en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:45:36 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Michael Gove Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-29T12:29:07Z In a meeting last week a colleague mentioned, in passing, a report he’d read that referred to an institution’s “Victorian” approach. Was that, another colleague asked, intended as a compliment? The laughter was spontaneous, loud and long. Michael Gove Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:14 GMT 2009-06-22T11:22:14Z Just as there are surefire ways to lose an argument (compare your antagonist with the Nazis, confuse cash and real terms, suggest that Paraguay has some innovative solutions worth emulating when reforming asylum policy) so there are some safe routes to avoid defeat in debate. Michael Gove Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:42 GMT 2009-06-14T08:32:43Z The British have developed an elaborate yet widely understood code that allows the terrible truth to be hinted at without giving gratuitous offence. “That looks very comfortable,” applied to any item of clothing, means it would be rejected by most tramps as inconsistent with their dignity. Michael Gove Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:30 GMT 2009-06-15T05:47:09Z It's like finding Liam Gallagher tapping noisily at the no-smoking sign in a pub, or hearing Roy Keane deliver a school speech day address in which he explains that it matters not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game. Channel 4 has censored one of its own programmes for a lack of decorousness. Michael Gove Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-15T05:47:15Z I don’t know whether it’s in the Anglo bit, or on the Saxon side, but there’s a chromosome somewhere in the DNA of the British that gives our bodies a very different chemistry from the rest of the world’s.