Ruth Kelly is in a spot of bother thanks to a report in Sunday's Observer. Downing Street has said the Education Secretary enjoys the prime minister's full support. But for how long?
MPs, parents and everyone else seem plain baffled to learn that it is not already the case that people named on a child sex offender register are barred from becoming PE teachers. They aren't. Yet. But in Downing Street there is another political calculation to be made. Blair has hinted, and plenty of his friends and enemies have speculated that defeat in the Commons over the Education Bill next month would spell the end of his premiership. Kelly has so far failed to sell the education plans to the country at large and, more urgently, to the rebellious left of the party.
It cannot have escaped the notice of the Prime Minister that sacrificing his Education Secretary over the current paedophile row would create a vacancy for the job of pusher-in-chief of the flagship schools shake-up.
