Michael Gove

The Right Honourable Michael Gove MP
Gove speaking at the Big Society policy launch, March 2010
Secretary of State for Education
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 May 2010
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Ed Balls (Children, Schools and Families)
Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
In office 2 July 2007 – 11 May 2010
Leader	David Cameron
Preceded by	David Willetts
Succeeded by	Ed Balls (Education)
Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Nick Hawkins
Majority	17,289 (31.8%)
Personal details
Born	(1967-08-26) 26 August 1967 Edinburgh, Scotland
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Sarah Vine
Children	2
Alma mater	Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Occupation	Politician
Profession	Journalist

Michael Andrew Gove (born 26 August 1967) is a British politician, who currently serves as the Secretary of State for Education and as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the Surrey Heath constituency. He is also an author and former Times journalist.

Born in Edinburgh, Gove was raised in Aberdeen and made an early career as a journalist. He was first elected to parliament in the 2005 general election, as the MP for the safe Conservative seat of Surrey Heath in South East England. He was first promoted to the shadow cabinet in 2007 under David Cameron, as the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

After the formation of the coalition government in 2010, Gove was appointed the Secretary of State for Education and was one of those cabinet ministers who retained their 2010 appointments in the September 2012 reshuffle.

Early life and career outside Parliament

Gove was born in Edinburgh, but at four months old, he was adopted by a Labour-supporting family in Aberdeen, where he was brought up. His father ran a fish processing business; his mother was a lab assistant at the University of Aberdeen before working at the Aberdeen School for the Deaf.

He was initially state school educated in Aberdeen, later attending the independent Robert Gordon's College, to which he won a scholarship. From 1985 to 1988 he studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he served as President of the Oxford Union. He was awarded a 2:1 degree.

Gove became a trainee reporter at the Press and Journal in Aberdeen, where he spent several months on strike in a dispute over union recognition and representation. He joined The Times in 1996 as a leader writer and has been its comment editor, news editor, Saturday editor and assistant editor. He has also written a weekly column on politics and current affairs for The Times and contributed to the Times Literary Supplement, Prospect magazine and The Spectator. He remains on good terms with Rupert Murdoch. He has also written a sympathetic biography of Michael Portillo and a critical study of the Northern Ireland peace process, The Price of Peace, for which he won the Charles Douglas-Home Prize. Gove was instrumental in the launch of the new centre-right magazine Standpoint, and serves on its advisory board.

He has worked for the BBC's Today programme, On The Record, Scottish Television and the Channel 4 monologue programme A Stab In The Dark, alongside David Baddiel and Tracey MacLeod, and was a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze and Newsnight Review on BBC Two.

Gove was a member of the winning team in Grampian Television's quiz show Top Club, and played the school chaplain in the 1995 family comedy A Feast at Midnight.

Political career

Gove joined the Conservative Party at university and was secretary of Aberdeen South Young Conservatives. He has helped to write speeches for Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet ministers, including Peter Lilley and Michael Howard. When applying for a job at the Conservative Research Department he was told he was "insufficiently political" and "insufficiently Conservative", consequently he turned to journalism.

Gove was previously chairman of Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank launched in 2002.

Member of Parliament

Gove entered Parliament in the 2005 general election as Conservative member for the safe seat of Surrey Heath, after the incumbent MP Nick Hawkins was deselected by the local Conservative Association.

On 2 July 2007, he was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (a new department set up by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown) shadowing Ed Balls, a key supporter of Brown . Prior to the 2010 general election, most of his questions in House of Commons debates concerned children, schools and families, education, local government, Council Tax, Foreign Affairs, and the environment.

In 2008, in an attempt to split the Labour Party, Gove suggested that senior Blairites who might become isolated should their party move to the left following a general election defeat, could be offered a role in a future Conservative government.

Gove is seen as part of an influential set of young up-and-coming Tories, sometimes referred to as the 'Notting Hill Set', which includes David Cameron, George Osborne, Edward Vaizey, Nicholas Boles and Rachel Whetstone. They are perceived as modernisers on social issues, and humanitarian interventionists in foreign policy. When Cameron was elected leader in December 2005, he appointed Gove the housing spokesman shadowing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Michael Portillo predicted that Gove will one day lead the Conservative party.

