Have David Cameron’s Etonians just given up on state school reform?

During his time as Education Secretary, Michael Gove would often have occasion to quote a passage of Machiavelli: ‘There is nothing more difficult, more doubtful of success or more dangerous than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.’

In the end, it seems, Gove’s enemies triumphed. They shouted more loudly than those who benefited from the new schools, and persuaded the Prime Minister that his Education Secretary was losing an argument — so he should walk the plank. The teachers’ unions succeeded in posing as the voice of teachers, even though only a fraction of teachers voted for the strikes earlier this month. Opinion polls that sample the views of non-parents were another factor in Gove’s removal. As was the hostility of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.