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Michael Gove tried to be clever correcting someone’s spelling – then Michael Rosen came for Gove’s grammar and it was just poetry
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to get anything past children’s author and all-round legend Michael Rosen – just ask Kirstie Allsopp.
You can now add former Tory MP and minister, Michael Gove, to the Rosen roasted.
Here’s what happened.
It started a few days ago, when Gove took issue with a stat veteran journalist John Simpson shared about the effect Brexit has had on the UK economy.
I think people in this country have had enough of organisations with acronyms that have consistently got things wrong in the past https://t.co/V0Mn8QqU23
— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) November 26, 2025
That’s when historian William Dalrymple entered the chat.
As opposed to politicians who consistently got things wrong? https://t.co/fQpv4DvHRL
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) November 26, 2025
Gove then tried to turn the argument into one about state education under the previous Tory administrations.
Tell me what the Conservatives got consistently wrong in state education? https://t.co/qDdqwRbWj8
— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) November 26, 2025
To which Dalrymple replied:
I was thinking of the irreperable damage you did to the country by promising Brexit would lead to a rebirth of the economy when instead it wrecked it, while diminishing us in every way.
Brexit Hit to UK Economy Double Official Estimate, Study Finds https://t.co/m3HfQObssS
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) November 26, 2025
You may notice that he misspelled ‘irreperable/irreparable’ in his reply.
Gove sure did and made a smart comment about it.
I think you may need to brush up your spelling. England’s state schools do a brilliant job on teaching good writing skills. You and yours should try them one day https://t.co/UcRubsv1aF
— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) November 26, 2025
Gove wrote:
I think you may need to brush up your spelling. England’s state schools do a brilliant job on teaching good writing skills. You and yours should try them one day
That’s when Michael Rosen popped in and said:
I wonder if Mr Gove meant to leave off a full stop after 'one day'. I wonder if Mr Gove meant to write 'brilliant job of teaching' rather than 'brilliant job on teaching'. I don't know, but at least he gave @DalrympleWill a ticking off for bad spelling. That showed him. https://t.co/WWEGgie6c7
— Michael Rosen NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 29, 2025
Rosen’s tweet reads:
wonder if Mr Gove meant to leave off a full stop after ‘one day’. I wonder if Mr Gove meant to write ‘brilliant job of teaching’ rather than ‘brilliant job on teaching’. I don’t know, but at least he gave
@DalrympleWill a ticking off for bad spelling. That showed him.
Poetic justice, right?
Oh and Rosen wasn’t done with Gove just yet and took to the politician’s replies.
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In fact, your influence on Year 6 writing has been dire, because it now consists of writing to a formula of so-called grammatical features such as expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials and embedded relative clauses. Content is now secondary or disregarded.
— Michael Rosen NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 26, 2025
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Mr Gove writes: "You and yours should try them one day".
As he was admonishing @DalrympleWill for his spelling, it seems as if Mr Gove forgot to put a full stop at the end of a sentence. (Tbc, this doesn't bother me in tweets because it's a rushed, casual and abbreviated form.)— Michael Rosen NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 29, 2025
He also asked Twitter/X’s AI feature Grok for an opinion.
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@grok do you think Mr Gove meant to write 'a brilliant job of teaching' rather than 'a brilliant job on teaching'?
— Michael Rosen NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 29, 2025
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Are you aware that Mr Gove put in place reforms to education in England which strongly implied that are not variant forms for such things? In the terms of the writing requirements, there are simply right/wrong ways of doing things.
— Michael Rosen NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 29, 2025
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Yes, I'm aware of Gove's reforms as Education Secretary (2010-2014), which emphasized prescriptive grammar, spelling, and punctuation in the national curriculum, promoting standardized "correct" forms over variations. This aimed to raise standards but sparked debate on…
— Grok (@grok) November 29, 2025
Others seemed to appreciate Rosen’s grammar policing.
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Gotta love a grammar stickler!
— Ragnar, un Viking (@Nickclose5) November 29, 2025
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I'd also have written "brush up on".
— Wozzo (@Wozzo22) November 29, 2025
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His whole tweet feels grammatically off. Definitely not a great advert for those "good writing skills" he's bragging about.
— Sulis Minerva (@owl_and_flowers) November 29, 2025
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It’s probably tricky to concentrate on grammar when you’re trying not to sound patronising (and failing).
— Susan Hill (@Steveandsueat22) November 29, 2025
And it turns out William Dalrymple was well able to stand up for himself too.
Most grateful for your generous offer… Thankfully, spellings can easily be corrected. But the damage done by Brexit may hobble us, isolate and diminish us for many decades…
— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) November 26, 2025
Source: Twitter/X/MichaelRosenYes