Secretary of State for Education

Gove is the current Secretary of State for Education. Following his appointment in May 2010, he rebranded his department, announced plans to allow schools rated as 'outstanding' by Ofsted to convert into academies, and cut the previous Government's school-building programme. He was forced to apologise, however, when the list of terminated school-building projects he had released was found to be inaccurate. The list was reannounced several times before it was finally accurately published.

In July 2010, Gove said that Labour had failed in its attempt to break the link between social class and school achievement despite spending billions of pounds. Quoting research, he indicated that by the age of 6, children of low ability from affluent homes were still out-performing brighter children from poor backgrounds. In a Commons Education Select Committee he said that this separation of achievement grew larger throughout pupils' school careers, stating, "In effect, rich thick kids do better than poor clever children when they arrive at school [and] the situation as they go through gets worse,".

Building Schools for the Future and School Capital Projects

In February 2011 a judicial review deemed Gove's decision to axe Building Schools for the Future (BSF) projects in six local authority areas was unlawful as he had failed to consult before imposing the cuts. The judge also said that in five of the cases, the failure was "so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power" and that "however pressing the economic problems, there was no overriding public interest which precluded consultation or justifies the lack of any consultation". The Councils' response was that the government would have to reconsider but the government said it had won the case on the substantial issues. The judge made clear that, contrary to the councils' position, they could not expect that their projects would be funded.

In March 2011 Gove was criticised for not understanding the importance of school architecture and having previously misrepresented the cost. In February 2011, he gave "not-quite-true information to Parliament" by saying that one individual made £1m in one year when the true figure was £700k for 5 advisers at different times over a 4 year period. He told a Free Schools conference that 'no one in this room is here to make architects richer' and specifically mentioned architect Richard Rogers.

Exam and Curriculum Reforms

During the 2010 Conservative Party Conference, Gove announced that school curriculum would be restructured, and that study of authors such as Byron, Keats, Jane Austen, Dickens and Thomas Hardy would be reintroduced to English lessons as part of a plan to improve children’s grasp of English literature and language. Children who fail to write coherently and grammatically, and who are weak in spelling, would be penalised under new examinations. Historian Simon Schama would give advice to government to ensure that pupils learnt Britain’s "island story". Standards in mathematics and science would also be strengthened. He explained that this was needed because left-wing ideologues had undermined education. Theirs was the view, he thought, that schools "shouldn’t be doing anything so old-fashioned as passing on knowledge, requiring children to work hard, or immersing them in anything like dates in history or times tables in mathematics. These ideologues may have been inspired by generous ideals but the result of their approach has been countless children condemned to a prison house of ignorance."

In a November 2010 White paper, Gove declared reforms would include the compulsory study of foreign languages up to the age of 16, and a shake-up of league tables in which schools are ranked higher for the number of pupils taking GCSEs in five core subjects: English; mathematics; science; a language; and one of the humanities. He also announced that experts such as historian Simon Schama will be brought in to review the curriculum, and that targets are to be introduced for primary schools for the first time. Additionally, trainee teachers will spend more time in the classroom, there would be more assessment of teacher training applicants—including tests of character and emotional intelligence—and former troops will be offered sponsorship to retrain as teachers to improve discipline. Teachers are also expected to receive guidance on how to search pupils for more items, including mobile phones and pornography, and when they can use force.

In April 2011 Gove criticised schools for not studying pre-20th century classics and blamed “England’s constricted and unreformed exam system” for failing to encourage children to read. Gove also blamed an “anti knowledge culture” for reducing achievement and said children benefited when expectations were set higher. In June 2011 his "ignorance of science" was criticised after he called for students to have "a rooting in the basic scientific principles" and by way of example assigned Lord Kelvin's laws of thermodynamics to Sir Isaac Newton.

In June 2012, the Daily Mail, revealed leaked plans to scrap GCSE examinations, return to O level exams and allow less able students to take less difficult qualifications. The plans had not been discussed with the Deputy Prime Minister or the Liberal Democrats and were subsequently heavily criticised by some teachers, unions and Labour Party MPs. They had been discussed with the Prime Minister and a subsequent YouGov/Sunday Times poll suggested that the public supported the policy by a margin of 50% to 32%. They also received widespread praise from senior Conservative figures, including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said that he "could be...singing a hymn of praises for my old chum Gove and his brilliant new Gove-levels." The leaked documents also suggested that Gove was intending to create a single exam board to organise all exams, and to scrap the National Curriculum in its current form. However there were "rebukes" from both the Welsh and Northern Ireland Education ministers who said it was important to communicate before making announcements on proposed changes to jointly owned qualifications.

