The announcement by the prime minister that his special adviser on education, Andrew Adonis, is to receive a peerage and a ministerial post at the DfES has been greeted with dismay by many. But is it such a bad thing?
It is another brazen example of prime ministerial patronage. It comes after Mr Blair's contrite speech on re-election, when he announced that he had spent four weeks listening and learning - after only eight years in office.
Adonis has little background in education and it is unclear why or how he became such a pivotal figure in the development of educational policy. We know that he was close to Roy Jenkins. He was a governor of an Islington school that was enveloped in controversy about the appointment and then abrupt resignation of a 'super-head' because of concerns about standards. And we know the policies he has been instrumental in creating - notably top-up fees and the City Academy programme.
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