... not for announcing the wrong list of schools for the BSF cuts, but the way in which he handled it.
Under the old fashioned notion of "Ministerial Responsibility", the Secretary of State takes all of the credit and blame for everything which goes on in their department. It would have been easy for Gove to take the Labour way-out and blame some anonymous Civil Servant for the balls-up and to suspend a junior official or two. After all, he didn't do this - all he did was read the information he had been provided with out, which turned out to be wrong. He could have dodged the whole issue.
But he didn't do that. He took responsibility, came to the House of Commons and owned up. He said sorry.
This government hasn't been great so far in terms of re-establishing the power of the legislature - the elections for committee places has been a good start, but government by press release has appeared to have clung on even after the departure of New Labour.
However this move by Michael Gove has given me faith that at least one senior minister respects parliament and is prepared to adhere to Ministerial Responsibility.
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