A truly horrible performance by Michael Gove on the Today programme. Criticised for rushing through far-reaching reforms, he replied that there has been 'ample time' for debate and scrutiny, and that, because this is a manifesto commitment, Parliamentary debate will be compressed so that some schools can opt out of local authority control by September.
Let us separate out two issues, which Mr Gove did not allow Sarah Montague to do. First of all, there is the question of whether the reform is welcome. It probably is; I don't have any problem with it, and there is no doubt education policy was the most developed of all those in the Tory manifesto. Good luck to the reforms.
Second, there is the specific criticism of Graham Stuart and others that insufficient time has been allowed for Parliamentary scrutiny. This is an orthogonal question to the quality of the idea, and Mr Gove should not have conflated the two issues.
"There has been extensive debate of this" was the first of his non sequiturs. Quite right, so there has. But what has this got to do with it? There has been a century and a half of deep debate on Marxist communism, but that is no reason to introduce it by the end of the week. There is political dispute all the time, but what counts is the debate in a chamber of our elected representatives with amending powers about a specific bill. All the rest is simply hot air.
His other splendid irrelevance was that "if you've had people who've been waiting for five years, if you have, as we have, hundreds of schools who are anxious to take advantage of these proposals, then it is understandable that you want to honour a manifesto commitment." Of course it is understandable, but it does not make it right that Parliamentary debate should be curtailed, even for the convenience of a government or of hundreds of schools. No doubt it would be agreeable to the government to interrupt the steady stream of stories about cuts with some good news, but the function of Parliament is not to manage the media for the Secretary of State for Education.
The proper place of representative institutions was a major topic of argument in the eighteenth century. Montesquieu, admiring the British model, argued that checks and balances were needed to prevent tyranny; Rousseau, on the other hand, thought that they would be irritating impediments to the implementation of the general will. Each one precipitated a revolution. Montesquieu influenced Madison and the American founding fathers, whose constitution still survives; Rousseau's great disciple Robespierre ushered in dictatorship, bloodshed and finally the imperial monarchy of Napoleon. These arguments have been played out over and again, and Rousseau is always proved wrong. Furthermore, in a diverse, dynamic and complex polity like the United Kingdom there is no sensible concept of a general will to apply. Montesquieu's checks and balances are essential for genuine and inclusive debate, and to prevent one political class from riding roughshod over everyone else.
A man who knows what he is talking about said "rushing big changes before they've been properly thought through is a sure fire way to get things wrong". That was Mr Gove's shadow, Ed Balls, part of a government that was a serial offender in this respect; he has obviously belatedly learned from his experience. When we voted out New Labour, it was not just its policies we wanted to get rid of, but also its appalling attitude to democratic institutions. But now twice in a week, the new government has sought to emulate the old. Worse, Mr Gove actually cited precedents for his abuse of the democratic process from the actions of Tony Blair's government.
Mr Gove even rebuked Ms Montague by calling her a "small-c conservative." Since when has that been an insult from a Conservative Party politician? Worrying.
