Michael Gove

Michael Gove is the Secretary of State for Education.

Gove was previously the shadow secretary of state for children schools and families and a close policy aide of David Cameron. He was formerly a deputy editor of The Times, and is still a columnist there. He is describes as an "unabashed neoconservative" Like George Osborne, Gove is a fan of George Bush, and an enthusiast for Operation Iraqi Freedom. On 30 October 2005, on a BBC Panorama programme, he acted as the advocate for the indefinite occupation of Iraq.

David Morrison writes:

as Neil Clark pointed out in The Guardian, Vaizey and Gove are both signatories to the Statement of Principles of the British neoconservative organisation, The Henry Jackson Society Project for Democratic Geopolitics, which was launched in Peterhouse College, Cambridge earlier this year. Henry Jackson was a Democrat member of the US Congress for over 40 years until his death in 1983. He opposed détente with the Soviet Union, and is the ideological forbear of modern neo-conservatism. Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz worked for him in the 1970s, and went on to work for Ronald Reagan. “International patrons” of this British Society include the stars in the American neoconservative firmament, for example, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, Richard Perle and James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA.

Former Conservative MP and now Times columnist Matthew Parris writes:

If you had to identify what you might call Michael’s abiding passion in politics, you would find it in a consistent, intelligent rage against what he would see as the unwitting appeasement of wicked and violent men by flabby, woolly-minded liberals. Now in Parliament, he is part of the small group of Tories, somewhat mis-named the Notting Hill Set, in control of the higher brain functions of that great and ancient political beast, the Conservative Party.

The Price of Peace

In the Summer of 2000, Gove published a pamphlet on Northern Ireland, called The Price of Peace for the Centre for Policy Studies. According to Ed Vaizey's review, Gove argued that "the peace process has taken us down a dangerous and erroneous path":

The solution, in Gove's eyes, is to abandon the peace process and substitute for it a strategy of "resolute security action"; the ending of prisoner releases; the banning of any party still associated with the principle of violence from participation in the peace process. More broadly, he shows the dangers inherent in appeasement. It is one thing to seek peace, another to put into effect methods of government that one would not contemplate elsewhere in one's country. Peace may be achieved in the short term, but at the price of the long-term infection of the body politic.

Iraq

In December 2008, Gove described the invasion of Iraq as 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. The two facts, the economic and the political, are of course connected.

Khurshid Ahmad

On 5 December 2005, Gove criticised Home Secretary Charles Clarke for employing advisors on extremism including Ahmad Thompson, Khurshid Ahmad and Mockbul Ali. He later apologised after it emerged he had confused Khurshid Ahmad with another individual of the same name.

Celsius 7/7

Gove's book on Islamism, Celsius 7/7 was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2006. Gove credited George Weidenfeld as the inspiration for the book.

It was his idea that I should write a short work tackling head on much of the nonsense which had been spoken and written about terrorism in the last few years, and I am immensely grateful to him for that opportunity.

In the book Gove argued that:

there is a phenomenon called "Islamism", a totalitarian movement in the mould of fascism or communism, and which should be fought with the weapons of war".

Historian William Dalrymple said of the book:

"Gove is an ill-informed pundit tailoring information to fit pre-existing prejudices".

"Gove is an example of the sort of pundit who has spoon-fed neocon mythologies to the British public for the past few years. Gove has never lived in the Middle East, indeed has barely set foot in a Muslim country. He has little knowledge of Islamic history, theology or culture — in Celsius 7/7, he just takes the line of Bernard Lewis on these matters; nor does he speak any Islamic language. None of this, however, has prevented his being billed, on his book’s dust-jacket, “one of Britain’s leading writers and thinkers on terrorism”."

"Gove's book is a confused epic of simplistic incomprehension, riddled with more factual errors and misconceptions than any other text I have come across in two decades of reviewing books on this subject."

Acknowledgements

Gove credited a number of friends and colleagues who helped to shape his thinking in writing the book:

I am particularly indebted to Dean Godson and Nicholas Boles of the think tank Policy Exchange, Dominic Cummings and James Frayne, formerly of the New Frontiers Foundation, Garvan Walshe and Glyn Gaskarth of the Conservative Research Department and the writers Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stephen Pollard, Oliver Kamm, William Shawcross and Douglas Murray.

PMQs Blunder

In November 2009, Gove helped David Cameron to set up a question to the Prime Minister on Islamic extremism:

Seeing that two schools linked to Hizb ut Tahrir had received cash from the Early Years Pathfinder scheme which funds free nursery places, Mr Gove had mistakenly thought that it was part of the Preventing Violent Extremism pathfinder project that is supposed to tackle indoctrination. In fact the two schemes are entirely separate. The error meant that Mr Cameron was simply wrong to declare that the schools were receiving cash from an “anti-extremist” fund when he faced Mr Brown across the dispatch box.

The Conservatives also claimed that the schools had not been registered or inspected by Ofsted:

In fact, one of the two schools – in Slough, Berkshire – had posted a glowing commendation from Ofsted on its website. The report was easily accessible by Googling the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, and its veracity could be confirmed with Ofsted.

According to the Independent, the blunder was said to have been "made by a researcher who put together a briefing paper ahead of Prime Minister's Questions":

But it also created deep embarrassment for Mr Gove, who is one of the Tory leader's most trusted advisers and confidants. He has been highlighting the case of the two schools for nearly a month; the rapid revelation of such a basic mistake leaves him with egg on his face.

Funding

Gove received a donation to his constituency office from Annabel's nightclub, while it was owned by Mark Birley. Metals trader Alan Bekhor has also been a donor.

Affiliations

• European Freedom Fund trustee
• Newton's Apple
• Policy Exchange co-founder
• Henry Jackson Society
• Standpoint - Advisory Board
• Conservative Friends of Israel
• Recipient of the 'Jerusalem prize' from the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, 2008

Publications

• The Price of Peace, Centre for Policy Studies, 27 July 2000.
• Celsius 7/7, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.

External Resources

• TheyWorkForYou, Michael Gove