Dear Mr Gove,

I feel you should know a little about me before I go any further. You see Mr Gove, I have been in state education all my life. Even worse both my parents are also teachers employed by the government. In short, Mr Gove, I am your worst nightmare my entire education both in and out of school has been at the hands of those employed by the government to teach and I have paid the price.

It may sadden you to know that, just like the children you mentioned in your recent speech (http://politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/05/09/michael-gove-s-anti-mr-men-speech-in-full) I spend all my time either reading Twilight or playing Angry Birds. I look with envy at the other students on the bus; half of whom are reading Middlemarch whilst the others engage in complicated programming. It pains me to see them wear their Rio 2016 track suits when I can only aspire to compete on Big Brother. Sometimes I’ll throw my hands up to the sky and cry “WHY? WHY ME? I WANT TO READ MIDDLEMARCH! WHY CANT I READ MIDDLEMARCH?” But alas, it just cannot be. For you see, I have been educated by the state (under the New Labour government no less) and so, as you pointed out, my fate of Angry Birds and Twilight has been sealed.

As you can imagine, my school days were hard. Everyday I’d beg my teachers to put away the Mr Men and teach me about Middlemarch or programming. But they couldn’t because, in your words “the unions – and their allies – objected to the suggestion that eleven year-olds should be able to spell words in Standard English, use full stops and commas with confidence or deploy adverbs appropriately”. Dark days indeed.

There were some who threw off the shackles of the heavily Mr Men orientated curriculum. In fact a few of my teachers (and by a few, I mean every single one of them) even dared to teach me how to spell words – thus incurring the wrath of the unions! Brave souls indeed! I can only imagine the wonders of education I could have experienced under your leadership, Mr Gove. All my teachers did was inspire and support me – like my English Language teacher who allowed me to use my love of graphic novels as a prism through which I could study the use of onomatopoeia or my Classics teacher who explained the archetypal classical themes by applying them to Star Wars and thus fuelling enthusiasm for the Classical works. I managed to scrape through college with a handful of As and A*s. Grim testament to the shortcomings of my education.

But enough about me – I am a lost cause. Let’s talk about you, Mr Gove. Because, in spite of my admiration for you, there are one or two suggestions I would like to make…

First, let’s talk about free schools. What an inspiring idea. Because if you’re not happy with the way professionals teach your kids, why not have a go yourself! Nothing leads to a well-rounded individual like be educated in an abandoned office block by your mum and her friends in a school attended by nine children. But why stop there Mr Gove! I’m sure you know the Health Secretary quite well, why not pitch the idea of free hospitals to him? Because why should you spend two years on a waiting list to see a *shudder* professional, when you and your mates could have a go yourself! Or what about free police?! Why wait for bureaucratic pen pushers to prevent crime when you and your mates can patrol the neighbourhood with cricket bats? Think big Mr Gove! Think Big!

I was devastated to hear about the failure of the English Baccalaureate, although I am sure this was down to bad marketing. I mean, ‘Ebacc’ doesn’t really roll off the tongue does it? It sounds like someone swearing in Klingon. You should re-brand it as a ‘Gove’. Since the whole pretence behind the idea was that children shouldn’t choose to study to subjects they were good at or even, god forbid, the ones they enjoyed and instead should study the subjects you thought were important, why not stick your name on it! The marketing writes itself! Hey kids look at my Gove! You should get a Gove too! Mommy I want a Gove! Priceless.

I would also like to commend you for sending every school in England a bible with your name in it. Some would say you were hitting the Christ symbolism a little too hard, but not me! In these hard times of education cuts, your gift of a bible must have warmed the hearts of teachers nationwide. Even in spite of the fact that schools already have bibles.

I’m dying to know what the future holds for you Mr Gove? Your apparent dislike for the Freedom of Information Act makes it hard to know much about you at all. But hey, you addressed 15% of the FOI claims put forward to you, and I’m sure that’s more than enough. Who needs TOTAL transparency anyway?

But I’ve gone on for long enough and you’re a very busy man. Don’t bother to reply as we both know I wouldn’t able to read it! The future of the next generation is in your hands and while some might find that terrifying (like, seriously FUCKING TERRIFYING) I say god-speed, Mr Gove.

Yours sincerely,

The Lost Generation.