Michael Gove: The former Times journalist who uses the media to weave his plots

Two weeks ago supporters of Gove called for the overhaul or scrapping of Ofsted amid accusations that school inspectors are trapped by “progressive” 1960s approaches to learning.

For Sir Michael Wilshaw, appointed by Gove in 2011 with a mission to help drive up standards in England’s failing state schools, the attack was shocking and damaging. Wilshaw was, as he put it, “spitting blood”. “I wanted to express my displeasure, my anger, my outrage at the stuff I read this morning. The stuff I read is completely unfair and unjust.”

He was referring to statements from Civitas, a right-of-centre think tank, demanding a new inspectorate for academies and free schools, the semi-independent schools championed by the Tories.

And then Policy Exchange, a right-wing think tank set up by Gove himself in 2002, has asked teachers to submit examples of contradictory Ofsted inspections in a paper headed: “Is the schools inspectorate fit for purpose?”.

Both inquiries are understood to be underpinned by criticisms that Ofsted inspectors are stifling Gove’s desire to see schools encourage traditional teacher-led lessons. Gove moved quickly and in a statement he covered Wilshaw in chocolate and then licked him with love. "Sir Michael Wilshaw is a superb professional and an outstanding chief inspector. He is making the changes Ofsted needs to help raise standards further," Gove said in the statement issued by the Department for Education. "No one working for me has had anything to do with any campaign against him or briefing against him. No one working for me has sought to undermine his position. Anyone who did would be instantly dismissed."

Well someone did get dismissed and it was Wilshaw’s greatest ally at Ofsted, baroness Morgan, formerly Sally Morgan, gatekeeper to Tony Blair at Downing Street, and supporter of academies and free schools.

Morgan was outraged and immediately saw her sacking as part of a Tory plot to get rid of Labour supporters in influential positions of power. But she and David Laws, the schools minister, who supports her and could be described as “spitting blood” over her dismissal, are missing the point.

This is not about Morgan but about the eventual removal of Wilshaw. Despite his portrayal by the teacher unions as pantomime villain, Wilshaw is a serious educationalist and stands firm against some of the barmy ideas emanating from the education department.

Gove likes to call anyone who is against his changes part of “The Blob”, referring to a 1950s film where The Blob is an amoeba-like alien mass which nothing has been able to stop. Gove sees himself battling The Blob’s hold over teacher training, classroom standards and qualifications.

It could well be that Wilshaw, in Gove’s eyes, became part of The Blob when he said recently in an interview with The Observer that England's 164 state-funded grammar schools were holding back poorer pupils from getting on in life and were stuffed full of middle-class kids" and he dismissed growing calls for more grammars.

This may have been spotted by Sir David Bell, a former head of Ofsted, who left that job to become permanent secretary to the Department of Education only to be sacked by Gove, presumably for being part of The Blob.

Bell has entered the media fray in a blog on the Conversation site. He said: “There is a far wider group of non-Blobberati voices across the schools sector, higher education, industry and the voluntary sector, who offer an intelligent critique of where we are now.

"These people have been broadly supportive of successive governments' education reforms and, as a result, are not so easily dismissed. They believe in improving our education system but they also advocate sensible debate. They should be listened to by politicians of all parties.”

Wilshaw, some time in the future, may not be spitting bloods but leaking it from the wounds in his back where he has been stabbed.

However there may be another twist in the tail. Sir David Normington, the commissioner for public appointments, is a former well-respected permanent secretary at education and will have a huge say in Morgan’s successor.

A likeable man with a towering intellect, he had the nickname “the smiling assassin” when I worked with him in the early 2000s.