Toby Helm’s Twitter Spat With Gove SpAds
Huge handbags on Twitter this week between the Observer’s Toby Helm and the CCHQ @ToryEducation Twitter account. The Tory tweeter told Helm “You’re like Baldwin and Campbell – an activist, not a professional hack”, provoking paroxysms of rage from the Labour Party press office’s favourite broadsheet channel. Particularly after they called Helm a Labour stooge. This will apparently spill over into the paper this weekend when The Observer is going to allege that it is part of a scandalous McBride/Draper style dirty tricks operation. Guido understands that Helm reckons it could bring down Michael Gove…
Judge the robust exchange for yourself:
@toryeducation come on tell us who you are. You know who I am. Let's debate the issue and poll full on. Don't hide you pathetic disgrace.—
Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) January 27, 2013
24% say support has increased, 11% say decreased @tobyhelm You're like Baldwin and Campbell – an activist, not a professional hack—
Tory education news (@toryeducation) January 27, 2013
@toryeducation and no I am not an activist I care about an important issue which you clearly do not as you try to misrepresent it.—
Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) January 27, 2013
@toryeducation you are too cowardly even to say who you are. Let's debate this with the whole lot of figures and people will see your games.—
Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) January 27, 2013
@tobyhelm You were a Labour stooge at the Telegraph and always predicted UK would join triumphant euro—
Tory education news (@toryeducation) January 27, 2013
@toryeducation 18 years at telegraph as a Labour stooge eh? say who you are then we can judge who is the independent thinker here.—
Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) January 27, 2013
It is unclear to Guido whether or not the account is run officially or unofficially from CCHQ or by Gove’s SpAds, or what the exact rules about this would be. As is so often the way with Twitter, exchanges are strongly worded. SpAds are supposed to operate within civil service limitations. A strongly worded written letter of admonishment to a SpAd from the permanent secretary may result. Not exactly enough to bring down the Secretary of State…
UPDATE: Looks like Toby has been down the bookies:
Rush of money for Michael Gove to be next Cabinet Minister out. Odds cut from 25/1 to 8/1.—
Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) February 02, 2013
Just a storm in a teacup.
Now just calm down,and legalise same sex marriage.
Like a storm in a buttercup spun by the brush of Lustrous’ wing.
Gove is one of the good ministers who know what he is doing. He is tying to increase standards in education, only a total idiot will remove Gove from the job he is doing.
What a shame he knows nothing about the reality of teaching!
gove is a stooge
Like most teachers then.
They may be tweeting juvenile drivel, but it is from an official conservative account, and we are paying the salaries of the tweeters!
“Gove is one of the good ministers”
What?!
You’d recognise this instanter if you were in receipt of and gave a good education yourself
Gove demonstrates the two worst characteristics when they appear togerther – ignorance and arrogance. He understands nothing about education but believes he knows better than anyone because he went to school.
You weally think he’ll only therve one term? Thos who will be PM after I lothe in 2015?
@dilligaff makes me laugh when someone takes someone else to task for poor educational standards and does it so ungrammatically
Yawn…………..Slow news day for Guido????
Who the hell believes the Gruniard and the (non) Observer?
You would get almost as much “edukashun” listening to the Kardashians’
Political mongs fiddle whilst the UK burns. Fuck the lt of them.
Well said. The children of Britain have remained uneducated for the last fifty years because bastard politicians are in charge of schools.
er bastard lefty politicians; the sort of public or grammar school educated types who sought to destroy the system that got them to decent universities and then sought to destroy the way forward for bright working class children to enter business or the professions. Disposable scoundrels from Crosland to Balls. Hateful turds every one – and I speak as one who went to a public school as did my father and my children.
Give should be a hero of the left!
This is a desperate attempt by right-wing headbangers to deflect from suffering with pathetic semantic pedantry.
Let them settle this over a duel at dawn!
Condoms and Vaseline at dawn more like with those fuckers
Handbags?
Gove has those socialists rattled
…is the right answer!
The babble only serves to indicate the frustration of those who cannot call the tune.
and not very subtly either
What is the betting that the BBC do not publicise the fact that the US embassy Turkish suicide bombing was by a Marxist radical?
On the matter of Romanian immigrants it comes out that Romanian hackers hacked into the POS of Subway in the USA and stole 50,000 credit card details. Obviously all these stupid people not using cash for a simple sandwich are in trouble.
A company which supplies Halal meat to prisons has had its contract suspended after traces of pork DNA were found in pies and pasties.
The Ministry of Justice said it had withdrawn the products immediately, while justice minister Jeremy Wright said the Prison Service was investigating “as a matter of urgency”.
I’m waiting for human DNA to turn up in our food.
I’m sure you’d find it. Bits of hair and skin from the workers…
Not if you’re vegetarian. Vote Labour.
It has been.In Welsh lamb
Oh yeah boyo.
Remove all meat from their food then, go veggie, charge them for all meals, prayer mats, east facing rooms etc. Any chance of non Hal.al slaughter for the meat of the rest of us, no, thought not.