King James Bible

In 2011 Gove planned to provide each school in the United Kingdom with a copy of the King James Bible, each inscribed "presented by the Secretary of State for Education" (although Gove was unaware of this until he saw the first bible), to celebrate the 400th anniversary of its translation into English. Gove described the King James as "the most important book in the English language" and insisted that every student should have the opportunity to appreciate its literary riches. The project ran into difficulty when the education secretary was required to find private funding to complete it. Private sponsors paid for the Bibles, which were distributed in June 2012. The Guardian quoted unnamed head teachers as being critical of the project, however the initiative did receive support from across the spectrum, including from Richard Dawkins.

Leveson Inquiry

In May 2012 Gove, giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry warned Lord Justice Leveson "the cure might be worse than the disease", advising the judge against too much extra regulation on the press. The former journalist, added that some cases of press misbehaviour were “deplorable” but argued that these could be punished under existing laws, such as defamation. Gove himself was a former News International Journalist.

2012 English GCSE Results

In September 2012, following the furore surrounding the downgrading of GCSE English results, he refused to instruct Ofqual to intervene, and attacked his Welsh counterpart as "irresponsible and mistaken" for ordering disputed GCSEs to be regraded. On 17 September he announced to the House at 16.30 an English Baccalaureate Certificate to replace GCSE, comprising English, Maths, Science, together with a Humanities subject and language, to be first examined in 2017.

Education Vouchers

As Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Gove advocated the introduction of a Swedish-style voucher system, whereby parents can choose where their child should be educated, with the state paying what they would have cost in a state-school. He has also advocated Swedish-style free schools, to be managed by parents and funded by the state, with the possibility that such schools may be allowed to be run on a for-profit model.

Creationist Schools

In June 2012, he approved three schools run by creationists leading to concerns about whether Department of Education requirements not to teach creationism or intelligent design as a scientific fact would be met. Grindon Hall Christian school in Sunderland due to open in September 2012 said their website which said it would teach creationism as science was out of date. Exemplar-Newark Business academy whose previous application was rejected because of concerns over creationism and a third school in Kent both said they would teach creationism in RE but not in Science. The British Humanist Society said teaching creationism in any syllabus was unacceptable.

BNP membership amongst teachers

Gove's stance as Education Secretary on extremism and the British National Party (BNP) has won praise. He told the Guardian: "I don't believe that membership of the BNP is compatible with being a teacher. One of the things I plan to do is to allow headteachers and governing bodies the powers and confidence to be able to dismiss teachers engaging in extremist activity.

Expenses claims

Main article: Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament

Michael Gove claimed £7,000 for furnishing a London property before reportedly 'flipping' his designated second home, a property for which he claimed around £13,000 to cover stamp duty. Gove also claimed for a cot mattress, despite children's items being banned under the Commons rule. Gove said he would repay the claim for the cot mattress, but maintained that his other claims were "below the acceptable threshold costs for furniture" and that moving house was necessary "to effectively discharge my parliamentary duties". While he was moving between homes, on one occasion he stayed at the Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa following a constituency engagement, charging the taxpayer more than £500 per night's stay.

Gove's second home was not in his constituency, but in Elstead, in the South West Surrey Constituency. Gove subsequently sold the house and now has no base in or near his constituency.

Freedom of Information and email

Gove has been the subject of repeated criticism for alleged attempts to avoid the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The criticism surrounds Gove's use of various private e-mail accounts to send e-mails which are claimed to relate to his departmental responsibilities. The allegations suggest that Mr Gove and his advisers believed they could avoid their correspondence being subject to Freedom of Information Requests, as they believed that their private e-mail accounts were not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. In September 2011, the Financial Times reported that Gove had used an undisclosed private email account – called "Mrs Blurt" – to discuss government business with advisers. In March 2012 the Information Commissioner ruled that because e-mails the Financial Times had requested contained public information they could be the subject of a Freedom of Information request and ordered the information requested by the paper to be disclosed. Gove was also advised to cease the practice of using private e-mail accounts to conduct government business.Gove disputed the Information Commissioner's ruling and proceeded to tribunal.

