[Malcolm Armsteen]

Oh, I don't know...

[The Weeping Angel]

Well compared with IDS he is.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Gove is a man of, in my opinion, pretty average intellect, with some serious deficiencies in intrapersonal areas. He has had an extensive and expensive education which has, effectively, sprinkled glitter on a turd. He has been educated into arrogance regarding his own abilities, an effect amplified by his choice of profession in which people of exceptional mediocrity reassure each other that they are the second coming of Oscar Wilde on the basis of no evidence other than the fawning opinions of their peers.

[youngian]

The one eyed king

Simon Heffer

Gove is one of the more cerebral members of the cabinet

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... is-success" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dan Hannan

Michael Gove is the politest man in Christendom, and one of the cleverest.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/953 ... an-rights/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[crabcakes_windermere]

Gove mistakes knowledge for intelligence. He knows stuff, he thinks that makes him clever. It also helps explain his love of rote learning, because he thinks it will make other people as 'clever' as he is. Which it will, in the sense of not having the ability to actually use what they know because they've never been taught critical thinking and how to objectively appraise evidence.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Exactly. See my comment above.

Sadly it's a view of intelligence shared by a great many people.

[youngian]

Gove mistakes knowledge for intelligence.

He doesn't always appear to have much of that. During last year's WWI commemorations Gove gave his considered views as what a left wing analysis of that conflict was; accusing officers of being crap like Blackadder.

Yes the Tories are the stupid people's party as they were when J S Mill made that observation but they keep winning. Perhaps that's because they don't over-complicate politics.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

To quote Sir Terry, individual people are clever, bright and witty. The people en masse are stupid.

[crabcakes_windermere]

Gove mistakes knowledge for intelligence.

He doesn't always appear to have much of that. During last year's WWI commemorations Gove gave his considered views as what a left wing analysis of that conflict was; accusing officers of being crap like Blackadder.

Yes the Tories are the stupid people's party as they were when J S Mill made that observation but they keep winning. Perhaps that's because they don't over-complicate politics.

It's no surprise the Tories are - outside of their true core audience of the ultra-rich city types - the old people's party. Many get more conservative as they get older and frailer and more concerned about having enough to get by and feeling less confident physically and mentally. They offer simple answers - it's someone else's fault, it's all scroungers, we'll be harsh on kids and bring them back into line.

They're also wrong answers, but it's not hard to see the unlikely cross-demporaphic appeal to an ageing, not brilliantly well off pensioner living in a small town with a few Polish neighbours who have moved into the houses their friends used to live in and a gang of bored kids on the street corner, or the rich country chap who just wants to keep all his money.

[MisterMuncher]

Gove mistakes knowledge for intelligence. He knows stuff, he thinks that makes him clever. It also helps explain his love of rote learning, because he thinks it will make other people as 'clever' as he is. Which it will, in the sense of not having the ability to actually use what they know because they've never been taught critical thinking and how to objectively appraise evidence.

In that sense, he's a man out of time, as are many of his similarly expensively educated chums. Rote learning of facts is moving toward a point of having minimal value in a world where access to information is effectively free and instant. The ability to process that information is now the true currency of intelligence.

[Andy McDandy]

Yes, but try convincing anyone of that. He's creating a generation of people good for pub quizzes but not much else.

The KBD (kings, battles and dates)/'island story' approach to history simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. We won everything because we were British, then everyone threw their hats in the air and shouted huzzah. That's about it.

The right wing bang on about dumbing down. They're the past masters at it.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Andy, as usual, wins the internet.

[The Red Arrow]

Yep - great post.

[davidjay]

"A generation of people good for pub quizzes but not much else."

That'll be stolen repeatedly.

[The Weeping Angel]

Andy as usual your posts manage to get straight to the heart of the matter whilst at the same time depressing me about the future of British society