That doesn’t amount to transparency does it, when he promised so much in his campaign then, once in office, it all turned opaque? And he was under immense pressure to publish – they were hardly handed over willingly.

The secret emails, the Mrs. Blurt emails, the arrogant and authoritarian diktat from Dominic Cummings openly encouraging officials to conceal information or to refuse to abide with the public’s right to information and Henry de Zoete deleting emails – such concealment and lack of transparency is breathtaking in its contempt for democracy.

Had the government listened to the public, it would still be giving the Conservatives the benefit of the doubt. But time’s been called. Two years in and voters are fed up with the excuses that BSF was expensive, that Labour left the economy in ruins, that education was “broken”. The reason that polls show a big slump for Cameron is because voters, pinched and broken by unemployment, a failed economy, a two tier school system, are realising that the government has been pulling the wool over their eyes, with the talk of “choice”, “big society” and “autonomy”. What Gove and the posh boys have been doing is pumping out a lot of smoke and mirrors whilst lining their pockets, looking after their own and brown nosing Murdoch and his dubious executives.

Cameron and his minister cronies from Liam Fox to Osborne, Hunt to Gove are looking increasingly like a bunch of self-entitled chinless wonders caught with their hands in the jar, ready to hand out the cookies to their friends and business associates, while the rest of the nation is left to eat bread, if only they could afford it.

And the list of ministerial meetings was only published after intense pressure was put on the PM to publish.

Numbers are great for validation but they must not be used as substitute for proper formal processes of verification. In other words you can use numbers to check systems are doing what you expect them to be doing but somebody needs to understand what they systems are and how they will respond to attempted changes and that seems to be what Gove lacks. Numbers are strong addition to – not a substitute for knowledge and understanding of systems.

Sigh.

…. like publishing 400% more data, listing ministerial meetings, etc.?

I presume that you are a voluntary or paid spin doctor for the Coalition, so perhaps you might be good enough to clarify how you know that the government thought it best not to allow itself to be distracted from a meaningless and pointless demand for consultation (or transparency) and agreed to this amendment?

I am not entirely surprised, given your position, that you consider the consultation process “fatuous” but it is an indication of the government’s contempt for public opinion that they should go through the motions of consultation without really taking much notice of any outcomes if the results are not to their liking.

The government’s obssession with pushing through their ideology, at the cost to the British public and to the greater benefit of the most wealthy who support, financially or politically, the Conservative party, is why the latest polls show the Tories losing a lot of support. As the disastrous economic policies kick in and the double dip recession claims more victims, the public is seeing with greater transparency that the government is made up of ministers whose sense of entitlement in running the country is concerned with looking solely after their own and this extends not to just to the City but to pandering to the Murdoch empire to ensure that his monopoly on the media (now thankfully shot down, thanks to the good work of real investigative journalists at The Guardian) will guarantee a second term in office for Cameron and his “posh boys” (the words of Nadine Dorries’, Conservative MP, – not mine).

Gove is not known for consulting. Or transparency. He made no effort to consult with the teaching profession over his “reforms” and, even more damaging, he, his department and his SPADS have been conducting ministerial business via private emails. One of them, urged colleagues to use their gmail accounts rather than official departmental emails. He is also alleged to have told a senior civil servant, “New Schools Network is not giving out to you, the media or anybody else any figure on ‘expressions of interest’ [from people wishing to set up free schools] for PQs [parliamentary questions], FOIs [Freedom of Information requests] or anything else. Further, NSN has not, is not, and will never answer a single FOI request made to us concerning anything at all.’

Conspiracy theory? I doubt it. The Information Commissioner takes it seriously enough to be investigating whether the private email accounts were intentionally used to conceal government business and information from public and civil service scrutiny.

David Cameron promised a “transparent government” in his election campaign, yet everything Gove and his department does contradicts this, so thank you for confirming that the government only accepted the consultation clause in the Bill to rush through the bill and never took it seriously.

The point of Free School consultations…. is to give the casually interested the impression that a rigorous and democratic process has taken place

No, not really.

The reason these consultations are held is to conform to the law.

During the passage of the Academies Act 2010 through the Lords, opponents of the bill put down an amendment requiring consultations to be held.

Whether there was ever any genuine point to the amendment, er whether it was simply an attempt to derail/delay the legislation by forcing the bill to go ping pong between the Commons and the Lords, I do not know.

In the event, the Government thought it best not to allow itself to be distracted, and therefore simply accepted this pretty meaningless and pointless imposition.

Therefore, you shouldn’t be asking supporters of free schools or the government why this fatuous process is going on – they never wanted or asked for it.