Zoe Williams refers to Dominic Raab’s frustration with “the Blob”, and suggests this term was coined by Michael Gove in the coalition government of 2010 (It’s Raab’s rightwingers versus the Blob, the wokerati and the snowflakes – and you’ve been drafted, 24 April).
This is not correct. From 2000 to 2003, I wrote a number of articles in the Times Educational Supplement, one of which made explicit reference to The Blob, describing the 1958 film starring Steve McQueen. The article was about the publication of a book on thinking skills, and my concern then was that the Department for Education seemed to take creative ideas and incorporate them into its existing ideology, thereby quashing innovation. I quote from my November 2002 article: “It reminds me of an old 1950s film called The Blob in which a vast lump of jelly wobbled along, absorbing everything in its path and getting bigger and bigger.”
I don’t know if Gove read the article and I’m probably not the first to come up with the analogy. But I wish he would come clean if he did borrow it. He and I are from opposite ends of the political spectrum. The irony of this has not escaped me.
Mark Edwards
Lympstone, Devon
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