Politicians often complain that when they try to enact reforming policies, they face resistance from what Michael Gove famously called “the Blob” - the amorphous mass that fights to cling to the status quo consisting of civil servants, specialist academics, lobby groups and trade unions.
Currently the Levelling-Up secretary, which means he oversees local government, Gove coined the term during his spell in charge of the Department for Education a decade ago. It’s certainly true he had to face some bruising battles there. On the other hand, he managed to win many of them, and left a substantial legacy of reform – notably the establishment of dozens of free or charter schools, funded by taxpayers but independent of local authorities.
Some see him as a divisive figure. But like him or loathe him, it has to be said that the distinguishing features of his long ministerial career – apart from two short breaks during the premierships of Theresa May and Liz Truss, he has held office continuously since the 2010 general election – have been a formidable grasp of policy detail, and an awareness honed by experience of which particular lever of power a minister needs to pull in order to achieve a given outcome.
Gove’s record of getting things done makes his department’s reaction to this week’s JC investigation encouraging. As we reveal on this week’s front page, mosques that have hosted antisemitic hate preachers have been awarded millions of pounds in grants funded by taxpayers, a fact that a source close to Gove described as “appalling”. However, he didn’t merely opine, but promised “we will be taking action to improve due diligence and seek to exclude organisations that fail to deliver their responsibilities effectively.”
Among the measures that are being considered, I am told, is a requirement that before granting public funds, both central and local government agencies must check with the Home Office and Levelling-Up departments whether they have evidence that the intended recipient has sponsored extremism. It sounds basic. But given that one of the mosques we identified has frequently hosted one imam who described Jews as the “people of envy” who “killed the prophets and messengers” and others have endorsed the supporters of rocket attacks on Israel, it is surely long overdue.
We will of course have to watch this space, but if there is a minister who tends to mean what he says it is Gove – see, for example, the recent arrival of his long-promised Bill that aims to public bodies such as councils joining the BDS campaign against Israel.
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Rishi Sunak (Photo: Getty Images)
However, this seemingly positive news stands somewhat in contrast to the other big political story of the week - Rishi Sunak’s mini-reshuffle and promotion of Grant Shapps as the first Jewish Defence Secretary for three decades.
I have no animus against Shapps. He’s an effective speaker, good on TV, and loyal to the prime minister – not a trivial thing when the Tory Party contains figures such as Nadine Dorries, whose letter to Sunak on resigning as an MP last weekend was clearly designed to cause her party the greatest possible damage.
But having first become a junior minister in 2010, since the end of 2019 Shapps has served successively as transport secretary, home secretary, business secretary and energy secretary, and I regret to say I struggle to see evidence of a lasting legacy in these roles. Moreover, he has no experience at all in defence.
Yet as I am not the first to point out, we live in perilous times. Facing any defence secretary are both the continuing bloodbath wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the huge dangers posed by Russia’s ally Iran, which still strives to acquire nuclear weapons and sponsors its proxies waging terrorist campaigns across the Middle East: not a great time for someone in this role to be learning on the job.
In her primary campaign for the Democrat nomination for the presidency in 2008 that she lost to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton made headway with an attack ad that highlighted her rival’s inexperience: how would he react to the 3am phone call requiring a decision on a suddenly breaking emergency?
It’s not unkind to Shapps to ask the same question of him. No department is more complex and technical than defence, and in none are there so many competing interests requiring critical judgements. Gove took on the Blob in education and won because he stayed in the job for more than four years – coincidentally, roughly the same time as Shapps’s predecessor Ben Wallace, who also happens to be a former military officer.
Wish Shapps luck. I fear he may need it.
