After five-and-a-half months of pre-publicity, the Second Gulf War began in the early hours of 17 January. Iraqi president Sadaam Hussein had invaded Kuwait at the start of August 1990, and point-blank refused to leave the country, no matter who asked him.

(More: There's a war on, don't'cha know. Plus Hall and Oates, the Go-Gos, Maria McKee, Tom Jones, Carter USM, the Big Dish, Thin Lizzy, Gloria Estefan, 2 In a Room, and Queen)

Up three places to 37 goes the Big Dish with Miss America. A superior example of Clyde-rock, the sort of thing that Texas and Deacon Blue sold to the masses in the UK, the sort of wide and expansive sound that Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie had also perfected.

Highest new entry, straight in at number one, for Queen. Innuendo had its first play on Radio 1 on New Year's Day. It was an almost deliberate attempt to repeat the success of Bohemian rhapsody: a bolero beat, flamenco guitar solo, with a brief section in the oh-so-funky 5/4 time. There's also a very complex orchestration towards the middle of the song. The whole effort was topped off by a bizarre stop-motion video, recycling footage from various animations the group had had done during the previous five years. Critical opinion was divided: some said that it was the best thing the group had done since that Live Aid concert, others reckoned that it was further proof that Queen was pompous and past its listen-by date.

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Michael Lyons is unfit to hold office. That appears to be the general feeling from this year's BBC News Awayday, at which the assembled masses had to put up with Andrew Neil having a friendly chat with the head of the Beeb Trust. Our problem is that Mr. Lyons only accepted his position because the Trust replaced the BBC's governors; in turn, the governors were only dismissed because the BBC dared to question the government's ludicrous claims regarding its illegal invasion of Iraq. Mr. Lyons's presence is a festering sore on the corporation's independence, reminding the BBC's owners (ie, us) of meddling for partisan advantage. See also: the BBC Trust's sell-out decision and why news had to have cuts.

We're rather hoping that they'll be asking awkward questions at the Australian Open after Saturday's play stretched on. When one match finished at about 12.30pm UK time (11.30 in the Melbourne evening), we thought that that would be that. Not a chance: there was another men's singles match scheduled, and it went on. And on. And on. A five-set thriller, finally finishing at 5.20pm in the UK. Or, as they call it in Melbourne, 4.20 on Sunday morning. It's one thing for the night session to drag on until midnight, entirely another for it to run into the night in the UK. That's just too late.

Radio news: RTÉ will close down its medium-wave transmitter on 567 in April; the frequency has been a simulcast of long-wave 252 since 2004.

Jonathan Steele discusses the UK's lack of planning for the invasion of Iraq. According to the wishful thinking in Downing-street, the whole of Iraqi society was hostile to President Sadaam's regime. In particular, prochain ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair is quoted as saying of President Sadaam, But the man's uniquely evil, isn't he? To our ears, that is strong evidence that Mister Blair had decided on his path to war, and that the whole weapons of mass destruction kerfuffle was a smokescreen to divert attention.

A similar tunnel vision is afflicting Mister Blair's successor, Mr. The Soup Dragon. Steve Richards reports how Labour's fear of state ownership is as much a reaction against the party's failures in government during the 1970s as it's sound economics. The Soup Dragon is still fearful of old Labour actions, of old Labour values, and would rather cut off his nose than admit that, sometimes, the old ways are the least worst.

Christine Sismondo writes on the Canadian national emblem: the doughnut. Which, it turns out, was actually imported from the deep-fried south.

Konnie Huq leaves Blue Peter. She never fronted the item A child's guide to vote fraud, because that's the sort of thing she leaves to low-rent guttersnipes on the other side. But no-one watches the other side!

Simon Jenkins on why the cancellation of a referendum on the EU constitution treaty is dangerous to Europe. People fed up with bureaucratic meddling in their lives will gradually withdraw consent from honest government. They will evade, fiddle and go apathetic.

