The expression of his intentions is a plan - still in draft - to reform the United Nations and expand the number of permanent members of the Security Council. The outline has been discussed during recent visits by senior Russian, Chinese and US officials to London. It will figure on Mr Blair's agenda in Tokyo and Beijing.The tragedy for Mr Blair is that the one relationship that needed no burnishing even four weeks ago is now fraught with tension. Still a hero across America for his impassioned and eloquent support for the war in Iraq, Mr Blair has been accorded the signal honour of addressing a joint session of Congress (an event that will be just too late for peak-hour viewing in Britain).

In a decision that may well suit both sides, however, he will not - as originally mooted - receive the Congressional gold medal, the official reason being that the requisite legislation has not yet been passed.While US-British disagreements about how to administer post-war Iraq have been kept out of the headlines, a very public dispute has flared up over responsibility for intelligence reports alleging the advanced state of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. This spat conceals a much bigger dispute about whose intelligence service was more responsible for mis-calling Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capability.British officials have tried hard to keep worries about the impending military trials of two British prisoners at Guantanamo quite separate from the quarrels about intelligence But these attempts are disingenuous. Both are key aspects of Washington's "war on terror" and - for all the mutual compliments that will be heard on Capitol Hill tonight - that war is increasingly driving the US and Britain apart.. Had anyone asked just basic questions of why Victoria Climbie was not in school or how she spent her days they may have discovered that for months she was bound hand and foot, lying in plastic bags in her own urine and faeces, in a cold bath in an unheated bathroom in winter eating whatever food she could get by pressing her face to the plate when it was put in the bath beside her. Yet the very day social services were closing her file under "no further action needed" was the same day Victoria was admitted for the third time to hospital. But this time she could not be saved and her life ebbed away.

Would it change things? Would children be better protected in the future?I well recognise that risk cannot be eliminated but I am in no doubt that it can be better assessed and more effectively managed. It is to the credit of the Government that at the earliest point after the report was published they put in place an audit in each of the services against the practice recommendations in the report. The Prime Minister has also appointed a Minister for Children.I hope the Victoria Climbie inquiry will be the last inquiry of its kind.. We all have a reactionary old cove lurking inside, and mine is instantly triggered by any mention of exam reform.

I was in the last year of students to take A-levels when they could still be referred to - without irony - as the "gold standard" before the creeping introduction of coursework and continuous assessment and all the other cheap tricks designed to make exams easier to pass. When I took A-levels, it was still possible to fail them - which I duly did. Since I was an almost pathologically lazy and ignorant student, I saw it as proof that the system was working as it should be. They've been tinkering around with the A-level for over a decade, trying to make it more enticing for students who might otherwise be tempted to move on to more useful and lucrative activities such as getting a job. Having torn the A-level in two and provoked a crisis of confidence over standards, the educationalists have now thrown their hands up in despair, declaring that all hope for the A-level is lost.What they would like to see instead is a "baccalaureate-style" diploma to encourage more "breadth of learning". Pupils would be able study at their own pace, qualifying for four different levels of diploma - entry, foundation, intermediate or advanced - at any age between 14 and 19.