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.
