One consolation I expected from the election of a Conservative government was the likely disappearance from the current affairs discussion roster of the annoying little creep Michael Gove. Perhaps my relief was misplaced, for the man once known as 'Red Mike' is now our education secretary, and teachers and students won't be able to switch him off.

"Last week", writes Seumas Milne, "the new education secretary publicly appealed to pro-empire TV historian Niall Ferguson to help rewrite the history curriculum for English schools. Considering this is a man who has unashamedly championed British colonialism and declared that "empire is more necessary in the 21st century than ever before", letting him loose on some of the most sensitive parts of the school syllabus in multicultural Britain might have been expected to provoke uproar."

The professor favours a less than liberal interpretation of the duties of empire's servants. "Ferguson demanded that the US learn from the British empire and crush resistance in Falluja with 'severity'."

It seems that there is nostalgia for the white man's burden in certain government circles. Let's hope that Baroness Warsi doesn't end up as Minister for Babus, Punkah-wallahs and Chai-wallahs.