Who gives a shit. Gove will be gone in 2 years anyway regardless of what this guy Toby Helm says(whoever he is anyway)
Much ado about nothing IMHO.
“I can see he’s not in your good books,’ said the messenger.
No, and if he were I would burn my library.
Wonderful line.
(Only I would never burn mine!)
But what could Gove have done to get the left all in a bind ?
Or is this part of the long stream of spin which is going to pass for Labour’s 2015 election campaign of contrition by micturition ?
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love
… and lending money to someone you thought was a friend.
A friend in need … needs to go ask someone he/she doesn’t know. (Aesoppysod).
Being effective as a minister always gets the left in a bind, especially in the very rare case of the Minister being Labour and not a hypocrite.
Argueing about polling figures on Twitter is hardly the same as setting up a website to spread false accusations about your opponents sex live.
Twitter? This must be important then.
Sounds more like titter to me, titter ye not
Labour and their stooges cry “foul” after subjecting everyone to 16+ years of foul, dirty tricks, lies, smears, propaganda and slurs. They just love to dish it out but hate to take it.
Bastards.
Yeah. And what a good job we did of the economy. Vote Labour.
This is a plot on the part of the Tories to discredit a good journalist, i.e., one who doesn’t work for the Murdochs! Of course it’s Gove who’s behind all of this! I always knew, and have always said, he’s a wrong’un!
twatson is everything that’s wrong with the foul, corrupt labour party of today.And since it no longer supports the real working classes it no longer has a relevance in the UK.
What a lovely man – not. Full of spite and bile and looks as if his big fat head is about to explode.
You should visit his constituency West Bromwich.
It is as if a Pakistan small town was tranferred directly into our Midlands.
Gove is the best Minister in this sorry Govt – by a country mile – and the best Ed Sec since 1944.
So the chances of him being removed are precisely ZERO.
He doesn’t appear to have sorted out the Rotherham / UKIP / Child Snatching issue yet, otherwise would 100% agree.
Hopefully that is still work in progress and not forgotten.
Ministers are not removed because they are bad, or kept because they are good. However, to remove Gove would be dangerous, as it would turn him into a threat to Dave, and that is a compelling reason for keeping him in his post.
Protestations not accepted. Very wise.
+100
oh, get her!!
he is the only one who seems to rattle Liebours cage, apart from Fatcher, nice to know theirs still a Conservative in the Conservatives.
They have given up on Dave Boy and his snow loving friend (alegedly), Dave seems to be being his disappearing trick again and Gideon is keeping his head down (strange that, Gordy seemed keeping himself to him self when doing the same jobbie while the unmentionable one was swanning about)
Could it be that Dave is doing a Gordon (Bennet) Brown and seeking a future new job in the UN etc on international aid missions?
Seems as if gay marriage could be his political death ratttle if he loses any more Conservative voters and activists. He could well end up with the political incompetency reputation that Gordon Brown managed with economic incompetency.
“knows theirs still” – another victim of the Crossland/Williams mafia. Mr Gove has his work cut out trying to eradicate 50 years of illiteracy.
The Ministry of Justice is suspending one of the suppliers of meat to prisons after it discovered that Halal pies and pasties may contain traces of non-Halal meat.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said the incident involved traces of pork.
Its director Juliet Lyon said: “This is not a matter of dietary preference but of Islamic law.
“There are clear hospital and prison rules that halal meat must be on the menu.
Why ?? Islamic law applies in muzzie lands not England.
The underling question is who suddenly decided to do DNA tests on the meat origins of prison Pies?, expect multi-million compensation pay outs again to avoid another Indian Mutiny.
Quite a few prisoners convert to Islam inside. Amongst other reasons they get Fridays off (in addition to Sunday) The Halal food is often better also.
Personally I am all in favour of Islamic law for prisoners who follow Mo. Firstly ee can flog them, then cut off their hands, then stone them. Finally when they get too friendly in the showers they can be executed. I can’t see a downside.
Yes , nice to know I officially live under Islamic law .
I’ve had Muslim friends who eat pork – only nut-jobs stick to religious dietary requirements
The only reason desert dwellers do not eat pork is simply because half cooked pig will likely kill you. The locals discovered that 2500+ years ago which is why they chose not to eat it – just in case it was not prepared properly and it was a long walk to the nearest A&E tree.
How the fuck that came to be embedded in rules for prisoners in England is one of life’s eternal mysteries. If these people committed no crimes, they would not be inside in the first place. We should stop acceding to every single one of their demands and tell them to fuck off back where they came from if they don’t like living under OUR system.
After we’re married do we get a married couples allowance?
Dave is not in favour of a married couples allowance any more, which has a strange kind of logic to it as he has just legislated to destroy the generally accepted concept of a marriage (5000 years of history wiped away with an edict).
Gideon and I are totally opposed to the very idea of a married couples allowance.
We’re determined to lose the next election and want to alienate as many voters as possible.
For our next trick, we’re going to daily bum-sex compulsory.
Wouldn`t be surprised if Clegg engineers a tax concession for the married bummers and none for the rest.
