Michael Gove’s contribution to the Leveson inquiry on 29 May was either a bravura or arrogant performance, depending on your point of view. Clearly, Lord Leveson was unimpressed with his comments and the way in which they were expressed. This didn’t worry Mr Gove in the slightest, as some observers noted. He was probably aiming his remarks at a different audience and firing an opening salvo in a bid to become the next prime minister.

If that prospect isn’t worrying enough for anyone with an interest in developing and sustaining an education system that helps pupils flourish, Mr Gove’s favouring of total deregulation of the media, with minimum safeguards, rings alarm bells. If we extrapolate this to education policy, his aim is clear: to create a system of provision characterised by as much choice as possible. Put another way, the creation of a fragmented and incoherent model of schooling may be with us sooner than we think.

Christopher Robertson, School of Education, the University of Birmingham.