Just like they will against Labour's proposed identity register, which has been delayed. Again. At this rate, the West Coast Mainline upgrade will finish first. Nick Robinson explores what's going on.

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The Digital One license was awarded 23/6/98; prior to launch, an overnight Classic Dance station, and a daytime Comedy station were dropped, and a standards station added. Most of the channels launched 11/99, though the news channel didn't begin for almost a year. We present a recap of how each service has changed its bitrate (always measured in kbps) in the years since.

(More: Those details (and logos) in full)

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The BBC has recently made a short drama series about the Summerhill school. It's a cracking piece of work, and one that reminded me of MSCL.

A brief piece of background information is probably required. Summerhill was established in Suffolk in the 1920s. The school has an unusual philosophy: that children are perfectly able to live their own lives, and don't need to be boxed in and regulated by the concerns of their parents, or by the desires of the rest of society. In practice, this means that the pupils are free to determine their own rules, allowed to determine their own timetable, and choose which lessons to attend and when. Or even not to attend lessons at all.

During the 1990s, Summerhill was visited almost every year by government inspectors. This low-level harrassment culminated in a formal notice, insisting that pupils attend lessons. However, the school - teachers, staff, and pupils - voted to challenge the notice in court, ultimately winning a notable victory over the government. (SPOILER! Oh.) This process is demonstrated in the television piece.

How does this relate back to MSCL? There's a direct link to The Substitute, raising questions about what education is for. Is it intended to steer children through the hoops of public examinations, learning a myriad of disassociated facts and regurgitating them under the pressure of time? Or should an education train children to think for themselves, to take responsibility for their lives? Vic Racine's lessons were unstructured almost to the point of chaos, yet he generated great interest and great work from pupils who were left cold by more traditional techniques. Summerhill allows pupils to control their own lives, and when they choose to come to lessons, they do so out of a desire to learn, not out of a sense of duty or obligation.

Another recurring theme is of giving youngsters permission to make mistakes, because they will have something of a support network to fall back on. We can compare the treatment of Ryan - who steals money and breaks bounds, only to find that his father has left the country - with that of Rayanne, who finds herself all alone in the world after that moment in the back of Jordan's car.

Perhaps the strongest comparison is between Patty Chase and Maddy's mother - two ladies who just cannot keep their distance from their mothers. We're not privy to Maddy's thoughts, but there's a point just about half-way through where she's surely thinking about creative ways to kill her parent.

Ultimately, both Summerhill and MSCL raise questions about where children should fit in society. Both programmes portray strong characters of school age, and both programmes display the conflict that arise when the older generation stubbornly refuses to understand the needs and desires of their offspring, or to treat them as autonomous individuals. A little more love, a little less of the hate disguised as proscription.

Viewers who missed Summerhill's transmissions on the CBBC channel and on BBC1 can see the entire work in one 100-minute sitting, from 7.30 this Monday on BBC4. (DTTV channel 9, cable channel 107, also via Astra satellite 2D at 28.2 East, transponder 45, SID 6316). It'll also be available on the BBC's catch-up television service, and most probably on good file-sharing networks.

More: Indytab. Readers may also wish to note that it's the first major role for Jessie Cave, who will shortly be playing Rupert Grint's love interest. (SPOILER! Oh.)

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New national number ones, and other notes...
Germany Europe's most important singles chart has a new number one, and Leona Lewis is it. Bleeding love comes straight into the survey at number 1, making her the first UK casting show winner to top the charts there, and following only Will Young as a bona fide international star. It's unfortunate for Stefanie Heinzmann, whose My man is a mean man can only enter at 3. Olaf Henning's Cowboy und Indianer is new at 8, and Jimi Blue's second single makes 13.
Netherlands Valerie, the Whingebag / Ronson version, is number 1. DJ Jean is in at 2 with The launch relaunched, and Alain Clark puts Father and friend in at 4.
Sweden Now you're gone rises into the top three, just two places below the original's peak a year and more ago.
France Frederic Lerner's Plus la is straight in at 3; it's also number 5 in Walloonia.
Denmark Drops in the ocean is into the top five for The Storm.
Norway Sichelle's into the top five with a song about her favourite Beano character, Min.
Latvia Brainstorm's And I lie makes 18 in three days of airplay.
Ireland Now you're gone gives Basshunter a number 1 single.

