Michael Gove: Stephen Fry sent me a text to correct my grammar
Former Education Secretary Michael Gove has revealed that Stephen Fry sent him a text message because he made grammatical “errors”.
The Justice Secretary said on BBC’s World At One that he received the text message after sending instructions to civil servants including grammar advice.
He said he had asked them not to use the word “ensure”.
Mr Gove explained: “When I was at the Department for Education I sent a note round with some of my preferences – I wouldn’t say they were golden rules – on writing and the extremely assiduous officials at the Ministry of Justice passed that material on to those who were preparing correspondence and briefs.
“But it’s excited quite a lot of comment, there was a very funny article taking me to task in the Times … and also I received a text from Stephen Fry correcting me on some of my own errors linguistically.”
Later in the programme, presenter Martha Kearney played a clip of Mr Gove saying the word “operationalise” in an election campaign interview.
