It was an impressive performance and makes us wonder whether Mr Hague, still a mere 41, might have a future in television. After all, Michael Portillo is making earnest documentaries about the Spanish Civil War and Ann Widdecombe is waddling around on Celebrity Fit Club, so the notion of Mr Hague as chatshow host is not so strange. At least, unlike Sir David, Mr Hague could never be said to have “risen without trace”.. Inch by inch, or rather centimetre by centimetre, the members of the Security Council of the United Nations appear to be moving towards a compromise resolution on Iraq. France, which had argued that only a two-stage resolution – one to get the inspectors back and the second only when and if they were deemed to have failed – now seems readier to accept a single resolution.Like all resolutions, it fails to satisfy any of the parties completely, which is why it is taking such a devilishly long time to get it agreed, and could still fall at the final hurdle. The French, with the Russians yesterday emerging from behind their skirts, want nothing that would allow military action against Iraq without further consultation.

The Americans, with British backing, seek precisely this cover.But at this stage one should be grateful that Washington has put aside its talk of regime change and unilateral action. Whether for reasons of domestic public opinion or international objection, President Bush appears readier to adopt the diplomatic approach as favoured by his State Department rather than the “kick ass” policy promoted by his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his Vice-President, Dick Cheney.That can only be for the good. Whatever the rights and wrongs of action against Iraq, it makes no sense at all to strain the international alliance. The bombs in Bali – and the sniper in Washington, in his way – have shown that the threat to America’s, and the West’s, security comes far more from individuals or clandestine groups than from state terrorism.The concern now is that the return of the inspectors to Iraq should be left in the hands of the United Nations, and that the UN should be firm in its pursuit of this course. The longer this process drags on, the more President Saddam – who seems ready to agree to almost anything at this stage – will be tempted to see divisions in the international ranks.

It’s time for the quibbling to stop and a resolution to be agreed as urgently as possible.. The Government’s plans for modernising the teaching profession have much to commend themselves. However, they do need more work before they can be seen as a coherent package to give the profession the world-class status ministers so earnestly desire for it. Extra pairs of hands to do administrative tasks such as invigilating exams and collecting dinner money and an increase in the number of school bursars to take some of the financial strain away from headteachers would be all to the good. The hiring of these extra staff, too, will help create the 10 per cent of time during the school day that ministers are guaranteeing that teachers will be able to spend out of the classroom and on marking and preparation.It is the third strand of classroom assistant – the new advanced classroom assistant (ACA) – that needs more thought. According to the Government’s proposals, they will be able to take over lessons and cover for absent teaching staff (or, in the rather more formal language of the blueprint published yesterday, they will be able to follow “the pedagogical route” to career progression).Ministers stress that this will only be done under the supervision of a qualified teacher.

However, if you read the fine print, you realise that that teacher does not necessarily have to be in the classroom. It will be up to the headteacher’s discretion as to the amount of time the advanced classroom assistant is allowed to spend on his or her own in the classroom.There is a school of thought that a classroom assistant who knows the pupils well and has been following the work that they do in class will be better prepared to take over the class if a teacher is away on a course or sick than a supply teacher who comes in cold to the school. That will only be the case if the ACA is adequately trained in classroom control techniques, and we have yet to see the exact nature of the new specialist vocational qualification that will allow an ordinary classroom assistant to become an ACA.There is also another point here: as one classroom assistant training to be a teacher, and who has already been given the opportunity to take classes on her own, said to us yesterday: “As much as I love my job, if I didn’t know I was going to be a teacher there is no way I would stay in it – because of the pay.” She is paid £5.92p an hour for a 25-hour week, and she does not get paid for the school holidays. Asked about a new pay structure for this new breed of classroom assistants who are the kernel of the Government’s reforms, Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, came up with the stock reply that this was a matter for the local education authorities.This is not good enough. In order to be able to assess whether these radical plans will work, we need to be assured of the quality of the training on offer to the new ACAs.