Britain’s flamboyantly weird education secretary Michael Gove sometimes seems to me to be some kind of secret saboteur, bent on discrediting Tories as out-of-touch rich nutjobs. Education budgets are being hacked and slashed, teachers being laid off, class sizes ballooning — so he proposes stuff like “Let’s give every child a Bible!” and “Let’s make Latin mandatory!”
But his latest suggestion is weird even by Gove’s lights: “Let’s buy the Queen a £60M yacht! Because that will help us all celebrate the diamond jubilee and put us in a great mood!”
Clegg who was responding to a question about the idea after giving a speech on the economy, said he wasn’t going to comment on leaks – Gove’s letter punting the idea – but joked about “haves and have-yachts”.
In the confidential leaked letter that Gove sent to fellow ministers, he urged: “In spite, and perhaps because of, the austere times, the celebration should go beyond those of previous jubilees and mark the greater achievement that the diamond anniversary represents.” He suggested “a gift from the nation to her majesty” such as “David Willetts’s excellent suggestion of a royal yacht”.
Tom Watson, the Labour party chairman, said the whole idea showed how out of touch Gove was. In a blog, he posted that although the diamond jubilee should be celebrated, Michael Gove has shown he is “out of touch” with this proposal.
Downing Street rejects diamond jubilee royal yacht idea
(Image: Mega-Yacht, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from simiant’s photostream)