Michael Gove speech sends students to sleep

Yesterday I was thanking Diane Abbott for adding to my collection of interviewees walking out of interviews (HERE).

Today, my thanks go to former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott (@johnprescott) for re-tweeting this gem posted by Political Scrapbook (@PSbook), where some interesting comments have already begun to appear.

For me, it poses at least three questions:

1. If the first thing to be done when preparing a speech is to analyse the audience (see my books), one has to ask who writes this stuff?
2. As taxpayers, are we getting value for money from the speechwriters at the Department of Education?
3. And, as a former president of the Oxford Union and debating adjudicator, shouldn't Gove be able to do rather better than this when it comes to addressing an audience of school children?

More on our esteemed Secretary of State for Education

• Academies, academies, academies: Michael Gove's 3 Rs?
• Michael Gove: calling all teachers and parents
• Clapping out the conference season