Royal Yacht-Let's hope this is just blue Sky thinking

I sincerely hope that the rumblings of Education Secretary Michael Gove about buying the Queen a new yacht to celebrate this year's Jubilee is one of those right wing stories from the blue sky thinking of Steve Hilton

As with many of his ideas it will be tested on the public and then consigned to the waste paper bin.

If it isn't and the government believes that 60 million pounds is a good investment in the middle of austerity Britain then I worry.

Yes,we can all celebrate what will be a unique event,maybe never to be seen again in that our Queen has been on the throne for 60 years but even the most ardent royalist must surely  at the cost.

I do worry that Mr Cameron and the like seem to think that the Olympics and the Jubilee will somehow see us through what could be one of the worst years for the economy.

Oh and by the way I thought we were all in this together?

This morning's top political stories

Nick Clegg's speech this afternoon to the Lib Dem conference is previewed in many of the papers.

According to the Guardian he will

unveil a compassionate response to the riots in his keynote speech by proposing that as many as 100,000 children at risk of going off the rails be offered a chance to attend two-week summer school prior to starting secondary studies. He will say the voluntary summer school can prevent children "falling through the cracks".

The Telegraph says that

In contrast to the tough rhetoric used by David Cameron against the rioters, Mr Clegg will say that “the odds are stacked against too many of our children”.

"It was about what they could get, here and now, not what lies in front of them, tomorrow and in the years ahead. [It was] as if their own future had little value," he will say.says the Independent

The Times says that The Lib Dems are keen to stress their different response to the riots from the more hardline approach to law and order of the Tories. Lord McNally, the party’s Justice Minister, said yesterday that he was “having to fend off” demands from David Cameron’s policy unit for stricter sentences to be included in the current sentencing Bill. “We are not fighting only one front,” he told Lib Dem representatives.

Meanwhile BBC News says that the Deputy Prime Minister will defend the government's economic strategy and his party's role in the coalition and is due to say his party will not change course on spending cuts but can do more to encourage growth.

He will argue,says the report,that the economic crisis shows the party made the "right call" in entering power with the Conservatives.

Elsewhere the Independent reports that an investigation has been launched into whether a Labour sympathiser within the Department for Education leaked emails from Michael Gove's senior advisers to the media.

David Cameron has personally intervened for the first time in the growing row over planning reform to assure campaigners that the environmental benefits of developments will be assessed before new projects are given permission reports the Telegraph.

It says that in a letter sent last night by Mr Cameron to the National Trust,he insisted that he is committed to the “magnificent countryside” and said the “beautiful British landscape is a national treasure”.Poorly designed and poorly located development is in no one’s interest,” Mr Cameron added.

The Mail has used its leader column this morning to launch an attack on the Lib Dems

Like flat-Earthers clinging to long- disproved theories, the Lib Dems blather on at their conference, in unshakeable denial of realities staring them in the face.

Staying with the Lib Dems the Times reports that Nick Clegg is preparing to ask for a bigger role for his party at the Home Office as Liberal Democrats brace themselves for the first major reshuffle.

The paper claims that the party are prepared to trade the senior role occupied in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by their Minister Of State Jeremy Browne for a beefed-up job under Theresa May.

Gove's Department under fire over Googlemail policy under fire

Some pretty devastating stuff in the papers this morning about Michael Gove's Department of Education and the use of personal emails.

The Financial Times journalist Chris Cook has unmasked the controversy after putting a Freedom of Information request into the minister's department to find information on a discussion about replacing personnel in the department.

However civil servants were unable to find the messages when asked to retrieve them for it appears that all conversation was made via Googlemail.

The story appears to have surfaced following an email sent in February from Dominic Cummings, who is Michael Gove's chief political aide.

He wrote to colleagues stating that he "will not answer any further e-mails to my official DfE account".

He then went onto say that

"i will only answer things that come from gmail accounts from people who i know who they are. i suggest that you do the same in general but thats obv up to you guys – i can explain in person the reason for this."

