Gove at the Grotto

What do you want for Christmas, Minister?

I want to be liked, please, Santa.

Who doesn’t like you, Minister?

Quite a few people, I guess, but by-and-large it’s teachers.

Why aren’t you liked by teachers, Minister?

I don’t know Santa. I give them a curriculum just like the one I loved at my independent school that helped to make me who I am today and which I want to share with all our students to make them better human beings, so I don’t know why teachers dislike me - do you Santa?

What, like you? Not really....

.....No, I don’t mean that Santa, I mean do you know why teachers don’t like me?

Yes, Minister, it’s because you’re a knob.

A knob? What does that mean Santa?

It’s the sort of word teachers can use without fear of litigation to describe an errant child in the classroom, Minister: a colloquialism in many respects to characterise a miscreant or a dullard or a prat, but it’s more humorously pc, for example, than those last two words.

That doesn’t seem fair or accurate Santa.

I couldn’t agree more, Minister. I’d go for something epistemologically apt for you like imbecillus.

Ah, I understand now – the meaning of knob that is – but it seems jolly unkind to call me that, Santa.

Well, Michael – you don’t mind me calling you Michael do you Minister, that title being a misnomer for a knob – but I have overheard, in my travels and visiting teachers’ homes on Christmas Eve nights when the last person they should be thinking of is you, shouts of ‘Gove is a fuckwit’ and ‘Gove is an asswipe’, so perhaps you should consider yourself lucky if we actually stick with knob.

Well, when you put it like that Santa. I suppose it is an important semantic nuance.

I don’t think there is a linguistic gradation for being a twat.

Pardon Santa?

Nothing, Michael. Could you please piss off now as I have loads of other needy customers to see?

So you don’t think I’m going to be liked by teachers this year Santa?

Not a flying pigs-in-blankets chance. I deal in people’s dreams, Michael; I don’t perform miracles. You’ll need to speak with a different cultural construct for that.