.’ Shoesmith has cast doubt on Ofsted’s report, asserting that its authors had been leant on after they had conducted their research and found her department to be under pressure but in good

Whitehall sources say Michael Gove will appeal the Court of Appeals judgement which decided Sharon Shoesmith’s dismissal was so ‘legally flawed as to be null and void’ to the Supreme Court. Although Gove recognises that Balls blundered in the way he dismissed her, he also believes that there are important constitutional principles at sake in this case about how Ministers make important and urgent decisions and what the role of the courts is in challenging such decisions. Gove wants the Supreme Court to consider these issues because of the huge importance of judicial reviews, which are being used repeatedly by opponents of the government to try and stymie its agenda.

I’ve always rather admired Hugh Grant, so it was almost a pleasure to be beaten up by him on Newsnight last Friday. He was attacking the celebrity-hunting media, whereas I set out to defend free press and self-regulation of the media. If you’re going to have sympathy with any Hollywood figure, you’d have sympathy with Hugh: he’s a single man who has never tried to moralise, and has cameras pointing at him everywhere he goes. Besides, he made an impassioned and powerful case against the intrusion of the paparazzi — while yours truly was left defending the Press Complaints Commission. But I didn’t know, until I met him that night,

Has Ken Clarke just signed his own political death certificate? Whether you agree with his liberal sentencing reforms or no’, there’s little doubting that the Justice Secretary has just stumbled quite emphatically on Radio 5. It looked bad enough for him when, discussing an idea to cut the sentences of those who plead guilty to sex attacks, he blustered that, “No, I haven’t put this idea to women who’ve been raped because I haven’t met one recently.” But then it turned even worse when a rape victim called in to describe her tragic case: she had been dragged through the courts for almost two years in search of justice, only

I suppose you could call it an O-turn. First, the Prime Minister declared, in a speech aboard HMS Ark Royal last year, that a new military covenant would be enshrined “into the law of our land.” Then, there seemed to be a U-turn, with the government committing only to review the covenant annually, not to lend it legal force. Yet, now, a U-turn on the U-turn, with the news that it will be etched into the staute books after all. The defence minister Andrew Robathan tells today’s Telegraph that, “we are putting the military covenant on a statutory basis for the first time.” The formal announcement is expected in the

The charge sheet against Colonel Gaddafi in any trial would be a long one. There are his crimes against his own people, his support of terrorism overseas and his wars in Chad. But, however morally right it would be to make Gaddafi face justice, the door should be left open to him to go into exile. Gaddafi and his family leaving Libya would make possible an end to this conflict and prevent huge bloodshed as Gaddafi attempts to cling on to power street by street. The unpleasant truth is that if dictators are left only with the choice between fighting to the bitter end and a trial in the Hague,

In his Spectator column this week, James Forsyth painted a picture of a government taken by surprise by enemies who have, in effect, ambushed them – the civil service, the civil service’s lawyers and the European Union in particular. Clearly the government is frustrated by the “forces of conservatism” and the “enemies of enterprise”, but the difficult truth is that a lot the government’s problems are of its own making, and in its own hands to put right. When it comes to the civil service, the government hasn’t simply inherited an uncooperative Whitehall. It has strengthened its position, as a conscious policy decision. Francis Maude said it in terms at

The Court of Appeal made a momentous judgment this afternoon. It was hearing the appeal of Rangzieb Ahmed, the first man to be convicted on terror-related charges in this country, for which he is serving 10 years. Ahmed’s appeal was based on the allegation that British security services had been complicit in his torture and that the evidence for his conviction, gained by Pakistan’s ISI, was obtained by a series of extreme measures culminating in the slow removal of his finger nails. The appeal judges rejected Ahmed’s suit, saying that there was no evidence that his nails had been pulled out or that British officers ordered beatings. Ahmed’s claims had

As I wrote this morning, the Times has obtained a copy of a government legal memo (written before last week’s prisoners’ debate in parliament) examining non-compliance with the ECHR’s infamous judgment. The newspaper argues that the government plans to defy the Court; and there are plenty rumours swirling around Westminster to that effect, which is hardly surprising given that the Times chanced upon this document. But it’s mostly hot air. The government lawyers actually advised against non-compliance on four separate grounds and revealed that British officials are working towards compliance. First, here are the recommendations of the advice: 1).    The Strasbourg judgements on Hirst and Greens and MT are