Feral Goats and Heil Gove

Right to roam stops at the wall 

The chase

As I returned from my morning run I was surprised to find 8 feral goats nibbling away in the garden. Fortunately, they seemed averse to snowdrops and there was not much else to sate their appetites. I have always enjoyed watching feral goats although they have usually turned up near the summit of remote mountains and they quickly make themselves scarce. This was different, they had invaded my space, stared me out and threatened the garden. Their right to roam was getting personal.

I retrieved my camera from the house and returned to find them disappearing into the next garden over a wall I had rebuilt last year to keep out the wildlife. I followed them into the woods as they herded along with no particular hurry but always managing to keep 20 metres ahead of me. Their oversized horns made me think that this was about the right distance. I eventually gave up the pursuit as they went to inspect the primary school grounds. I returned to check the damage in the garden, it seemed minimal and the heathers that they had been grazing on had needed a trim anyway.

But thinking about why the goats had gone along to the primary school prompted a thought about another feral fiend, the inexplicable Minister of Education, Michael Gove. His activities are indeed feral and he also sports a set of horns, in the form of glasses. He has been invading state schools recently trying to make them more like public schools, by which he means private schools. He was not content with ditching the building or rebuilding of 700 state schools that were in the capital programmes of education authorities and ready to roll. Shortly after being installed he offered bribes for schools to become academies, which is no more than a dastardly form of privatisation and, incidentally, a way of opting out of the national curriculum. He has castigated the performance of state schools, got rid of his independent inspector and offended the majority of teachers as this Heil Gove video implies. And still, the more populist national press humour him, this parody provides a bit of balance.

Do not trust this feral politician