Byline: QUENTIN LETTS on a speech attacking decades of school failure

WITH his rubbery lip and splayed feet, Michael Gove is not an obvious revolutionary. Tory education spokesman Gove dresses smartly - after an antiseptic, managerial fashion - but he is one of those people of whom it could be said that the dark suit wears him rather than vice versa.

Everything looks a little new on him. His shirt may have just come out of the Marks and Sparks packaging. The shoes look as though their leather soles are still unscratched. He could do with putting on some weight. Here is a candidate for extra malt tag heuer replica from matron.

When I knew him first 20 years ago he was a pleasingly portly youth who wore three-piece tweeds and cast longing glances at county girls with meaty hips. There was one particular lovely called Jean, as I recall. The young Gove had firm, Rightwing views.

Although the facade has altered - those tweeds must now flap about him like old balloons and his National Health spectacles have yielded to contact lenses - his sympathies remain snortingly anti-Left. His gingerish Scots accent has stayed the same, too.

Yesterday he made a speech which was adored by the activists as much as it will be hated by the teaching unions and their allies in the equality battalions. Mr Gove stood at the lectern, blinking slowly, and attacked the bureaucracies 'who have been complicit in decades of failures' in our schools.

Note 'decades'. He was attacking here the schools policies not just of the New Labour decade but also of the Major and Thatcher years, and before. This was more than a mere knock-the-Government speech. It was an assault on long years of statist interference.

Mr Gove kicked the dumb-downers - specifically the wet lettuces who reduce science GCSE exams to such feeble questions as: 'Why do nurses leave the room during X-ray sessions: a) for health reasons, b) because their mobile phone might melt, c) because they might get a tan?'

Or: 'Which is healthier - a battered sausage or grilled fish?' As he said that last word he looked down at his notes, as though inspecting something disgusting on his lunch plate. Two years ago Mr Gove's conference speech was almost wrecked by nerves. Yesterday there was no hint of stage fright.

There was some unintentional comedy. He has yet to master a convincing scowl. It owes more to a pony mid-chew on some juicy grass. And when he said, 'I'm going into this with my eyes open', he kept blinking.

BUT the content of Mr Gove's speech was mustard.

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He argued that dumbed-down exams and grotty discipline do most damage to the poor. Having himself been adopted, he knew the joy of being given a second chance in life. This was why he laid into our 'faddy' educationalists.

This may be selling him a little high at present, but there was a hint of Keith Joseph about Mr Gove yesterday.

And I mean that as a compliment.

The morning's other main speech was given by Jeremy Hunt, would-be Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Of those three, sport was the only one given much of a mention.

Mr Hunt is hard to dislike. But is there anything to him beside a pleasant smile and spiky hairdo? We heard nothing from
embroidered patches him about broadcasting standards, journalistic ethics or the future of the newspaper industry. Nor was there the remot

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