Loughton v Gove: Loughton retaliates

Tim Loughton, the sacked former Children’s Minister, is not taking the assault on his reputation by one of Michael Gove’s attack dogs lying down. Yesterday, someone at the education department charmingly described Loughton to The Spectator as “a lazy, incompetent narcissist.”*

To try to prove that he was never lazy,  Loughton has obtained via Commons written questions an ‘incomplete’ list of visits to youth services made by education ministers. It shows that he visited at least 37 before he was sacked, but Michael Gove…well, he does not appear to have visited any. Nor has he been to any schools sports events in the past year, nor visited any children’s residential homes since he joined the Cabinet. Loughton thinks his old boss should get out more.

* Though the author of these remarks was not named, some people think it relevant that the Education Secretary’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, is married to Mary Wakefield, deputy editor of The Spectator.

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• http://twitter.com/francessmith frances smith

  I don’t want to get involved with this internecine warfare between two tory mp’s, after all self destruction could be the best way to bring an end to the tory party.

  but it sounds like pyschological projection to me. It is not uncommon for people who have never dealt with their own personal issues to project their worst characteristics onto others.