Michael gove

Downing Street wants to move the May/Gove feud away from two ministers at war and back onto the substantive issue of extremism in Birmingham Schools. Naturally Cabinet ministers at war is a storyline the Prime Minister would like to end. But that doesn't mean that the statement the Education Secretary gives this afternoon will move the government into more comfortable terrain. Both Labour and the Lib Dems are likely to use this row to argue for better oversight of academies and free schools (although not all the schools involved in the investigation were free from local authority oversight).

You can judge a minister by their special advisers. Ambitious ministers surround themselves with aides who view their primary loyalty as being to the minister rather than the Prime Minister or the government as a whole. But those who are just happy to be in Cabinet accept the advisers they are sent by Downing Street and CCHQ. Theresa May was, without a doubt, in the former category. Her aides are ferocious defenders and promoters of her. Indeed, May is, in many ways, the Gordon Brown of this government. Anyone who her team thought was interfering in her domain got their head bitten off. Even on relatively minor issues like visas for Chinese tourists, they fought like tigers. No quarter is given to those who disagreed with the Home Office line, no matter how minor the subject.

I see that the Labour party, and Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt in particular, are trying to make political capital out of the ‘Trojan Horse’ Islamic schools scandal. I’ll write more about this in the coming week, but for the meantime let me point out what a steaming pile of political opportunism and hypocrisy this all is. Tristram says that Michael Gove ‘chose not to act’ and is guilty of 'gross negligence' on Islamic extremism in schools. Let me remind Tristram of a very recent piece of Labour party history. In 2009 it transpired that the Labour government was funding a school-running group called the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF).

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3" title="Zac Goldsmith, Chris Skidmore and Fraser Nelson discuss the latest Tory wars" startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]Modern Conservatives seem to be allergic to success. Every time things are going right, the party spasms. Sir John Major’s government nurtured a remarkable economic recovery, yet was beaten after its infighting appalled voters. In opposition, David Cameron acquired a habit of blowing opinion poll leads — a habit he did not, alas, shake off in time for the general election. And now, just as a Conservative victory at the next election looks likely, the party has decided to lose its head again.

Downing Street must be hopping mad with Theresa May and Michael Gove for pursuing their own row on the day of a Queen's Speech that was carefully crafted so as not to rock the boat. This morning, a 'spokesperson for Michael Gove and Theresa May' - a role which hitherto has never existed - issued a statement saying 'the Department for Education and the Home Office take the problems in Birmingham schools and all issues relating to extremism very seriously. Michael Gove and Theresa May are working together to ensure we get to the bottom of what has happened in Birmingham and take the necessary steps to fix it.

I've never quite understood why so many people hate Michael Gove. I mean, really hate him. To my mind his heart is so obviously in the right place that I'm happy to forgive him his occasional excesses. It may not quite be the case that anyone who so thoroughly upsets the teaching establishment must be doing something right but it is very plainly something more likely to be right than wrong. Which, I suppose, means I do understand why so many people hate the Education Secretary. As the left often reminds us (albeit usually tediously) speaking truth to power is rarely popular. But no, Michael Gove has not banned  the teaching of To Kill A Mockingbird or Of Mice and Men. Nor has he suggested the English literature GCSE begin with Shakespeare and end with Milton.

I am beginning to think that Dominic Cummings has driven Nick Clegg round the bend. The Lib Dem leader should want this row over universal free school meals to go away; it is a massive distraction with elections only six days away. But he can't help himself from keeping it going. So, today we have a joint Gove Laws op-ed in The Times declaring that they are not at loggerheads over the policy. This is accompanied by a news story which reveals that Clegg demanded that Gove write the piece. The piece also reveals, rather unhelpfully, that some schools are not on track to deliver the policy in time for September. Not content with this, Clegg has been busy stoking the row in his morning interviews. He doesn't seem to realise that he has a lot to lose while Cummings has nothing to lose.

The Cold War that everyone in Westminster thought would never kick off is well and truly under way. Time was when ministers and advisers imagined that the letters and internal briefing documents detailing the dirty laundry of this government would stay firmly locked in Whitehall desks. But in the past few weeks, the leaks have increased, and they seem to be spreading around the village. Nick Clegg was confronted with the latest on the World at One this afternoon: a document showing that the Cabinet Office has given the Deputy Prime Minister's favourite free school meals policy a red rating, meaning it is at risk of failing.

Even though the row over free schools has nothing to do with the Labour party, it took a reasonable bet that it would benefit from joining the fray by asking an urgent question on the allegation that Michael Gove diverted £400 million from basic need funding to the free schools project. In the Commons this afternoon, Tristram Hunt accused the Education Secretary of lacking 'self-control and focus' and paying for 'pet political projects in expensive, half-empty, underperforming free schools'.

Sarah Vine is famed for using her column in the Daily Mail to share embarrassing personal anecdotes about Michael Gove (often involving his underpants) and to offer deeply unhelpful advice to the Tory government. Today’s article is a case in point; it says that David Cameron's women problem is 'the biggest hurdle the Tories face'. The wife of the Education Secretary adds: 'as my husband is fond of saying, "Happy wife, happy life". And Mrs Electorate isn’t happy.' And Vine laid it on thick for Theresa May; suggesting that the Home Secretary 'looks more and more like the true heir to Margaret Thatcher.... whose tractor beam glare makes Anna Wintour’s seem positively Bambi-esque'.

Who will go where in the forthcoming reshuffle? Guido suggests that Michael Gove could be in for a move to party chairman, given all his major reforms have either been implemented or blocked by the Lib Dems. Number 10 has certainly told Gove that he will be playing an increasing role in the general election campaign: I understand this was made clear to him in the winter of last year, which would explain why David Cameron was quite so cross about the Education Secretary's comments to the FT about Etonians. Cameron recognises that Gove is a smooth media performer who doesn't wilt under the heat of the studio lights, or under the heat of a grilling from top interviewers.