How Tory is your partner?

He was busy yesterday launching the new Tory ideas on school discipline but he was also writing a columnn for The Times in which he sets out a quiz that will help you decide whether your partner is too Tory, Tory enough or not at all Tory.  Here's our summary of Michael Gove's column:

Who is your favourite Today presenter?

• Simply Too Tory for words: “I never listen to anything on the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation other than when Vaughan Williams is Composer of the Week on the Third Programme"
• Just Tory Enough: “Evan Davis seems very balanced”
• Not Tory: “It's not about personalities; it's about issues, and until we move away from this presenter-led model of broadcasting to a more radically democratic way of holding power to account, we'll never get anywhere.”

Choice of holiday reading:

• Simply Too Tory for words: Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
• Just Tory Enough: Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
• Not Tory: Anything actually by Josef Stalin

Ideal holiday destination:

• Simply Too Tory for words: The Wagner festival at Bayreuth
• Just Tory Enough: Cornwall
• Not Tory: “Holidays are a trick of the bourgeoisie to make the alienation of wage labour tolerable to those whose eyes have never been opened to the dream of justice - but if you're paying, it's got to be Goa, hasn't it?”

Favourite film:

• Simply Too Tory for words: "The Dam Busters - or, basically, any film in which Jerry gets it in the eye"
• Just Tory Enough: "The first Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchet"
• Not Tory: "The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Gandhi, The Patriot or Breaker Morant - or, basically, any film in which British imperialists get it in the eye."

So now you know.

Comments

[Fugitive Ink]

Hayek's 'Road to Serfdom' 'simply too Tory for words'?

Mr Gove must have been distracted, as he surely knows that a real Tory 'partner' (ugh) would at this point look up from her holiday reading in order to explain to him that, as someone else once put it,'The Road to Serfdom' expressed the resentments of a dispossessed Liberal, and that s far from being conservative, it was designed to achieve Socialism's ethical objectives without resorting to Socialist methods.

[Sceptic]

Stereotypical nonsense from someone who should know better than to insult the intelligence of Conservative netroots. Here is my guide to find out if your partner is a fake Tory.

Favourite Today presenter - "Edward Stourton who went to a proper school like Dave and Boris".

Choice of holiday reading - anything by the precocious Michael Gove, especially his anti-Islamic rants.

Ideal holiday destination - Greek islands

Favourite film - Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" (sic) - promoted by Peter Ainsworth and Zac Goldsmith but exposed as a pack of lies by the Lord Lawson, his colleagues in the House of Lords and the "Great Global Warming Swindle".

The Road to Serfdom was so popular that Readers' Digest even printed a condensed version. Winston Churchill used the Central Office paper ration to reprint the book. He was obviously too Tory for a fake like Michael Gove. Michael has spending too much time with the Cameroon pinkos and leftist pseuds on Newsnight Review.

At least we don't have watch that patronising and thick gargoyle Evan Davis on Newnight any more.

[Tony Makara]

"any film in which Jerry gets it in the eye"

Once again anti-German sentiment rises from the generation who did not fight in world war two. Is it really necessary for people to refer to the Germans as 'Jerry' etc? The anti-German feeling that swills around our country is pretty poor form. I know the Germans very well and they are completely removed from all the stereotypes.

[Sceptic]

Compare Norman Tebbit's perceptive piece in the Mail today with Gove's drivel. Can you imagine Gove, a BBC luvvy, taking on the teaching unions? I can't. Can we have some real men, rather than effiminate metrosexuals, in the Shadow Cabinet?

[anonymous]

Good lord Tony Makara, get over yourself! The man was stereotyping the attitudes of certain over-enthusiastic people with more extreme attitudes. How about not taking offence on behalf of a nation that hasn't in fact just been insulted?

[Tony Makara]

Anonymous, its not that I'm being PC sensitive, its just that I don't see world war two as being entertainment. Quite a number of my family died in that war as they did in the first world war. Of course I didn't know them, but I saw how my grandmother would sadden greatly whenever she spoke about them. Of course war films showing heroism are not bad, in fact they are inspiring, but there are certain war films that play on comedy and they are in bad taste. A lot of people died in that conflict and it shouldn't be a subject for cheap anti-German gags.

[Sceptic]

So admirers of Hayek are over-enthusiastic with extreme attitudes? You can add Margaret Thatcher, as well as Churchill, to that list. Thatcher, during a cabinet meeting, produced a copy of "The Constitution of Liberty" and declared "this is what we believe".

This week, an opinion poll showed that more people would Thatcher as Prime Minister - more than any of the current crop of useless and spineless party leaders. In fact, she topped the poll and beat Blair easily.

As Barry Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." I am proud to be a Hayekian and regarded as an extremist by the Blue Labour socialists.

[Woodentop]

This is supposed to be "tongue in cheek" and I think one or two posters here ought to lighten up a bit! Having said that, going on holiday with someone whose choice of reading was "The Road to Serfdom" and nothing else would seem a tiny bit sad!

[Sceptic]

Woodentop, this piece was actually a dig at Thatcherites. I have a great sense of humour but have no time for smug politicians who sneer at the party activists.

I actually do not take books on holiday. That's for boring politicians like Mickey no mates. Holidays are for enjoying oneself swimming, scuba-diving, playing sports or going to open-air concerts and operas.

[Michael Rutherford]

Dear me, some people took that article a bit seriously!

Get a sense of humour.

[Andrew Lilico]

Going on the questions from the original article, my wife assures me that I am aababa. How well she knows me!

[John Coles]

To think that this fatuous man has the ear of the leader of the Conservative party - God, how depressing. But it's all in keeping with his public musings - he never knowingly addresses a serious political issue.

[Londoner]

"Favourite Today presenter - "Edward Stourton who went to a proper school like Dave and Boris"."

Hang on a minute there up the thread, Ed is a left footer from Ampleforth - not the same as Eton at all. However, it is strongly in his favour that he was at Cambridge, whilst Evan, although also charming, was at Oxford. So I vote for Ed after all.

Incidentally, as someone who has met Stourton, Davis and Hayek - I can say that Hayek was the most charming of a very fine trio.

I was mostly b's on the survey, even on the Hayek question. Surely any educated person has already read The Road to Serfdom and wants to sample new fare on holiday? And if they haven't already read it, they wouldn't want to be tricked into admitting that by reading it publicly would they?

And does the Wagner Festival really go with Jerry bashing WW2 films? I think Gove needs to get his social antennae slightly more closly tuned.

[Richard Carey]

Firstly, it really is worth going over to the Times site to read the original article - if only for the comment left by our own Graeme Archer, where he presents his own set of questions to find out if your partner really is "Just Gay Tory Enough". Thanks for giving me a chuckle, Graeme, that was inspired as usual!

I'm amazed by the number of people on here who seem to be seriously upset by this! Perhaps they've just run out of steam on the MEP candidate threads and are looking for today's topic to complain about. Some people are never happy unless they're moaning!

Stereotypes are devised to be poked fun at - because they're not genuinely representative and they're not real. On the other hand, if anyone's genuinely upset because they really think that they conform to one of the stereotypes, maybe they have bigger problems to worry about...

[graeme archer]

thank you Richard! A cat may look at a king :-)

[Richard Carey]

No problem, Graeme - the cat's actually looking at me here now, but probably only because she wants feeding again...

[James Maskell]

So this is what Gove's been doing instead of coming up with a policy for children in care?

Good to see he has his priorities in order...

[StevenAdams]

Good Lord; Sceptic, a load of intolerant tripe I have never read, such as your self-satisfied musings above. Not since the Guardian last summarised one of Prescott's rants anyhow.