It takes more than sounding good to con us now, Tony.

Education. Education. Education. Remember that? What actually has Tony Blair done though to back up the sound bites? There was the city academies idea - 21 semi-independent schools that are largely funded by the tax payer and cost £25 million to build. And guess what, they are not working. They are actually reporting below average results in national tests for 14 year olds - and these are the government's own figures. 16 of the 21 schools have failed to reach the average for level five (the standard expected for their age).

Of course the Department for Education has come out with the usual nonsense and spin about education standards rising since 1997 and completely ignoring the facts and the actual issue. These schools were set up at a massive cost to the tax payer, take considerable amounts of taxpayers' money to run and they are not working and are a complete failure. Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the NUT has said "-Once again the government's claims for the success of its academies programme are not borne out by the facts-". As always with the this government, the rhetoric is good, the actual substance is not only poor and lacking but very expensive. No one believes the government any more, they have sounded good for so long but finally the electorate is beginning to see through the lies.