AT time of writing, though this may change by the time this is printed, we have had three education secretaries in three days — that makes eight since 2014. In fact, when I started writing this we were on education secretary number seven, Michelle Donelan, but such is the speed at which politics happens these days my original article was defunct before the metaphorical ink was dry.

Alas, you will not get to hear many of my thoughts on the two-day minister, a former marketing executive for World Wrestling Entertainment — her qualification being that she was used to working with overpaid fakes mired in scandal and so would fit in well with Johnson and his band of bootlickers and toadies.

After being in the job for less than two days Donelan clearly saw which way the wind was turning and jumped ship. I’m looking for a wrestling pun here but feel like I’d be grasping.

Donelan now holds the record for the shortest serving education secretary on record, destroying the previous record of two months and 24 days held by the deceased Conservative MP Edward Stanhope. That being said Michelle Donelan also holds the title of “least hated education secretary” of the last decade — though with Gove and Williamson being her competition it wasn’t much of a field.

Having served for only 36 hours she did what teachers across the land have wished all politicians would do. Shut up and let us teach. There were, for a time, actually barely any ministers in the Department for Education due to the Great Resignation (the problem is no-one wants to work anymore).  

National Education Union general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “At the rate of resignations, there is no prospect right now of an education department fit to oversee any of the challenges of the coming weeks.”

I must disagree: this is a golden age for education, free from the constant political interference that has been such a toxic part of the job for so long. All we need now is for Ofsted inspectors to go on strike, indefinitely.

The scale of mismanagement in Britain is reaching grotesque proportions. The government is mired in corruption and stained with ineptitude. The cost of living is spiralling out of control as wealth is transferred from the poor to the rich. Industrial relations are in the worst state for decades with a summer of discontent looming.

The RMT are leading the way though they are by no means the first union to strike this year. Strike Map has mapped over 500 strikes since its inception with more being added almost daily. Now the mighty CWU are set to strike, with tens of thousands set to withdraw their labour.

The government, clearly worried about facing a wave of teacher strikes later in the year — or, more likely, getting their excuses in early — has come back with a pay offer for teachers that, while improved, is still, in real terms, a pay cut.

The Schools Bill, the one bit of homework that the previous education secretary, now Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi actually handed in, has fallen flat on its face and been returned stamped “must try harder.”

Absurdly, the Prime Minister has appointed Cleverly as the new education secretary. Cleverly by name... clearly, the Prime Minister found his name amusing as I can think of no other reason why he would appoint someone so lacking in the requisite skills to run a class on piss-ups in Downing Street, let alone the Department for Education.

Cleverly’s experience in the field of education stems from his private education at Riverston School and Colfe’s School in London.

Unfortunately, Cleverly did not study history which led him to claim, wrongly, that anti-slavery campaigner and MP William Wilberforce was “a Tory.” So lacking are the achievements of the Conservative Party that they have to resort to stolen glory.

The MP for Braintree in Essex, after a failed career in the army, completed an undergraduate degree in hospitality management, something which I am sure will come in useful when hosting parties at Number 10 for his erstwhile boss.

We also saw the appointment of Andrea Jenkyns who, in her first act as parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department for Education, promptly stuck her middle finger up at a crowd of voters.

Not metaphorically as her predecessors have but physically this time, leading to calls for her resignation. Perhaps Jenkyns can blame her poor behaviour on the concussion she received after swinging on her chair in 2019.

Marx wrote of bourgeois democracy, “the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” Yet now we are once again in a situation where we have no say even on who is going to oppress us.

We have a Prime Minister who has resigned but he is refusing to leave Number 10 while he waits for the Conservative Party to pick our next leader. As teachers we have all been in this situation. One particular naughty child pushes his luck once too many times and is sent to the headteacher’s office but he refuses to leave.

In my training year of teaching I was advised that if this happened I should simply ask the remaining pupils to collect their belongings and move to another classroom. So everyone, pack up your bags. We’re moving to Cuba.

Robert Poole is a teacher, NEU activist and co-founder of Strike Map — Twitter: @StrikeMapUK.