Michael Gove is stepping down as a Member of Parliament, but his legacy is far from over. Gove’s ongoing influence can tell us quite a bit about contemporary politics and policy making, that relies more on opaque, changing and overlapping networks of influence, and less on political allegiances. This article looks at one illustrative example to help unpick this: the career of Labour parliamentary candidate for Whitehaven and Workington, Josh MacAlister.
The “Michael Gove Effect”
Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee recently described the “Michael Gove effect”, referring to the myriad ongoing crises in education that have their roots in Michael Gove’s tenure as Education Secretary, from 2010 to 2014. Toynbee covered everything, from low attendance to deteriorating school buildings and teachers quitting. Gove’s penchant for leaving crises in his wake can be seen beyond education, in almost every area he has touched. From Brexit to Levelling Up to the housing crisis, the “Michael Gove effect” seems all too real.
On 24 May 2024, Gove announced that after almost 20 years as a Member of Parliament, he would not be standing in the upcoming election on 4 July. This does not mean his legacy has ended, and that legacy is not just about the lasting damage to systems (such as the education system) and services (like social housing). It is about who Gove supported, and who supported him, in creating this damage. Many of these people and organisations will continue to be influential in a future government; some potentially even part of that government. One such example is the Labour parliamentary candidate for Whitehaven and Workington, Josh MacAlister.
MacAlister on the frontline
In many ways MacAlister’s career epitomises Gove’s famous exclamation that we “have had enough of experts”. He is a teacher who qualified through the Teach First scheme in 2009. Teach First is a charity founded to recruit and train the “best and brightest” for teaching. I have covered for Yorkshire Bylines the role Teach First plays in propelling its people into influential policymaking positions, including in the public sector. In line with that, almost immediately after entering teaching, MacAlister set his sights on expanding into children’s social care.
He wrote his first proposal for a Teach First style qualifying programme for social workers in 2010, where he argued for “sacrificing power and recognising that government is not always best placed to fix problems”. This would have been music to the ears of David Cameron’s Big Society government that had just come to power, as well as the newly appointed Education Secretary, Michael Gove.
By 2012 Gove was referring to MacAlister by his first name in speeches (“Josh”) and had committed to introducing MacAlister’s vision, named Frontline, “as soon as possible”. This is despite MacAlister having no business plan, open sector consultation or regulatory approval at that stage. MacAlister even recounts how he “cheekily” called in sick to his job as a teacher to meet secretly with Gove about setting up Frontline, which was launched in 2013.
Private Partnerships
MacAlister recounts that it was also at this sick day meeting that he was introduced to representatives of Ark, the charity founded by hedge fund financiers, including Gove donor Paul Marshall. Ark would go on to incubate and provide seed funding to Frontline.
Marshall now co-owns GB News, and stepped down from the board of Ark in 2024, after he was accused of “liking and sharing far-right extremist posts” on social media. When these allegations came out, Gove defended Marshall in parliament, pointing specifically to his role in Ark to claim he is a “distinguished philanthropist”. This meeting with Gove and Ark would start MacAlister and Frontline on a road towards routinely collaborating with private firms in their work in children’s social care.
MacAlister as Gove’s go-to
In 2013 Gove announced that Frontline would be introduced, with MacAlister acting as CEO. Frontline has been funded by the government ever since, most recently through a £61m contract awarded in 2023. Gove also continues to support and praise Frontline, including in parliament. But Frontline is opposed by many in the sector for, among other things, being high-cost and poor value for money. Frontline has also frequently been the subject of concerns, including in relation to its track record on diversity and inclusion.
Meanwhile, MacAlister has been invited time and again to play a role in reform efforts in children’s social care, culminating in being appointed to chair a “once in a generation” care review in early 2021. Much like Frontline, MacAlister’s care review was beset by controversy, including how he handled the contribution of people with lived experience. MacAlister’s husband, Matt Hood, was also a former advisor to the Department for Education during Gove’s tenure there, and is the founder and CEO of Oak National Academy, whose own connections to the Conservative Party have been investigated by Byline Times previously.
MacAlister Returning the Favours
MacAlister for his part has been a valuable friend to successive Conservative governments. The large funding provided to Frontline has frequently helped the Government to deflect from making cuts to other areas of children’s social care, including a recent announcement to end funding for Teaching Partnership collaborations between universities and social work employers.