It was also alleged that Gove and his advisors had destroyed e-mail correspondence in order to avoid Freedom of Information requests. The allegation was denied by Gove's department who stated that deleting e-mail was simply part of good computer housekeeping.

Political views

Political philosophy

Gove has expressed his view that the state should generally not interfere in domestic affairs and attests to have campaigned for personal freedom in certain matters. He opposed the 2006 act to introduce identity cards and called Section 28, "a nonsense". Gove has argued that "the only sustainable ethical foundation for society is a belief in the innate worth and dignity of every individual." Giving evidence before the Leveson Inquiry in May 2012, Gove said he was "unashamedly on the side of those who say that we should think very carefully before legislation and regulation because the cry 'Something must be done' often leads to people doing something which isn't always wise."

During the 2008 Conservative Party Conference, Gove argued that Edmund Burke, an eighteenth-century philosopher who commented on organic society and the French Revolution, was the greatest conservative ever. When asked about those who believe 'Marx was right all along', he responded that they were guilty of ignoring the systematic abuses and poverty of centrally planned economies, and criticised Eric Hobsbawm, saying that "only when Hobsbawm weeps hot tears for a life spent serving an ideology of wickedness will he ever be worth listening to."

Foreign policy

Gove proposed that the invasion of Iraq would bring peace and democracy both to Iraq and the wider Middle East. In December 2008, he wrote that declarations of either victory or defeat in Iraq in 2003 were premature, and that the liberation of Iraq was a foreign policy success.

The liberation of Iraq has actually been that rarest of things – a proper British foreign policy success. Next year, while the world goes into recession, Iraq is likely to enjoy 10% GDP growth. Alone in the Arab Middle East, it is now a fully functioning democracy with a free press, properly contested elections and an independent judiciary ... Sunni and Shia contend for power in parliament, not in street battles. The ingenuity, idealism and intelligence of the Iraqi people can now find an outlet in a free society rather than being deployed, as they were for decades, simply to ensure survival in a fascist republic that stank of fear.

— Michael Gove, Michael Gove: Triumph of freedom over evil

Michael Gove has described himself as "a proud Zionist", and supports the United Jewish Israel Appeal's fundraising activities.

Gove has been accused of harbouring hostile attitude towards Islam after the publications of his book Celsius 7/7, though he distinguishes between "the great historical faith" of Islam which he claims has "brought spiritual nourishment to millions", and Islamism, a "totalitarian ideolog[y]" which turns to "hellish violence and oppression" like the 20th century ideologies of National Socialism and Communism.

Gove has mourned the First World War as a great tragedy, which caused not only widespread death, but also the perishing of the old liberal, tolerant and materially progressive order.

Other views

Gove's proposal for a new Royal Yacht costing £60m were made public in January 2012. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg criticised the idea, calling it “a case of the haves and the have yachts". Michael Gove believes that Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom, arguing that Scotland's strengths complement those of other parts of the UK.

Religious views

Having been raised in the Church of Scotland, Gove now worships in the Church of England, and regularly attends St Mary Abbots church, Kensington, London. He stated he is a Christian and proud (of it) at a talk to pupils at Westminster School in 2012. He has commented on the condition of the church in Scotland.

Personal life

Gove is married to Sarah Vine, a writer for The Times. They have a daughter and son.

His wealth is estimated at £1 million.

Bibliography

• Michael Portillo: The Future of the Right (1995) ISBN 1-85702-335-8
• The Price of Peace (2000) ISBN 1-903219-15-9
• A Blue Tomorrow – New Visions for Modern Conservatives (2001) (ed. with Edward Vaizey and Nicholas Boles) ISBN 1-84275-027-5
• Celsius 7/7 (2006) ISBN 0-297-85146-2

External links

• Michael Gove MP Official Website
• Profile at the Conservative Party
• John Rentoul, The Independent names Michael Gove as a top public service innovator, Ethos, June 2012
• Column archives in The Times
• Profile from The Economist
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou