One of the more disgraceful aspects of the Sats scandal is Ed Balls's attempt to deny all responsibility for the fiasco. Michael Gove rightly roasts Balls for this in The Guardian this morning: “Balls is keen on accountability when it suits him. He has used the power of his office to harry successful faith schools and to name and shame those schools the prime minister calls "failing". We hav...

Ed Balls MP, Labour's Schools Secretary, today called on David Cameron and Michael Gove to come clean about the Conservative Party's plans for cuts to education spending. Ed Balls has today written to the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove for the fifth time since the start of April to ask whether the Conservatives would match Labour's extra spending to guarantee a place in schoo...

Schools Secretary Ed Balls is being dragged to the headmaster's office on the last day of term/ordered by the Speaker to the Commons* to answer questions on the SATs fiasco.It may be a surprise to Mr Balls but, judging by what he said yesterday, shadow schools secretary Michael Gove will be well prepared for the event.Launching an inquiry by Sir Richard Sykes into the whole examination system, Mr ...

Conservative education spokesperson Michael Gove, who repeatedly claimed the reason GCSE exam results have consistently improved with Labour was because GCSE exam questions were getting easier, was left dumbstruck after Ed Balls turned the tables on him. As you’ll see in this recording of the Commons, Ed Balls asks Michael Gove to answer just three

Ed Balls MP, Labour's Schools Secretary, today called on David Cameron and Michael Gove to come clean about the Conservative Party's plans for cuts to education spending. Ed Balls has today written to the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove for the fifth time since the start of April to ask whether the Conservatives would match Labour's extra spending to guarantee a place in schoo...

Ed Balls made a statement to the House of Commons this lunchtime on the Baby P case. Michael Gove, responding, said this... The Secretary of State knows that the hon. Members for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), and I have asked to see the serious case review of the handling of baby P’s case. Regrettably, the Secretary of State’s hands are tied, b...

Michael Gove has had a pretty good year, continuing his rise and sparring effectively with Ed Balls along the way. He has a sense of humour, as Conservative Home highlights by spotting this gem from the Commons this week. The whole thing merits reading. Gove is on his feet   "I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Government Front-Bench team for their understanding in allowing me ...

It's a story that risks getting buried (conveniently for the Government?) amid the Budget, but shadow children, schools and families secretary Michael Gove is demanding a "profound apology" from his opposite number in the Government, Ed Balls, over the collapse...

As Co-operative Party Conference kicks off today in Westminster Central Hall, Patrick Wintour in the Guardian trails the announcement that Ed Balls will make later about co-operative trust schools:Ed Balls, the schools secretary and only member of the Co-operative Party in the cabinet*, will today propose that 100 schools over the next two years become co-operative trust schools owned and controll...

Today’s Guardian reports that Labour’s schools secretary Ed Balls is seriously considering a possible ban on British National Party members working as teachers in schools: A source close to the schools secretary, Ed Balls, said there had been several meetings on the issue with teaching unions which are lobbying for a change in teachers’ contracts to