The unredacted contract that MacAlister signed to chair the care review, seemingly released by mistake and published online, included clauses to not embarrass the government, to work with specific government approved organisations, and to not assume any additional funding for recommendations. There was also a specific requirement to collaborate with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the department that would be led by Michael Gove for the majority of the review.
MacAlister would later admit, on the Adoption and Fostering Podcast, that the rushed nature of the care review was to ensure that they could take advantage of the Conservative majority before the next general election. The children’s rights charity, Article 39, also reported that the interim report of MacAlister’s review was used by the government as evidence in court, to justify withholding the right to care from 16 and 17 year olds looked after by the state. In line with this, the final report of the Care Review makes no mention of austerity, and skirts other key issues like poverty, universal family support, and asylum and immigration. Several recommendations were also linked to the government’s levelling up agenda, by then led by Gove.
Following the publication of the final review in May 2022, MacAlister stayed on as an advisor to the Department for Education. He was also appointed to chair Foundations, a government funded research centre that his review recommended be created. Since Frontline was founded, there have been 10 Education Secretaries and 11 Children’s Under-Secretaries. In a way then, MacAlister has been a far more consistent force in the Conservative reforms in this area than any politician.
MacAlister pounces before the boundary changes. Disenfranchises “Workington Man”
The lead up to this general election, 2024, has been plagued by controversies around candidate selections. Some of the more high profile cases include Faiza Shaheen and Diane Abbott. However, one of the earliest, and most convoluted, was that of MacAlister. One would be forgiven for thinking, based on his track record, that MacAlister would be running under a Conservative banner. But MacAlister is actually a member of the Labour Party, and now a Labour candidate.
The new constituency for Whitehaven and Workington had not been confirmed when his selection was made. As a result, MacAlister ran on the old Copeland constituency boundary. Choosing a candidate based on the old boundaries ensured that about 200 Workington Labour Party members could not take part, more than enough to have potentially swayed the selection that MacAlister reportedly won by just 60 votes.
But even those in the Copeland boundary felt disenfranchised by the process. Prior to the selection, the Copeland Labour Party Executive Committee and Copeland Parliamentary Selection Committee all resigned over what they described as a “shameless disregard for democracy”, and an “illegitimate process”, in blocking a Copeland Constituency Labour Party secretary and councillor from the selection.
MacAlister’s selection brings protests
As a result of all this, protests were planned for the selection event. The head of the regional Labour Party soon intervened, writing to party members in Workington that they could be kicked out of the party if they took part. MacAlister also wrote to Copeland party members at the time, calling out those involved in protests for failing to engage in “comradely conduct becoming of members of the Labour Party”. The protest went ahead, and attendees included Sue Hayman, Labour life peer and former MP for Workington. The selection also went ahead. By the end of the process, all but two candidates had withdrawn from contention. MacAlister’s only remaining opponent, Markus Campbell-Savours, publicly called for all candidates to collectively withdraw until the boundary issues were resolved, a suggestion MacAlister did not endorse.
Two former Labour candidates for Copeland publicly criticised the process. This included Tony Lywood, the 2019 candidate, who stated “Mr MacAlister has no legitimacy as Labour’s candidate. The whole process has achieved nothing except division”. Gillian Troughton, Labour’s 2017 candidate for Copeland, was standing against MacAlister, but withdrew from the process citing the boundary issues, also stating that “many are speculating that at least one candidate had access to membership lists and had an unfair head start in the process”.
The Govian Legacy
From Frontline to the care review to his selection, the crises associated with the “Michael Gove effect” certainly also seem to surround MacAlister. Despite this, Whitehaven and Workington appears to be a safe seat, with Labour predicted to win comfortably.
But when MacAlister highlights on the campaign trail that the Tory government has “brought our public services to the brink of collapse”, voters need to realise that he had a role in this. It also has to be acknowledged that he avoided strong condemnations of the Conservative government when given the reins of the “once in a generation” review of children’s social care.
Instead, during that time MacAlister actually dismissed the importance of poverty and funding cuts as “an old pattern of dialogue that I think we’re all tired of”, a comment reminiscent of Gove’s justification for backing Frontline and MacAlister almost a decade earlier. While campaigning, MacAlister has urged people to “beware false promises from the Tories…and judge them on what they’ve done over the last 14 years”. So too should MacAlister, and anyone else who facilitated the Conservatives over the last 14 years, similarly be judged.
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