Education Secretary’s Controversial Interview: A Comedy of Errors
In a series of unfortunate events, the Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, had a rather terrible day yesterday. During an interview with ITV News about the crumbling concrete crisis leading to school closures, Keegan unknowingly uttered a profanity-laden rhetorical question: “Has anyone ever acknowledged that you’ve done a remarkable job because everyone else has been inactive?” Unfortunately, the interview itself obliterated any possibility of receiving such recognition. It was a disaster.
For those who enjoy cringe-worthy moments on TV, Gillian’s day got even worse. She was made to watch a clip of herself on Sky News, with split-screen footage capturing her reactions. When the embarrassing part aired, Keegan let out a laugh. Some have labeled this as heartless, but it was likely an involuntary nervous reaction to witnessing the most embarrassing moment of her day, if not her entire decade, on live television. In that moment, I could almost envision her assistant silently biting through his fist in the green room, akin to a scene from the unsettling show Black Mirror.
Naturally, comparisons were drawn between Gillian’s day and the political satire series The Thick of It, which ironically envisioned a future that now mirrors the present. The bumbling Secretary of State Nicola Murray resonated strongly with Keegan’s performance. In fact, during the fateful ITV interview, Gillian attempted to minimize the situation by proclaiming, “Schools can collapse for various reasons. Let’s put things into perspective.” Essentially, she tried to downplay the concerns of parents fixated on one problem among many.
While many may have lost sympathy for the government, it’s important to note that Keegan, unlike some of her fellow cabinet members, did not attend Oxford for a PPE degree and actually held jobs outside of politics. She had worked her way up to senior business roles after serving as an apprentice in a car factory in Merseyside at the age of 16. Perhaps, like Nicola Murray, Keegan is not as easy to despise as other inadequate cabinet members. We don’t hate Nicola Murray; we realize she’s not up to the task and understand how she ended up in her current predicament. We can see how her team’s ideas initially seem promising but ultimately make everything worse due to the relentless logic of a deeply dysfunctional system.
This tragicomic loop is now what Rishi Sunak’s administration finds itself trapped in, but with real schools and real children’s lives at stake. The Sunak government doesn’t shape the political climate; instead, it constantly reacts to its self-inflicted messes. Although these failures are often grotesque and unjust, there is an absurd quality to them. The mood can be encapsulated in a single, seemingly endless sentence, like the prime minister defending Gillian Keegan’s statement after defending Lee Anderson’s offensive comment towards migrants. In essence, defending someone’s demand for recognition while explaining that schools could literally collapse sounds ludicrous.
It’s becoming evident to Sunak that late nights spent fixing problems in a cashmere hoodie won’t be enough to resolve this galaxy of messes. Unfortunately, his belief that hard work and attention to detail would suffice is all he has. One official even suggested to Dominic Cummings that Sunak would make a great private secretary or director general, as he excels in improving secondary matters during meetings. However, he falls short of fulfilling the role of prime minister.
It’s hard to argue with that assessment. Sunak became the fifth Conservative prime minister in six and a half years after previous implosions. This revolving door of leaders is a sign of systemic decay. Gillian Keegan is the tenth person to hold the position of education secretary since the Conservatives assumed power in 2010. She is one of five different individuals to hold the role since July of last year. What does the Conservative party expect? What results do they honestly anticipate with these constant changes? Perhaps the other education secretaries are the ones Keegan referred to when criticizing those who have done nothing. Perhaps it’s the media or nameless countries that are faring worse. Maybe the Conservatives have reached a point where they need to attract different voters. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. What truly matters is that the system is entirely dysfunctional, and neither of the main parties has a compelling plan to fix it or undertake the necessary radical overhaul. Without such a plan, we may find ourselves in a similar or worse situation under a Keir Starmer government, which may explain why the leader of the opposition often manages our expectations.
As for the current government, no matter how much action they take now, it feels like they are merely emitting light from a dead star. Rishi Sunak may genuinely believe he can turn things around, but there can only be so many more days like Monday before he realizes he’s been living in a movie where he’s been dead all along.
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