The education secretary Michael Gove sailed headlong into choppy waters this week with his plan to take £60 million from small children and give it to a rich old lady in the form of a massive boat. Giving two salutary fingers to the austerity crowd, Gove silenced the Tories’ ‘we’re all in it together’ battle cry with one vigorous tug of the forelock. Not known for his love of state handouts, the education secretary showed an uncharacteristic magnanimity towards the biggest benefit scrounger of them all, Her Majesty the Queen. I would say it’s socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, except I don’t think a socialist has ever been given a yacht on the anniversary of their coronation.

Gove couldn’t have really picked a better symbol of tasteless opulence unless he’d promised the old dear a Courvoisier-filled jacuzzi on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Nick Clegg saw the funny side, torpedoing Gove’s nautical fantasy with a cracking pun about the have-nots and the have-yachts. If his ‘coalition’ government gets its way, this could be the predominant social distinction in ten years time. Thankfully, nobody has thought to call it ‘Yachtgate’ yet, although it is surely only a matter of time. Oh wait…

The NUS helpfully chipped in with ten possible alternative uses for the £60 million which would be needed to replace the Queen’s boat. These included reinstating the scrapped Education Maintenance Allowance and covering the £9,000 university fees for 6,500 students. Michael Gove’s office responded with their own top ten, which included a Courvoisier-filled jacuzzi on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Things went from bad to worse for Gove when later in the week it was revealed that the 20,000 personalised King James bibles he had commissioned to send to schools were languishing in an overseas warehouse, with no way of bringing them to the infidel youth of Britain. Where’s that yacht when you need it?

The coincidence of these two bizarre attempts at embezzlement of public funds surely leads to one conclusion: Michael Gove is attempting to reinvent himself as a 21st century Noah.