Here Francis Beckett, formerly Education Correspondent of the New Statesman and long-time member of the Labour Party "Comprehensive Futures" group set up to further the cause of non-selective schools for all children reflects on the prospects for radical state education in New Labour's third term. He argues that with Andrew Adonis made a lord to enable him to be kept in charge of education the likelihood of progress in directions this journal would support seem highly unlikely. In these circumstances Francis Beckett opts for a "wilderness" that he suggests is likely to be a more comfortable place to be than contemporary alternatives.