Michael Gove has appointed yet another Tory to a senior and supposedly impartial role in the education sector — by promoting his 28 year-old policy adviser to be his department’s £105,000-a-year director of strategy.

Tom Shinner’s qualifications for the top civil service role include experience as a junior management consultant, setting up one of Gove’s beloved free schools and, errrr, working for the implementation unit at Tory HQ.

The role would normally go to an experienced senior civil servant. Shinner’s predecessor as director had a stint as principle private secretary, two deputy director positions and a sabbatical as an education specialist at the World Bank under her belt before being promoted to director of strategy.

Shinner now trousers £36,000 more than Gove’s special advisers. Indeed, there are only six SpAds in the whole of SW1 that are paid more than him: one in Nick Clegg’s office and five working for Cameron.

Asked why he had given up a job with McKinsey to teach (and advise Gove) Shinner told the Economist:

“Err, maybe something to do with idealism,”

Yeah, something like that.