The unions hated Gove because he actually cared about social mobility

There’s an interesting interview in The Guardian this weekend with one of the most famous teachers, or ex-teachers, in Britain, Katharine Birbalsingh. You’ll probably know her. She’s the woman with fabulous hair who got a standing ovation at the Tory Party conference for a speech about a broken education system – ‘it’s broken because it keeps poor children poor’ – which confirmed the existence of ‘a culture of excuses, of low standards”. It was more or less a vindication of Michael Gove, then Education Secretary, and all he stood for.

Now she says she regrets that speech – ‘it ruined my life. I should probably have kept my head down’. She’s been the target of online misogynist and racist abuse; she withdrew from Twitter for two years. ‘Having given that speech it was then difficult to work in the world of education in the state sector. I got quite ill at one point.