We'll start with flop of the week. Six years ago, Jennifer Lopez had a number one single, part of a long run of top five hits. This week, Hold it don't drop it was released on physical singles, and looked like it would miss the chart entirely. A late surge has lifted it to a new entry at 72. Back in at 65 comes Nickelback's How you remind me, now six years old. Snore Patrol are 58, the Wombats's first hit goes 68-54, Duffy's Rockferry hits 52, and Robyn has three hits in the top 50, as Handle me moves 67-50. New at 49 comes One Night Only's Just for tonight, which has been played on the radio all year, but we've never heard who it's by because radio DJs don't bother with that sort of thing. New at 44 comes Michael Jackson's The girl is mine, remixed by William.

After three weeks hovering just outside the top 40, Newton Faulkner's Dream catch me re-enters at 37; it originally made number 7 about six months ago, but it feels closer to six years. Bullet For My Valentine feel like a huge Yank-rock act; in fact, they're from south Wales, and their biggest hit made 29. Scream aim fire comes in at 34. it's out on physicals, and they'll be doing well to remain in the top 75 next week. We've not heard Just fine, the new Mary J Blige song, up 19 to 28. Leon Jackson's chart career is now 1-1-1-5-15-27. Ouch! David Jordan's Sun goes down has crossed our eardrums, and it's rather good, and storms up 34 to 22.

A one-place rebound for Leona Lewis, a six-place climb for Alicia Keys. Highest new entry at 11 for Jay Sean's Ride it, which has had its physical release. Kelly Rowland has the fastest climber within the top 40, Work storms up 24 to number 7. It's the fastest climber since, er, last week, when the Wombats were also up 24. Top five: Lupe Fiasco is down one, swapping with Rihanna. Nickelback have their biggest hit ever, as Rockstar is up 3 to 3, beating How you remind me by a place. The big surprise is that Adele is still at number 2: the hype and physical release has just failed to overpower Basshunter from the top. It's not quite an upset on the scale of Havant and Waterlooville, but it's probably the biggest shock since Ketevan and Cassidy.

On the albums, Scouting for Girls hold at number 1, Page and Krauss climb from 5 to 2, with Amy MacDonald dropping a place to 3. Faulkner holds at 4, and the Hoosiers are up three to 5. Lupe Fiasco's album enters at 8, Nickelback's album storms up from 41 to 10, and Garth Brooks's hits album re-enters at 11. Lower down, the Eels's singles album enters at 26, and Cat Power's Jukebox is new at 32. Lightspeed Champion (45) and Black Mountain (72) have new entries, Eels's Singles and B-sides album makes 69, and Sondheim's Sweeney Todd soundtrack enters at 62.

 8  8 Scouting For Girls - Elvis ain't dead
10 10 Robyn - Be mine
15 21 Alicia Keys - No one
16 17 Leona Lewis - Burning love
18 13 Wombats - Moving to New Amsterdam
22 56 David Jordan - Sun goes down
23 22 Cascada - What hurts the most
24 23 Mika - Relax take it easy
25 25 Scouting for Girls - She's so lovely
29 26 Sugababes - About you now
30 28 Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr. A
31 33 Amy MacDonald - This is the life
34 NE Bullet For My Valentine - Scream aim fire
36 32 Sugababes - Change
39 39 Robyn - With every heartbeat
45 40 Bloc Party - Flux
47 45 Freemasons - Uninvited
48 24 Madness - NW5
49 NE One Night Only - Just for tonight
50 67 Robyn - Handle me
52 62 Duffy - Rockferry
53 44 Mika - Happy ending
54 68 Wombats - Let's dance to Joy Division
56 50 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
57 53 Plain White Ts - Hate
60 30 Radiohead - Jigsaw falling into place
73 63 Filo and Peri - Anthem
74 48 Reverend and the Makers
  - Heavyweight champion of the world

.. 64 Mika - Grace Kelly

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This week, we've been watching and hearing...

