Quintin Jardine's blog

Most of the time, the BBC’s Charlie Stayt is a very polite and considerate interviewer, most of the time being when he isn’t faced by a member of Her Majesty’s Government. When he is, he seems to feel obliged to turn into Jeremy Paxman. It happened again this morning when the Coalition’s Education Secretary, Michael Gove, came in to discuss the Cabinet’s plan to give head teachers more power  to fire under-performing teachers. I don’t agree with this policy, BTW. It’s populist and as such has been given the headline treatment. The way I see it the Government’s aggression can only undermine teacher morale, and therefore will do more harm than good.  That’s the point that Charlie tried to press also, forcefully, until Gove turned on him and asked him, ‘How would you feel if your child was under achieving in school and was not improving as they should?’ He had no counter, only silence that implied a concession on his part. No doubt his next report card will be marked, ‘Must do better’.