Friday
Jan272012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The Education Secretary and s77
This is interesting. Left foot forward is reporting that the education secretary Michael Gove is being investigated for possible breaches of the FOI Act.
Presumably, even if Gove has been breaching the Act, no prosecution will be possible because of the six-month statute of limitations that readers here know applies to such cases.
So I guess Gove, like everyone at CRU, will carry right on as if nothing had happened.
Reader Comments (7)
KnR
You won't like this one then!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2011/12/the-conservative-of-2011-is-michael-gove.html
That's a disgraceful comment from the bowels of anonymity. If some madman was to stab Michael Gove with a carving knife in the street in the next week I think this excellent blog would suffer greatly in its reputation because of what you've written.
When a minister like Gove has such an array of vested interests against him he may well find FOI irksome. I broadly agree with what he's trying to do and I would wish that FOI didn't hinder him. But I fuly support how David Holland, say, uses the same legislation in the climate area.
This isn't inconsistent - it's pragmatic regard of the rule of law as we find it. I hope Gove doesn't come a cropper because of the steps he apparently took to lessen the impact of FOI on much-needed open and free debate within the education department. But if he is found to have broken the rules then the rule of law itself is paramount. And they should certainly teach that in schools.
Inappropriate comment deleted.
The FOI legislation needs to be greatly strengthened. Besides the many exemptions that need to be axed, the this six-month statute of limitations needs to go.
Plus -
"the education secretary, awarded £2m of public money to an organisation that he promoted as an adviser for four years.
The education secretary personally made the decision to give taxpayers' money to an organisation that distributes funds to pay for better security at Jewish schools. Gove has promoted the Community Security Trust (CST) as an adviser since 2007."
better security at Jewish schools ? WTF
sorry - link here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/27/michael-gove-funds-organisation-advised?newsfeed=true
dfhunter: Indeed, What The Fuck. Jews have irrational fears of being attacked, as can be seen throughout history.
That was a little ironic by the way. Although it's not talked about much there is a problem with grossly anti-semitic material available in Arabic and a resurgence of attacks on Jewish people and property in western Europe. They are related problems, though you can't rule out 'old style' anti-semitism in Europe when assessing such attacks - or the weird alliance between the hard left and Islamism come to that.
Michael Gove has made no secret of where he stands in these areas, both before and after being in government, and it's one of the reasons I respect the guy as much as I do. Here's an example from London in February 09, from Toronto and from Holocaust Memorial Day last year.