• Summerhill (Tiger Aspect for CBBC / The Fourth Programme) Now this is a really, really good drama, working both as an instruction in the ethos behind the controversial school and also as a drama in its own right. The show's going out on The Fourth Programme next Monday, and deserves to make prime-time BBC-2.
• Blue Peter (CBBC) Konnie Huq leaves the show after 966 editions - slightly more than ten years - with an episode that is as self-indulgent and celebratory as you get. A dress-your-own Konnie doll, a visit from Prank Patrol, setting the world record for pinning the most badges on someone (17 BP badges on Andy in one minute), and a quiz about Konnie's ten years. Or, to be exact, her fifteen years - they've dug out her debut from 1992. There are special messages from Si, Matt, and Liz, and that bloke from Downing-street who she didn't interview. And, of course, the gold badge she richly deserves.
• Top of the Pops (Fourth Programme) 1982 suffered from being shown so often on TOTP2, and from the first quarter being shown in a very odd aspect ratio. 1994 was absolutely the tops, though; the year had some pretty ropey rubbish (Doop? Manchester United? Cyndi Lauper ten years after she lost it?) but also so fantastic lost classics. The sign! Let Loose! Oh baby I in front of a stained-glass window! Pato Banton cavorting around like a madman in front of Robin and Ali Campbell on a television set! That bloke out of Stiltskin in a huge fur coat! All held together by the very moderate talents of Take That, who (mercifully) didn't give us a song, and playing out with the second great festive number one in as many years, Stay another day. Sadly, the mood is utterly spoiled by an asinine presentation decision, to shrink the programme (not the closing credits, they'd finished, the actual programme) to plug other shows. Which we now won't bother watching. Pop on Trial can pop off so far as we're concerned.
• Pop Britannia (The Fourth Programme) So, what happened in the 1970s? Glam rock, which took up about eight minutes towards the end of programme two, and punk gets slightly less at the start of part three. It's about this point that we realised that it's just a glorified clip programme, with an over-earnest voice-off by Anne-Marie Duff, the thinking person's Marcus Bentley, only worse. Sweeping the Nation reviews all three parts, and finds the incoherent mess is much less than the sum of the parts.
• Feedback (City Media for Radio 4) enquires into the BBC's complaints procedure; addresses the question Profile: biography or rushed hagiography; and the Great Firewall of Red China.
• The Late Edition (The Fourth Programme) With features on Jeremy Paxman's underwear, that second-rate John Barrowman tribute act Tom Cruise being a twit, and Marcus Brigstocke explaining the recession with a large plate of cakes. You've eaten the cake! No wonder there's a recession on! Plus a chat with Vince Cable. Fanclub, do note.

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The British government announced a hideously convoluted bail-out package for the troubled Northern Rock bank. The bank will be loaned £25md (€34md) in government-backed bonds. These are, in effect, gilt-edged securities, worth approximately £1md (€1.35md) at current values. In turn, the government takes control of the business, deciding who should buy it. This is a partial and temporary nationalisation of the sort that Dr. Cable has been calling for since the crisis began in September. It indicates a long-term commitment by the government - rather than demand that the whole process be sorted by Easter, with £10md upfront from the new owners, the bonds will not need to be repaid until 2013. Critics have also pointed out that this is approving of the moral hazard that created the situation in the first place; the finance ministry has not addressed this criticism. (More: Peston | 2)

