Michael Gove offers Simon Cowell guided tour of ‘hundreds’ of state primary schools

Michael Gove has been practising one of his favourite sports: winding up Simon Cowell. Last year, the education secretary lambasted the music mogul for encouraging youngsters to live the X-Factor dream at the expense of their studies. Today, Gove got even more personal when speaking on LBC:

‘I issue this challenge to Simon now. I don’t think he will find a better school to send his child to than the British state schools that I can show him. I think that as someone who, to his credit, has absolutely no airs and graces, I think that he would recognise that state schools in this country are now better than ever.’

He added, ‘If Simon wants me to show him round a couple or even hundreds of fantastic state primary schools, it would be a pleasure.