Wednesday 9 April 2014

Latest wire-tap: Gove tells Wilshaw how good he was on the Today Programme.

Wilshaw in his office.

Gove bursts in, opens his arms and takes up a heroic stance.

Wilshaw: I didn't hear you knock.

Gove: Da-daaaaa!

Wilshaw: (ignores)

Gove: What do you think? How did I do?

Wilshaw: Mm?

Gove: On the Today prog. How was I?

Wilshaw: I wasn't listening.

Gove: You weren't listening? What are you talking about? Everyone was listening!

Wilshaw: I wasn't.

Gove: Then it was the nation minus one.

Wilshaw: Uh-huh.

Gove: I was sensational.

Wilshaw: Did you get the Culture job? Here's hoping.

Gove: Of course not. Dave has other ideas. I have other ideas.

Wilshaw: Oh sheesh. Ideas and you. That's where the trouble starts.

Gove: I was so blooming statesmanlike. I was like...like...Kennedy in Berlin...Churchill and Dunkirk...Henry V at...

Wilshaw: I got a text, saying you were like yesterday's porridge.

Gove: I did sad. I did responsible. I did regret. I did sympathy. I did concern. I know how to do the bloody lot. Govey 5 Dave nil. I was George bloody Best in the European Cup final.

Wilshaw: Champions League.

Gove: Shut your face, Big Boy. It was the European Cup then. It's the Champions League now. And now is when it is...er...now. And I am Mr Now.

Wilshaw: I need to get on with some work. I've got one of your little messes to mop up at Ecat.

Gove: My best moment was when I said, 'If I were doing Prime Minister's Question Time'....Geddit? Geddit? 'If'. Too bloody right. I just managed to not say, 'when'. Just left it hanging there... 'If' . Bloody magisterial.

Wilshaw: So you weren't able to blow your own trumpet on the new GCSEs thing?

Gove: I'm beyond that. That's already the past. That's merely a lower rung on the ladder.

Wilshaw: And Miller will be back anyway.

Gove: Of course she will. I did the contrition thing. Dave says sorry at PMQ. Sorted. She'll be back.

Wilshaw: Like him next door.

Gove: Laws, you mean.

Wilshaw: Too bloody right I mean Laws.

Gove: It all works, Big Boy. It's about loyalty and goodness. I said that to old man Humphrys. I wiped the floor with him. I showed the whole country minus you, that there is something more noble than hounding a decent Tory to the dogs.

Wilshaw: er...'hounding' means 'dogs'.

Gove: Don't bloody pretend you do metaphors. You're just a geographer.

Wilshaw: Historian.

Gove: Policeman. But I am a prince.


Wilshaw is up from his desk and pushing Gove out of his room.