A bad week for bankers got even worse when Societe Generale uncovered a rogue trader, whose unauthorised work had cost the bank €4.9md (€4.9md). In shades of Nick Leeson, this person - who has not been named - over-rode system limits to gamble huge amounts of money. Soc Gen will issue new shares to cover this loss, and a €2md loss related to sub-prime lending. It appears that Soc Gen liquidiating this trader's positions was, in part, responsible for an 8% fall in the price of shares on Monday and Tuesday. (Peston again)

Vernon Kaye dropped the flag on a panic sale of his assets, cutting the interest rate by ¾% to 3½%. The move came eight days before the scheduled cut date, and is the first movement of more than ½% since December 1982, when they reduced from 12½% to 11½%. (More: Eurotrib | Davis)

There was no clear winner in the Serbian presidential election of 20 January. Nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic secured 39,4% of the vote, and will be joined in the second round on 3 February by Boris Tadic, a pro-western candidate and incumbent president. The turnout was 61%.

Schools in Dublin will ease their religious discrimination policy, accepting up to one-third of their pupils from families that do not accept the claims of Roman Rat.

The border between the Gazza Strip and Egypt was marked by a high wall, through which the Egyptians only let pedestrians pass. Not any more: the wall's been breached and people are coming from miles away to stock up on essential supplies like food, water, and fuel. (Orr)

Peter Hain resigned as Britain's minister of labour, after police began an investigation into his failed bid to become the Labour party's deputy leader last year. Mr. Hain said that he was resigning to clear his name, just as Jonathan Aitken did. The replacements: James Purnell (from Culture), Andy Burnham (from Treasury 2), Yvette Cooper (from Housing, a cabinet New Entry), with Caroline Flint taking Housing from her old place at Work. Mr. Purnell protested Mr. Hain's innocence, in a clear perversion of the course of justice. Isn't that a resigning matter any more?

After thirty years in the band, Ali Campbell has resigned from UB40, citing management differences. Mr. Campbell has been the voice of the group, and split the past twelve years between the band and his other job as press spokesman for Mister Blair.

Romano Prodi submitted his resignation as Italian prime minister after losing a confidence vote in the country's senate. Sr. Prodi will remain in office while President Napolitano consults over reforms to the electoral system.

The current system was imposed by the regime of Sr. Berlusconi; the lower house is filled by party lists on a regional basis, distributed by d'Hondt, with the proviso that the single most popular coalition is assured 340 seats (54%). Seats in the upper chamber are distributed on a similar basis, but the single most popular coalition in any given region is guaranteed a minimum of 55% of seats in that region. The net effect is to produce a stable majority in the lower house, but to ensure that the senate is on a knife-edge, with smaller parties over-represented.

At present, it appears that Sr. Berlusconi's coalition of the tax-dodgers would benefit from elections under the current rules, so they are requesting just that. More democratically-minded Italians are looking for something more stable, and President Napolitano is seeing if that can be achieved.

We regret to report the death of Ruth Frow, founder of the Working Class Movement Library; and of Henry Cecil, horseman.

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A much more settled week than we've had recently. Mild weather continued all week, thanks to a westerly airflow, which was quite strong from Thursday to Saturday. As pressure built, the skies cleared, and it began to feel like spring is near, though not yet arrived. It won't do next week; indeed, there's a fair chance that there will be a north-westerly blast for northern parts on Wednesday, with the prospect of strong winds for all from Thursday as a depression gathers off northern Scotland.

21 Mo cloud, drizzle    10/11, 3.5
22 Tu sunny spells       0/ 7
23 We cloud              9/12
24 Th sun               10/10, 0.5
25 Fr cloud, wind        5/10
26 Sa sun, wind          7/11
27 Su sun                6/11

Rainfall in January: 91.5mm; monthly average: 71mm

Degree heating days: 391
2006-7: 218/499
2005-6: 365/684
2004-5: 327½/556
2003-4: 432/754

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