Richard J Evans on Michael Gove ‘History Man’
The Times (20th August 2022) reported that Michael Gove was to step down from ‘front line politics. This of course was as a result of Truss becoming Tory leader. In fact he returned under Sunak but on 24th May announced he was stepping down as an MP.
Since 2010 Gove has held a variety of Government posts (like Johnson he is a journalist) including that of Education Secretary.
During his tenure Gove proposed what is now a Tory favourite- reforming the history curriculum. Needless to say his plans were a disaster.
Reviewing a biography of Gove in the London Review of Books the historian Richard J Evans recounted an occasion when Gove despatched his advisor Dominic Cummings to gather his views:
Gove sent his special political adviser to see me. A slim, balding, casually dressed, youngish man came into my Cambridge office and flopped into an armchair. ‘Well’, he said, ‘we’ve fucked up, haven’t we?’ It was Dominic Cummings.
I’m no fan of Cummings but that does rather seem to sum up Gove
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n17/richard-j.-evans/the-demented-dalek
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