The Department has immediately responded by saying that the request related to Conservative Party business rather than that of the Education Department.It also says that the FT story gives an entirely misleading impression of Mr Cummings's email.

The story is not going to do away.The Information Commissioner has contacted the top civil servant at the Department for Education after being passed emails by the Financial Times and Shadow secretary Andy Burnham will be raising his concerns with the cabinet secretary.

Gove in fine form

Good this be one of the best parliamentary speeches.

Michael Gove in the Commons earlier (HT-conservative home)

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Government Front-Bench team for their understanding in allowing me to leave the Chamber briefly earlier in order to see my daughter’s nativity play. Even though we all face tough economic circumstances, I know that all hon. Members will want to find time in their schedules for seasonal festivities.
I was particularly pleased to read about the great fun had by all at the Christmas party held by the Secretary of State at the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I understand that, as well as wine and canapés, the Secretary of State also laid on for members of the press a Scalextric demonstration, a Nintendo Wii and some Star Wars light sabres. Those were not products acquired during the seasonal sale that Woolworths has just launched to celebrate the life-saving effects of the recent VAT cut; nor were they the toys that the Prime Minister threw out of his pram on hearing what the German Finance Minister thought of his policies. They were, in fact, there to help members of the press celebrate the first anniversary of the children’s plan.

I also understand that the climax of the party was a light sabre duel between the Secretary of State and Mr. Michael White of The Guardian, modelled on the epic duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars—these are serious times and we need serious people. I also understand that the Secretary of State won, and I am sure that, as he triumphed, he uttered the words that the Home Secretary spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) just the other week—“May the force be with you”. But whether or not we believe in the force, and the power of the dark side, I am sure that we can forgive light-heartedness at this time.

Of course, some hon. Members may have been in good spirits yesterday for reasons other than the formal anniversary of the children’s plan. They may have been listening to the Prime Minister taking pride in his global rescue plan. Well, we now know what the man in charge of Europe’s biggest economy thinks of that. The Prime Minister may believe, in his more modest moments, that he is Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the truth is that he is closer to a political Max Mosley: he thinks he is king of the world and he has clearly got money to burn, but all people remember is that he got a terrific spanking in German. [Interruption.] Thank you."

Nuts to that then

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The cult of Ubuntu

What you might say is Ubuntu.

Tory Education spokesman Michael Gove delivered a speech earlier in which he alluded to Bill Clinton's use of the word which means ""I am because you are"

According to Gove

Each of us is defined, and enriched, by our relationship to others. It's the strength of our relationships, the warmth of our friendships, the time we have with our partners, parents and children, the respect we're given in the workplace and by our peers, the achievements we forge collaboratively and collectively, which generate real happiness and fulfilment. We are fully ourselves because others believe in us.

He was setting out policy on schooling the family and inequality but it will be remembered for the attack on Lads magazines.

Over at Conservative Home they preview this part of the speech

I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern men's magazines targeted at younger males. Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available. We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men what they think they're doing."

But back to Ubuntu which Gove is quick to return to for Labour

there is really only one relationship which matters. The relationship between the individual and the state.
The Labour conception of society is a thin, and impoverished, one in which there appear to be only two primary centres of decision-making, the central state organises and the individual is expected to respond appropriately.
Individuals are assessed by the State as economic units in need of upskilling, taxing, monitoring or redeploying as appropriate – according to priorities set, and policed, centrally.

A simple solution to soundbites

Tory MPMichael Gove in this morning's Times believes that there are only three political answers when it comes to polititians answering .

1. My statistics are bigger than your statistics. Whenever challenged on the facts, simply come up with your own list of numbers and try to browbeat the listener into submission

2. I may smell, but the other guy's a skunk. Whenever challenged on your record, point out that your predecessors were worse and they would, if they ever returned, wreak havoc on our green and pleasant land

3.I refuse to recognise your premise and will say what I want anyway. Whenever presented with facts (or an argument) that are inconvenient and there are no bogus stats to hand and you can't recall just why the other guys are worse, then just bulldoze