Michael Gove says he wants 'experts' to reflect on their mistakes

Earlier in the week, Michael Gove was corrected by the Treasury watchdog, who dismissed his claim that an economic forecast has missed a £200m-a-week "Brexit dividend".

He was a signatory on a letter to the OBR, which read:

The OBR has revealed that the British people will get back over £10bn net a year once we leave the EU.

We believe that this Brexit dividend should be spent on our priorities - the most important of which is our NHS.

The OBR refuted this claim, pointing out this money could not temper the OBR's stark warnings on the financial implications of Brexit - it has already been included in the calculations.

The report also said Britain would have to borrow an extra £122bn by 2022, of which £58.7 bn is due to a 'black hole' opened up by uncertainty caused by Brexit.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show Sunday morning, Gove defended his earlier claim during his campaign for Brexit that:

people in this country have had enough of experts.

The former justice secretary, education secretary and Times journalist, who launched a surprise and unsuccessful bid for the Tory leadership following the Brexit vote, took the opportunity this morning to tell economists their profession was in crisis:

In the now-notorious comment that I made I was actually cut off in mid-stream as politicians often are.

The point I made is not that all experts are wrong, that is manifestly nonsense. But, there is a sub-class of experts, particularly economists, pollsters, social scientists, who do have to reflect on some of the mistakes that they've made, and in the same vein as a politician I reflect on the mistakes I've made.

People noticed this particular comment:

He was then asked if he would later aplogise in the case of a severe economic downturn following Brexit:

I've always been ready to apologise for mistakes that I've made, not necessarily immediately but certainly after a period of reflection. But as I say I'm radically skeptical about these claims because we've been told before that doom is going to follow - it hasn't.

Why look in these crystal balls when you can read the book?

The book tells us, the report tells us, as you mentioned, that there's been significant additional investment in the British economy, that we have record low unemployment, that inflation is still at a decent and tamed level, and that economic growth is higher and the recession that was predicted if we voted to leave, has gone up like a puff of smoke.

Article 50 has not yet been triggered and most of the economic transition is yet to come.

It's probably wise to bookmark this page for later.

Gove also said that Nigel Farage should be "respected, not abused".

You can watch a clip of Gove's defence of Nigel Farage, below:

More: People are re-sharing this cartoon about Michael Gove's 'expertise'