Justine Greening’s departure is no great loss

You could, I suppose, feel sorry for Justine Greening if you were a nicer person than me, not just for losing her job, but for being in the job after it had been occupied by Michael Gove. Mr Gove had the radical, indeed revolutionary perception that it was a scandal that there should be such a gulf in expectation and outcomes between state and private schools. And he acted on that basis – the best bit of his programme, in my view, being his hardening up of the curriculum, so state school pupils don’t get fobbed off with dud qualifications in dud subjects. Exams are harder, and harder to pass than they were; with every fall in the pass rate, I cheer up more.

Justine Greening, someone tell me, what did she ever do at Education? She maintained that she had a mission to increase social mobility, but the best way to do that, as Mr Gove did, was to impose on state schools some of the expectations about outcomes that characterise the private sector.