Times are tight but spare a thought for Lord Harris of Peckham. The Tory donor who made his millions from carpets has seen his company Carpetright getting hammered by the credit crunch. Which is hard when you’ve got a wife and several academies to run.

It’s also bad news for Michael Gove who received thousands from Lord Harris to fund his shadow education office from the Lord’s company Harris Ventures.

Register entry:

“Donations received through Conservative Campaign Headquarters used to support my office in my capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families from:

Harris Ventures Limited”

Gove has done everything he can to promote Harris Academies, including ‘turning teacher for a day’ at Harris Academy in Bermondsey (see above) in what looks remarkably like an ad (it’s hilarious – “Can anyone tell me what a soundbite is?” – Mr Bean teaches!). Perhaps we could see the versatile Mr Gove now extend his skills into doing adverts for the Carpet King!

Interestingly in Gove’s Nuts speech what didn’t get reported was a commitment to a voucher scheme so parents can ‘buy’ school places at academies. He said: “We will make schools accountable to parents by allowing parents to choose the school they want for their child. We’ll give every parent the right to take the money currently allocated to their child’s education and then deploy it in accordance with their priorities, not the Government’s.”

And this is how it was reported in the noted Public Servant Daily:

“The Tories want to move to a Swedish-style system whereby most schools are independent. Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove says he is concerned that government repositioning towards local authority control of academies could “make sponsors reticent in engaging in the expansion of the programme.”

And Gove should know - he’s getting sponsored by the biggest academy sponsor!

• Interesting fact 1. Harris Ventures has donated £ 1,073,229.62 to the Tories since 2002
• Interesting fact 2. Policy Exchange advocated school vouchers in ‘Hands up for School Choice’ in 2004 (Chair M. Gove)
• Interesting fact 3. School vouchers become Tory Policy
• Interesting fact 4. Gove was less than convincing in his denunciation of Policy Exchange’s Give up on the North report on the Today programme this morning. Listen to that laugh!

“Policies - we’re giving them away - at LOW, LOW PRICES!”