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Michael Gove performs Wham! rap to school children

He also posed for a selfie with them

Kashmira Gander
Thursday 27 March 2014 21:35 GMT
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Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education
Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education (Getty Images)

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Education Secretary Michael Gove appears to have launched an assault on anything that was once considered vaguely ‘cool’, by performing a rap on the same day that he posed for a selfie.

As part of the BBC’s News School Report project, school children were given the opportunity to interview Mr Gove, who claims to be a rap fan.

One girl asked the Tory politician: “You’ve recently said that you quite like rap music, so I was just wondering, could you give us a taster of your favourite rap?” and unwittingly prompted the Minister to perform a Wham! rap.

“I’ve got so many,” he replied.

“The first rap I probably heard is one when I was younger was actually quite a vanilla rap, which was the Wham! rap, you know, with Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael.”

“Hey everybody look at me, I’ve got street credibility. I may not have a job but I have a good time with the boys I meet down on the line,” he rapped as he bobbed a clench fist to the beat of the song.

“You can tell I can’t sing,” he added, before telling the children he was also a fan of Public Enemy and Tinie Tempah. “They’re all great,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the School Reporters asked Mr Gove to pose for a selfie - a trend made popular among celebrities and politicians after US President Obama, the Danish Prime Minster Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron took a snap at Mandela's memorial service.

The craze reached its peak when Ellen DeGeneres posed for a record-breaking selfie with actors at the Oscars, and has since been tried by other stars in an attempt to harness its publicity power.

"When we asked him, he seemed quite surprised but he seemed happy to do it, though he did say we would have to watch out that he didn't break the camera. We managed to take two, but in one he has got his eyes closed,” Laura and Annabelle said in the BBC News report, adding: “We thought it was quite nice of him to agree to it.”

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