Why is a “marriage allowance” needed? Everybody now gets an individual tax code and those with kids get allowances for them.
So why should single childless persons subsidise the feckless? Them as has kids should damn well pay for them and if they can’t they should not make them in the first place.
Essential interview worth reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/30/ed-balls-interview-bitch_n_1926677.html
Google me and vote Labour.
I wouldn’t give a second of my time to read anything the worthless bullyballs said.
Fine, but googling the moniker can be therapeutic.
Good pic of Balls in N@z! uniform cruisin’ for a$$ in that masterly work by the genius Hassan…
Vote Labour !!! (You know you want to…)
Ah a labour conspiracy to bring down Gove because he’s finally succeeding in making education in the UK good quality after bullyballs trashed it all with his tongue in cheek ‘every child matters’ meaning no aspirations and no competition and no achievements!!
They’ll not succeed, too many parents are seeing the benefits that he’s bringing our children.
Toby Young’s takedown of Socialist thoughts on schooling
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100200871/the-guardians-latest-attack-on-michael-gove-is-an-hysterical-ill-informed-rant/
Gove is destroying education one small anachronistic step at a time.
Whats left to destroy after 40 years of socialist dogma that was aloud to infest state education in this country
“aloud” ? Are you merely thinking that or was it a deliberate spelling error?
Or are you yet another victim of the left’s dumbing down experience at this moment in time when you get down to the nitty gritty going forward?
“Aloud”? You mean shouted or screamed from the rooftops as happens with all left wing propaganda.
You’re all a bunch of cùnts.
New ‘poll tax’ blow for UK’s poorest Indi
Something very wrong about the picture that heads this article. Anyone notice what I have?
http://ind.pn/XkhyDS
Tallboys in the front, lowboys in the rear ?
“Said the Cat, to the readers everywhere:
‘Do you see what I see?’ (what I see what I see)…”
Hmmm, this probably would have been funnier about a month-and-a-half ago for Christmas, and not so much now for Groundhog Day.
BTW, Punxsutawney Phil, the official US Groundhog, has failed to see his shadow, a portent of a mild rest of the winter– which means jackshit to those people who will be shoveling snow a month from now.
Photo taken in middle of summer, and run in middle of winter ?
Actually makes the subject being spoken about seem a lot less serious than it is. Picture of house covered in snow, or grey clouds and rain would have left a much more negative take on the article.
OK. I thought it would be immediately apparent. I was mistaken. Ask yourselves this:
How many cars/vans are in your street right now?
How many do you see in that picture?
Are the Indi trying to tell us that the poorer house owners don’t have any cars/vans? There is even a workman up a ladder. Where is his van? Did he carry his ladder there from the next town? It is like a picture taken from the 1930s. Except they had more cars/vans even then.
I find that very odd, surreal even. Next look at the roofs. How many TV aerials do you see? There are some but only a few. Is it a stage set? Coronation Street?
I was going to say you have spotted a window licker…
A Google composite, perhaps ? (The perspective seems awry on the nearest house.) Maybe they had to move all the cars so that the Googlemobile could get through.
Ah ! I know : it’s that day of the week when all the scroungers go in their Mercs to sign on.
Good grief the Independent is even worse than the Daily Worker.
Even my browser refuses to drill down into it.
Anyone seen my dummy?
Another fine example of self-reference.
Oh dear, my father never let me read a comic of the the Beano or the Dandy, it always had to be the Beezer or the Eagle.
“Judy” and “Bunty”were my faves….
I used to get the Wizard and Adventure. 3d each every week – a big chunk of my paper round earnings in those days!
Federal EU is very likely impossible under current set up and following current approach.
http://www.europeanfederalistpapers.eu/index.php/en/papers/published-papers/45-nr-11-klinkers-september-2012
In short:
From organizational theory perspective the EU is already dead.
i) Public administration experts have had zero input
ii) The Commission and other political institutions of the EU are too remote from the people.
iii) Too many chiefs: At least four, and they are mutually exclusive politically.
iv) There is a positive feedback dynamic at present: Essentially adding treaties and obsessing over small detail without making progress on big detail is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result.
In order for Federal Europe to proceed, a new formal EU treaty will be required.
Kind of everything we knew already, certainly in line with UKIPs explanations. Even those in favor of Federal Europe have realized this.
Don’t give them any more ideas!
I see Serg Wilson is an hon. how wonderful-Capt Manwearing not to happy though.
So everyone, the line is that he’s just another one of those torygraph Labour stooges. Don’t argue, just retweet it.
WTF is Gove always backing up that David Ross f*%kwit and his acadamies? and why does David Ross need Mark Bolland on the board of his academies.Ross has failed to produce accounts for 2 years yet its a listed company , Company Law breaker – and ignores regulation – see Cosalt plc. Precisely the wrong people are being allowed to have influence over our children
I’ve just read the Helm article. Pious, sanctimonious, self-pitying and very thin. Gove will piss himself when he reads this and so will his SPads. If Helm’s tweets didn’t prove he’s disappeared up his own arse, this article does.
This twitter handle is run by the education press officer at cchq, not by a spad.