On experts

Posted on

Michael Giove said on Friday that the British people had had enough of experts. I think he was referring to economists at the time. But it is at odd moments like this that the true person is revealed.

Here after all is a man who is best known for his time as education secretary. During that time he tried to destroy expertise. And self expression through the arts. Whose idea of progress was to bring back Latin. And a rigid discipline of exams that more were intended to fail. All of which is part of his plan to create a product, not a person.

This is, then, a man who cannot afford experts. They, after all, question things. Like why it is good to be selfish. Or to want to discriminate. Or to increase inequality. The underlying philosophy of all of those is well known in early years with education. It takes no expertise to develop them.

And this is the level at which Gove is aiming.

Not long ago we worried about Austria electing a far-right leader. We should be looking closer to home. It's really quite a small step from not liking experts to beginning to move against them. Just look at Poland, Hungary and Turkey. Gove would seem to be in that mould.

Worry.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: