Gove says he wants to stay at education until the election to see his reforms through, and barring unforeseen disasters that seems to be very much Cameron's intention. The pair are friends and Gove is part of the metropolitan modernising gang, the socially liberal Notting Hill set, that took over the Conservative leadership in 2005. But he can think for himself.

Might he be able to persuade Cameron to look again at introducing more selection? What was good enough for David Cameron and Boris Johnson (Eton), George Osborne (St Paul's), Nick Clegg (Westminster) and Michael Gove (Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen) should surely be good enough for bright children from poor and modest backgrounds?

"[Cameron] is a classic Tory, but also a radical meritocrat. But he doesn't believe in academic selection. What he wants to see in state schools are the kinds of things that people pay money for — proper uniforms, classical subjects rigorously taught, and for teachers to be respected."

However, not more selection, it seems.

"As long as the coalition lasts I don't think there is any room for manoeuvre. I don't think the Liberal Democrats would countenance any form of selection. Selection is an incendiary subject in England. My view is that it's better to avoid it because you can make much more progress in other areas. Selection is not a necessary condition of having a successful education system."

Gove says there is a "shadow" hanging over selective education because of the way in which it was implemented. It has left behind, he says, a fear on the part of many that under such a system only a quarter of children can achieve anything and the rest are written off.

Perhaps that is false public perception, but isn't the government's approach, while welcome, ultimately inadequate because it relies on the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats? It doesn't do enough to catapult the bright child from a poor background into a truly elite school and environment where he or she will be taught to compete on equal terms with their contemporaries from Eton.