Politics aside, as a blogger I'm very pleased to see Mr Gove back in government; it's been dull without his wit 'n' wisdom to entertain 'n' enlighten us. That he's gone to Defra add spice to the mix. I see that the first outcome of all this shuffling is a rebuttal of accusations about Mr G, climate change and the national curriculum. This is what the Times said yesterday:
"Michael Gove’s first act as environment secretary was to issue a denial yesterday that he had ever intended to remove climate change from the national curriculum. The Green Party had said he was “entirely unfit” for the brief because of his “attempt to wipe the subject from our children’s curriculum”. This was a reference to claims in 2013 that Mr Gove, when education secretary, had removed climate change from a draft of the updated geography syllabus. Mr Gove authorised officials to point yesterday to a strongly worded rebuttal issued by the Department for Education at the time."
And this is what the Guardian said 3 years ago:
"Climate change will stay on geography syllabus after lobbying from energy secretary Ed Davey. Michael Gove, the education secretary, wanted to remove climate change as part of a drive to slim down the national curriculum. Michael Gove has abandoned plans to drop climate change from the geography national curriculum. The education secretary's decision represents a victory for Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary, who has waged a sustained battle in Whitehall to ensure the topic's retention. The move to omit it from the new curriculum took on a symbolic status. Gove insisted it was part of his drive to slim an unwieldy curriculum down, to give teachers greater freedom to show their initiative. It was claimed that climate change would appear under science. But environmentalists and science teachers claimed the omission would downgrade the topic and make its existence a matter of greater dispute."
As I said: never a dull moment.
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