So you look at a day like this and it's hard not to agree with @xtophercook that DfE is not fit for purpose (thread)

1) We start the day with a media round on a DfE white paper derailed by schools/Covid and Gavin accidentally announces "two week warning" queue a row about this.

2) so already they are on the back foot, the first time in ages they've been allowed to launch policy and spotlight moved elsewhere. Meanwhile from HMT and No.10 basically stony silence. "NOT NOW GAVIN" implied in the quiet.

3) a flurry of documents arrive, some "long-awaited", most just long-unwanted by any stakeholders. None of them have any coherence hanging together e.g. new admissions system for A-levels/uni even though that's also not meant to be a thing now in the top lines?

4) the day marches on and we get this performance in the Commons where Gavin says triumphantly that he's going to "slash media studies courses" even though that's not message of the day, gov. barely funds any media studies, and also seriously WTAF is going on at this point?!

5) Oh I see maybe *this* is the culture war we hear so much about! Or maybe it's just bluster to get through a tricky session. Either way, the rhetoric is risible and pleases almost no one apart from ERGers etc.

6) basically at this point we are getting government policy made by insecure cabinet ministers to a) get through interviews with Nick Robinson and b) get through the high pressure of an empty Commons chamber

7) it turns out, because of course it does, that some of the meagre supply of laptops that DfE has deigned to supply to schools to give to children to learn who don't otherwise have access to IT..... have Russian malware pre-installed.

8) all of this is only hours in to a white paper + document dump laden with an almost comical level of dressed-up inaction pending spending decisions way above DfE's head.

Who knows what u-turns from today's docs lie in the hours ahead. Choose your own adventure, folks. (End)

Extra: Only front pages to come from this effort are a) outright mocking b) picking up on tricky Covid schools issue. White paper etc universally ignored.

It's a barometer of something...I think...if only I had some Media Studies... I might be able to understand what's going on.