Jackie D (in her first posting on May 21) at au currant, as well as in general being very lively and worth regularly looking at, in particular has a couple of choice pictures via the telegraph and the timesonline of our beloved Education Secretary being upstaged by one of the extras. I mentioned this announcement, but missed what was clearly the big story here.

The habit now regularly perpetrated by politicians of having themselves photographed with children when announcing political schemes is not pleasant (although of course it's not new either) so it's always good to see it going wrong. Kids and animals, eh? They won't be told.

And speaking of animals, I seem to recall a Newsnight reporter that evening talking about how Clarke was too clever to get caught in an "elephant trap". So funny ears are clearly going to be a regular feature of all Clarke coverage.

(By the way, is it just me, or are individual postings at au currant hard to link to? If I'm wrong, deepest apologies, but if that's right, it ought to get sorted because this is otherwise a very promising blog. Jackie D is doing everything else right, like not being dull, like putting comments on samizdata to get noticed here in London, etc.)