The picture of an army of cautious modernisers runs counter to suggestions that Mr Blair would face turbulence from a parliamentary party dominated by left-wing Old Labourites.
Of the 42 candidates out of 110 in safe Labour or target seats who responded to questions asked by Channel 4’s A Week In Politics programme, two-thirds (27) said that “if other European currencies establish a single currency” Britain should join it. Advertisements asking for expressions of interest have just been published and a preferred bidder could be announced as early as this autumn, with the sale going through in the New Year.However, there are doubts whether the sale price will be sufficient to pay off the money borrowed by the four councils to build the project and the PTE will be reluctant to sell below that price because it would leave a long-term debt of up to pounds 100m with the councils. The system began operation more than two years ago and was completed last October.Alex Ritchie, finance director of South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, said: “We are looking to sell either the whole system, or just the operation as a franchise.”Companies bidding for rail franchises, such as Stagecoach and Compagnie Generale des Eaux are expected to be interested in the sale as will the rolling stock companies which now own all the passenger trains. The initial target of having 22 million users each year by the turn of the decade is now reckoned to be over-optimistic by a factor of three or four.While European and government grants provided much of the finance, the councils had to borrow pounds 80m as their share of the cost. The trams have largely been running empty, apart from at peak times, while competing buses remain full. Unlike Manchester’s new tram system, which incorporated existing rail lines and faces little bus competition, Sheffield’s system is largely on the streets and trams are often delayed by the traffic.The operation has also been criticised for a complex ticketing method, poor marketing and inadequate customer information systems. The Sheffield Supertram, Britain’s most modern system, is being privatised despite the fact that it has flopped, carrying far fewer passengers than anticipated.

The system is owned by the local passenger transport executive which is controlled by four local councils – Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster – who fear that council-tax payers will have to fork out huge sums to make up the losses.
The system is technically a great success and was built on time, but it has suffered under fierce competition from buses which have more stops and are much cheaper. For Sale One tram system, one year old, was pounds 241m new Offers well under pounds 100m enthusiastically considered. In the South a warm, humid day with temperatures reaching the mid to high 20s, with weakening sunshine.”Ocean Routes says: “Moderate south-westerly winds will spread showers over Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and northern England, but in other areas a warm and sunny day.”. Also some local radio stations and premium-rate phone services.NOBLE DENTON WEATHER SERVICESBased: LondonSupplies: mainly scientific forecasting – offshore oil industry, ship routing. A few media concerns.BRITISH WEATHER SERVICESBased: High WycombeSupplies: premium-rate phone and online weather services.AND THEIR FORECASTS FOR TODAY?The Met Office says: “Northern Scotland will see some cloud and light rain, but it will be sunny and increasingly hot over the rest of the UK.”The Weather Department says: “An area of low pressure will come in from the South-west. Runs premium rate phone/fax information services, and is a joint venture partner in the new Weather Network, with Canadian media giant Pelmorex.OCEAN ROUTESBased: Aberdeen (part of the Weather News International Group)Supplies: mainly the offshore oil industry and shipping.

Some media concerns, including the Aberdeen Independent newspaper, Grampian TV, Rai-TV (Italian commercial station), ITV’s Teletext service and Videotron (a London cable operator). Also S4C, the Travel Channel (satellite), SIC-TV (Portugal’s main commercial service) and TV Norga (Norway’s main commercial service). Backing the new Weather Channel venture, with US company Landmark.THE WEATHER DEPARTMENTBased: BirminghamSupplies: the Sporting Life, and ITV regional services Central, Scottish, Tyne Tees and Ulster. 80 per cent of us watch weather bulletins at least five days a week.
98 per cent of us claim to be interested in local forecasts.90 per cent of us seek weather information at least once a day.THE METEOROLOGICAL OFFICEBased: LondonSupplies: the BBC, most national newspapers, Independent Weather Productions, a division of the Met Office; provides information for ITV breakfast service GMTV, BBC teletext service Ceefax and Yorkshire Television. The proposals would also give grant-maintained schools the right to select 50 per cent of pupils instead of the present 10 per cent.

Local councils would continue to control admissions policies for other schools.Mrs Shephard confirmed that the nursery education voucher scheme would go nation-wide next year, ensuring that all parents of four-year-olds will receive a voucher worth pounds 1,100 in February.. According to the Meteorological Office, weather reports are the third most popular programme on television. “We’re not in favour of saying to local people: `You can’t send your child to your neighbourhood secondary school because pupils have been brought in from outside who have passed the exam’,” he said on BBC radio.Mrs Shephard’s comments will infuriate some of the Prime Minister’s advisers and Tory party policy chiefs who are convinced that greater selection is a vote-winner.The White Paper is expected to propose that ministers have the power to order local councils to set up new grammar schools – with the consent of parents and teachers.Ministers are debating how the law could be changed to allow the Secretary of State for Education to impose grammar schools on local councils wherever a new school is proposed. She said the Government meant to make it “very much easier” for there to be selective schools – but added “where parents and teachers and governors want it”.Past experience has shown that, despite the superficial popularity of the idea of grammar schools, when parents are presented with a specific plan to introduce selection they reject it, as in Tory-controlled Solihull in the mid-1980s.David Blunkett, Labour’s education spokesman, sought to draw attention to the drawbacks of selection for the majority whose children would fail entrance exams. “The proposals in the White Paper may very well result in just that,” she told GMTV. The Government is expected to unveil plans to increase selection in schools in a White Paper to be published at the end of the month, and John Major wants to see the issue of selective education at the forefront of the next election campaign.
But Mrs Shephard, who has always been less keen, refused fully to endorse Mr Major’s ambition to see a grammar school in every town. Gillian Shephard, the Secretary of State for Education, made it clear yesterday that parents, teachers and school governors would have a veto on the Prime Minister’s plan for a “grammar school in every town”.