Stick to the day job, Michael

As regular readers of this irregular blog will know, one of my first acts on becoming unchallenged ruler of this kingdom will be to ban anyone who worked as a journalists from ever holding positions in government.
Those who doubt the wisdom of this need look no further than Michael Gove.
The basic requirement of anyone running the country should be to think about what he is doing and what he proposes to do. This is the opposite of what columnists do.
What happens when you have a column to write - an occupation Gove followed for a number of years at The Times before becoming a minister - is that you sit around scratching your head and wondering what on earth you can do it on.
There are some sensible columnists who actually write intelligent pieces on thoughtful topics. Sadly, some do not. Michael Gove in government is following the latter path.
You can imagine him striding around brainstorming, demanding of himself: "What can I write about this week?" and then hurriedly correcting himself: "No, no, I mean, What great measure can I introduce this week?"
That is how we got the ludicrous proposal that the people of Britain, facing an ever tighter squeeze on their finances, should cough up tens of millions of pounds on a new yacht for one of the world's richest people.
Now he has come up with another one - I can't even remember what it is at this time in the morning - as his department makes a humiliating climbdown over trying to force successful schools into academy status. Which was another brilliant Gove idea.
I didn't even think he was a good columnist. But he was a genius at it compared to his ability as a minister.