The education secretary is clearly driven by a sense of mission so powerful that it can obscure good sense and make him believe he does not need to bother to research his subject
Today's decision by Michael Gove to reprieve, partially, the highly successful and popular system of school sport partnerships reflects well, in some respects, on this government.
At least it reflects well on some key members of it – notably David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley.
Those three saw pretty quickly that Gove's ideologically based and ill-researched decision was both wrong in itself, and politically disastrous.
As a fierce backlash gathered force, they realised that with the Olympics approaching and close to 100% of headteachers supporting SSPs, to have abolished them would have looked like vindictive vandalism and a betrayal of the young.
It would have been a decision taken for no better reason than that the SSPs were set up under Labour and involved a national structure (or, as the ideologues would say, "a wasteful bureaucracy").
The amount of correspondence received by No 10 on this one issue (masses) can have left Cameron in no doubt what to do. Good for him.
But let's not forget that today's decision reflects appallingly badly on those who made it necessary – notably Gove and his ministers. The decision to abolish SSPs was described to me by one minister outside Gove's department as "atrocious" shortly after it was taken. Gove did not bother to go to one SSP or sports college to look at how the system worked before deciding he knew best. He did not discuss his move with several other ministers with far more knowledge of the issues than himself.
His staff would not answer questions on the subject from journalists when the complaints were raised. Gove and his staff peddled shockingly misleading statistics about the amount of sport in schools in a way that was both irresponsible and deeply insulting to those in the field who knew they did not reflect the true picture.
Gove – always so charming and thoughtful when he appears before cameras or in interviews – is clearly driven by a sense of mission so powerful that, as in this case, it can obscure good sense and make him believe he does not need to bother to research his subject. He has given way now, but only after being dragged kicking and screaming. He was caught out over the hasty way he announced the scrapping of Building Schools for Future. Now on this he has been found out again.
Yes we should be thankful he has budged – but if this whole episode is an indication of how much thought goes into other major changes being planned for children attending state schools, then we should be very, very worried indeed.