Michael Gove: Oh Dear

Michael Gove is a twat. Don't take my word for it, you can discover this for yourself by reading If I'm Paying for Your Education, So Can You. Here's a snippet:

The first point that needs to be made about the so-called deterrent effect of a £21,000 loan is that anyone put off from attending a good university by fear of that debt doesn’t deserve to be at any university in the first place.

Okay, so this is from The Times of 21st January, 2003. Seven years is an eternity in politics. I'm sure if I looked back on my contemporaneous babblings on the UK Left Network I'd be left similarly red-faced. But then I was a) relatively youthful, b) angry, and c) had little practical political experience. What's Gove's excuse? If his views have changed in the intervening years, can we expect a retraction?