I always defended Michael Gove. Then I met him | 30 June 2016

This piece first appeared in The Spectator on 15 March 2014. 

A few weeks ago, I was a guest at a huge tea party for children’s authors, publishers and commentators at the South Bank, but the atmosphere, over the cupcakes and finger sandwiches, was decidedly frosty. There were three keynote speakers and their speeches all targeted a man so vile and destructive that the audience visibly recoiled every time his name was mentioned. He was, of course, Michael Gove — and I wasn’t sure I should tell anyone that I had always rather admired him and, moreover, was about to interview him for this magazine. It might be better to keep quiet in much the same way that Vidkun Quisling would have been well advised not to mention his wartime visits to Berlin.

You think I’m exaggerating? One of the speakers, Patrick Ness, a brilliant, prize-winning novelist, described Gove as ‘appalling, ignorant and damaging’.