Oh dear. Michael Gove, the education secretary, will be displeased. Standards must be maintained, after all. Will he order gaffe-prone Gavin to stay behind for detention, or tell him to write 200 lines (“I must not make myself look like a complete twat in public”), or send him off on a character-building cross-country run?
Gavin Barwell is the Conservative MP for Croydon Central and has now been put in charge of lost property in the Tory whips’ office at Westminster.
Barwell’s previous government job was as a parliamentary private secretary to the Secretary of State for Education, Gove. “I’m just a bag-carrier,” Gav said at one point, claiming to have no influence on Tory education policy.
The MP for the Whitgift Foundation: Gavin Barwell
Barwell had all the benefits of an education at a posh private school, and then Cambridge University.
Now, Barwell is a governor at his old school and sits on the board of its multi-million-pound managing charity foundation which oversees three large independent schools in Croydon.
On Thursday, Barwell held an event to lecture the little people his constituents about education.
It included what’s turned out to be a rather embarrassing slide presentation that included a call for “… stronger emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar…”. Oh.
Dan Quayle, the exceedingly dim former United States vice-president, once went into a school and demonstrated that he could not spell “potatoe” correctly. It marked the end of his political career.
Barwell may need to conduct some rigorous soul-searching after this latest gaffe.
Coming to Croydon
- Croydon Arts Network meeting, Feb 15
- Chinese New Year children’s event, Upper Norwood Library, Feb 18
- This War! St Gertrude’s Theatre group, Feb 19-22
- Welsh myths children’s event, Upper Norwood Library, Feb 20
- Norwood Society talk, Upper Norwood Library, Feb 20
- Mr Pooter comes to Croydon, Feb 20-22
- Warm and Well event, Upper Norwood Library, Feb 22
- Stop the Incinerator fund-raiser, Feb 24
- Fairtrade Film night, Antenna Cafe, Haynes Lane, Feb 27
- Fairtrade event, Upper Norwood Library, Mar 1
- Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society, Mar 3
- Patchwork and quilting workshop, Upper Norwood Library, Mar 3
- Fairtrade stall at Food Market, Haynes Lane, Mar 8
- Upper Norwood Library Book Club, Mar 15
- Norwood Society talk, Upper Norwood Library, Mar 20
- Croydon Half-marathon, Mar 30
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