Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

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cricketwidow
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:47 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by cricketwidow »

Actually, I was at university with Michael Gove and what feels like the entire government (Jeremy Hunt, Ed Vaizey, Boris Johnson etc) and I can testify that he, of all of them, least qualifies for the vitriol contained in Mike1880's response. I was an ordinary working class girl at Oxford and actually most of the above were pretty OK actually. Whilst I am not sure about this latest pronouncement, I am sure that we have an education secretary who really cares about improving standards. Is it really necessary to sterotype the whole government in this lazy way?
push-pull-mum
Posts: 737
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:52 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by push-pull-mum »

cricketwidow wrote:Actually, I was at university with Michael Gove and what feels like the entire government (Jeremy Hunt, Ed Vaizey, Boris Johnson etc) and I can testify that he, of all of them, least qualifies for the vitriol contained in Mike1880's response. I was an ordinary working class girl at Oxford and actually most of the above were pretty OK actually. Whilst I am not sure about this latest pronouncement, I am sure that we have an education secretary who really cares about improving standards. Is it really necessary to sterotype the whole government in this lazy way?
So, cricketwidow, you can tell us ..... your real name isn't Flora McCullough is it ?

I was an ordinary working class girl up in Oxford (by the sounds of it arriving just after you left) and the Union, OUSU, and OUCA hacks were, for the most part, perfectly ordinary blokes - some with money and 'background' - some without. Jacob Rees-Mogg was a perrenial favourite at the Union because he was so deliberately an 'upper class twit.' I embarrassed my family when I saw him on a station platform a couple of years ago and shouted out of the train window the - at one time legendary - Union chant of -
"Jacob, Jacob - give us a wave!"
Give him his due - he waved. :D

I am in no way justifying the current government - and certainly I would never vote for any of them (Tory or Lib Dem) - but there are more intelligent ways of arguing against their policies than dismissing them as upper class twits.

Tony Benn, after all, is an upper class twit - and he's luvvley.
Alice in Underland
Posts: 159
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:19 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by Alice in Underland »

Well just to chip in here[u] I [/u]was at Robert Gordons Institute of Technology in Aberdeen between 1983 and 1985 so I must have been there at the same time as Gove. Never met him !

Isn't the Scottish education system supposed to be far superior to the English one?
push-pull-mum
Posts: 737
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:52 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by push-pull-mum »

Alice in Underland wrote:Well just to chip in here I was at Robert Gordons Institute of Technology in Aberdeen between 1983 and 1985 so I must have been there at the same time as Gove. Never met him !
I think the Institute of Technology is what became Robert Gordon's University. Gove was at an Independent School named for the same bloke.
He did his degree at Oxford - and graduated shortly before I turned up. There were still 'in jokes' about him at the Union in my early years there.
Fran17
Posts: 1440
Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:16 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by Fran17 »

I agree with a few of the earlier comments. Please let the 'mums' army' go into the schools on Thursday and please can I be there to watch. :lol: Maybe Mr. Gove could volunteer to teach for a day. I think we would see him running for the hills. It could be a very useful exercise in demonstrating to him what a difficult job it is being a teacher.
Kesteven
Posts: 68
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by Kesteven »

I have no problem with parents' helping out to keep schools open. If it's OK to ask parents to help with school trips, volunteer reading, refereeing sports, providing transport for pupils to events, then I've no issues with them covering for strikers alongside other school staff. And no, I'm not worried that they won't have CRB checks either. I think it's a proportionate response to union blackmail.
cricketwidow
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:47 pm

Re: Michael Gove's call for a 'mums' army' on strike days

Post by cricketwidow »

Hi push-pull-mum, your post really made me laugh. Definitely not Flora McCullough! I some how don't think (if I remember correctly) that she could have been described as working class in any way!

I do remember Jacob Rees Mogg, he arrived in my final year and was at Trinity, same college as my then boyfriend and was rather a figure of fun but a genial one.

I think that I was trying to make the same point as you (and which you made more eloquently) that simply deriding the government as upper class twits, just because you don't agree with them, isn't a particular intelligent form of argument.

Right, having gone down memory lane, and got off soapbox, must do some work!
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