Michael Gove's wife considered moving their children to Italy to escape abuse

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/22/michael-gove-wife-moving-children-italy-abuse

Version 0 of 1.

Michael Gove's children have dealt with so much hatred directed towards their father in the playground that their mother considered moving them to Italy, it has been reported.

The education secretary's wife, Sarah Vine, a columnist, said her son William, nine, and daughter Beatrice, 11, now realise how much their father is hated for his position in government because other children tell them in the playground.

Vine had apparently considered moving them to live with her mother in Italy to shield them from the abuse but decided against it.

According to the London Evening Standard, Vine told a charity lunch at Hampstead Garden Suburb synagogue last week: "They are 11 and nine now, they've just got to the age where they understand what he does and they understand that people hate him because people will say things to them in the playground.

"Part of me wants to put them on a plane to go and live with my mother in Italy, but part of me thinks it will make them tougher. They are not shrinking violets. It's not as though they're delicate flowers: they are quite sturdy creatures, but I do think at some point there is going to be payback."

But Vine later told the newspaper: "Of course, I am not going to send them to live with my mother. If it is a toss-up between the teaching unions and my mum, I think the unions are less scary."

Gove is the first Conservative education secretary to send his child to a state secondary school, with Beatrice due to start at Grey Coat Hospital school in Westminster.

Vine also revealed she had received emails from "vicious and aggressive socialists" opposed to her husband's radical reforms.