BRITAIN: Tony Blair's hopes of serving a full third term may depend on Ruth Kelly today, writes Frank Millar
"Education, education, education" is Tony Blair's frequently declared priority. Yet in the Commons, and a short distance from it, the British prime minister today finds his pet subject in headlines which the media, political opponents and some internal critics will attempt to conflate in order to question the credibility of his declared intention to serve a full third term.
Downing Street sources appear satisfied Labour opponents of the government's controversial education reforms have in fact declined to "join the witch hunt" by seeking to exploit education secretary Ruth Kelly's difficulties over sex offenders in schools, and the seeming shambles over vetting procedures. And in fairness, many would-be Labour rebels see the two issues as wholly separate.
Should Ms Kelly be forced from office - immediately, or in an expected cabinet reshuffle - her departure will inevitably be seen as a further blow to Mr Blair as he prepares to face a Labour rebellion over schools policy with the potential to draw his own tenure in office to a premature close.
While it is easy to see how Ms Kelly could be forced out, the unintended consequences of such a development remain unknown.
Moreover, the daily headlines enveloping this government do not always testify to overriding competence, success or unity. Questions about deputy prime minister John Prescott's council tax bills vie with those about Ms Kelly's authority, her reputation for competence hardly enhanced by the chancellor, Gordon Brown's, suggestion "as a parent" that he too expects her to sort the mess in her department quickly.
Despite the extra investment, parts of the health service are suffering a spending squeeze, while the government's continuing difficulties over counter-terrorism and ID cards are reflected in Lords defeats.
Meanwhile, the chancellor offers his latest vision of Britishness and is reportedly talking to Liberal Democrats in anticipation of his eventual succession.
And, of course, the great guessing game as to when that will be will inform every aspect of this administration's life thanks to Mr Blair's declared intention not to seek a fourth term.
That's politics. Yet on today's education battleground, government spin doctors might be allowed the benefit of the doubt. The immediate drama concerns a vulnerable minister.
The enduring political battle, again joined today by former leader Neil Kinnock, concerns issues - freeing schools from local authority control, and fears that this will work against the most disadvantaged, least mobile and worst informed parents and pupils - that go to the core of Labour's ongoing debate about its identity and purpose.
Ms Kelly will be fighting for her political life when she steps up to the despatch box this afternoon to announce her proposals to bring coherence and credibility to the process for vetting teachers. That is a fact accepted in the highest reaches of the government of which many consider her an over-promoted member. The terms of her statement are widely anticipated.
Relief that ministers will no longer be responsible for determining cases in what Number 10 rightly says is a complex legal area will still be attended by public disbelief that the responsibility should ever have been theirs in the first place.
Her defenders say the education secretary is the victim of a problem bubbling beneath the surface for many years which has suddenly burst on to the public stage on her watch.
Yet, having failed to respond quickly enough to the first press disclosures, or to impress when finally she went to the Commons last week, Ms Kelly must avoid charges of evasion or a smokescreen this time round. She needs to show herself in command of her brief and satisfy Labour backbenchers the new arrangements she is setting in place will provide the necessary reassurance to anxious parents across the country. If the word back to the government whips is that she has failed to do so, the likelihood is that she will either fall on her sword or be moved in the reshuffle.
For all that his opponents will seek to conflate the two issues, Mr Blair is unlikely to prove sentimental in deciding whether Ms Kelly can carry his flagship proposals forward.
And she will be only too aware that this is the same prime minister who allowed Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett to go, twice.