Michael Gove can"t resist a slice of Pisa point-scoring | Michael White

Michael Gove ‘was particularly harsh on Labour’s subservience to swivel-eyed teachers’ unions’. Photograph: David Gadd/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Labour’s Tristram Hunt was so established to rise over petty celebration stage-scoring when discussing the OECD’s educational league tables on Tuesday that he waited till the final sentence of his oration just before mentioning Boris Johnson’s thoughtful venture into eugenics. Or “unpleasant whiff of eugenics,” as Tris loftily described the London mayor’s examination of Britain’s 2% super-elite and sixteen% layer of also-rans.

Apart from that, petty level-scoring was all the rage as Michael Gove unveiled the OECD’s verdict on the 4 property nations. They’re all a bit common (Labour-run Wales is specifically average) and need to do better if they are ever to catch up with elite Asian education techniques like those of Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and (nowadays) Eton. Closer to home Tuesday’s final results sounded a bit like the European Championship – England beaten at residence by Poland as nicely as Germany, Wales struggling, all weak on vital topics this kind of as maths, physics and penalty shoot-outs.

In his cocky 2% way the education secretary indicates effectively and tries to be excellent. In unusual reflective moments he is aware of that no one particular nation has all the solutions and that humility is greatest. After all, as Hunt was even keener to mention than von Boris’s gaffe, Sweden – Gove’s 2008 free of charge schools pin-up – has considering that gone straight down the OECD tubes. It is now the Wales of Scandinavia although England is saddled with free of charge college mania, final year’s fad.

But Gove just can’t resist putting the petty-pointed boot in. He does so with the assured patter of a door-to-door annuity salesman. Labour’s 13 wasted many years are to blame for our indifferent exhibiting in the throughout the world review known as “Pisa exams” he stored telling the clients. He was especially harsh on Labour’s craven subservience to swivel-eyed teachers’ unions, the individuals who condemn kids to perform down coal mines which have closed. Tough to think that Gove was when a union militant himself.

Strange to report as well, Labour deserves no credit score on Planet Gove for what the minister named “the ideal generation of young teachers ever in our schools.” Even Hunt, a blond demigod of good 2% loved ones who would be spared in any Boris euthanasia program, spotted that one. Jolly unfair, he mentioned. “The secretary of state can’t have it both approaches.” Oh yes he could, and did. So did knuckle-dragging Tory fundamentalists, some of whose households have not observed the within of a state school for generations.

Hunt received a riff going about the Lib Dems joining Labour to stop the scandalous hire of unqualified teachers. He conjured up an up to date vision of Evelyn Waugh’s Llanabba college (yes, it is in Wales), run by a dodgy Dr Fagan, awash with paedophile teachers and innocent, unqualified Paul Pennyfeather, a victim of Bullingdon Club bullies, possibly led by von Boris.

It was a good try but Gove stored insisting there are fewer Paul Pennyfeathers in our colleges than in 2010, just a lot more of them in free of charge schools. He also had exciting urging Labour MPs who he recognized as Blairites, such as Luciana Berger, to stick to their fallen leader’s vision for academic excellence, which Brownite counter-revolutionaries had overthrown. Labour Wales is an object lesson in what not to do, mentioned the ex-militant Scot. It was shameless, but fulfilling.

Currently being Gove he sidestepped ideas that, following almost 4 years in office, he may bear some obligation for our disappointing Pisa. The OECD says it is far also soon, he explained. That is not what you advised me following four many years in your job, explained David Blunkett.

But practically nothing stops Gove for lengthy. When Tory Peter Bone quoted a headteacher saying the secretary of state “is a dreadful individual and absolutely hopeless” but has the correct policies, he took it as a compliment. I can in no way be as well-known as you, he advised Bone. Pisas all round.

Michael Gove can"t resist a slice of Pisa point-scoring | Michael White