In an alcove in the corridor at the Department for Education
Gove bumps into Wilshaw.
The whole conversation is in whispers and stops whenever someone comes past.
Gove: (urgently) That call last night didn't happen.
Wilshaw: (snorts contemptuously)
Gove: Maria's going. It's a cavity thing.
Wilshaw: (he is reading a document called: 'The Hammer and the Fist'; he looks up) Mm? Are you still talking?
Gove: (blathering on) Cavity. Dental. Leave it and it rots.
Wilshaw: (uninterested) Uh-huh. Look, I've got to go: you'll like this. I'm giving the OK to send in some of my troops this afternoon. Swat job.
Gove: They had better not be some of mine.
Wilshaw: If they are, they are.
Gove: I told you, no more bloody headlines to do with Frees and Academies. Bloody lay off them, will you?
Wilshaw: You made your bed, sonnyjim. A lousy LA school gets turned into an Academy. A lousy free school or a lousy Academy gets turned into what exactly?
Gove: Whose bloody side are you on, now? And don't say 'the kids'. That's my line.
Wilshaw: The kids.
Gove: Look, can I have a guarantee from you that you won't say a word about me going for the job?
Wilshaw: What job?
Gove: Which one are you doing this afternoon? Stupid or deaf?
Wilshaw: I'm only here for the 'hot sex'.
Gove: That was a joke.
Wilshaw (holds up newspaper with headline: GOVE SAYS THAT YOUNG BUSINESS PEOPLE COME TO LONDON FOR 'HOT SEX'.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/loads-of-hot-sex-michael-gove-on-why-young-business-people-come-to-london-9242144.html
Gove: What is it with these creeps? It was a joke.
Wilshaw: What kind of joke? Irony, is it? Hyperbole?
Gove: I do the clever stuff, big boy. You're the hammer. Or the fist. Or both. Something dull, anyway.
Wilshaw: I am, sonny jim. I am. I close schools. I put the shits up teachers.
Gove: Like bloody hell you do. I'm the one round here who closes schools. All you do, is send in your hirelings.
Wilshaw: That's not what you said, when you told me how many academies you wanted by 2015.
Gove: One step out of line, and I'll have you up on a - never mind that now... I'm just saying that almost certainly I'm going to be out of here by the end of the week. I just wanted to s-
Wilshaw: Hot sex.
Gove: What is it with you?
Wilshaw: You won't get Culture. Not with your big gob.
Gove: I AM Culture. It's what I do. I live it. I never intended to piss about in the world of scummy little teachers and ex-teachers like you. I want to be down with Barenboim, Damien Hurst, Lucian Freud.
Wilshaw: He's dead.
Gove: I know. I know. I just said it to catch you out.
Wilshaw: Hot sex.
(Wilshaw walks off. Gove stands in the corridor, fiddling with his glasses.)
