Yesterday's announcement brings an end to months of uncertainty surrounding education in Darlington. Political editor Chris Lloyd looks at the political manoeuvring surrounding the issue.

POLITICS is often about the unsayable. For the past nine months, it has been fascinating to watch so many people, at so many levels, dancing around on the head of a pin, all desperate to keep their feet and not be led by the music into saying the bleedin' obvious.

The most fancy footwork has come from the MP for Hurworth, Tony Blair. As Prime Minister, he wants to create "real parent power" and set schools free from their local education authority.

He told the North-East Economic Forum in Sedgefield last November: "Any school should have the freedom to develop in the way it wishes, subject to fair funding and fair admissions policy.

"Should they choose to do so, they can become self-governing trusts and government, neither local nor central, should be able to stop them."

He could hear the voices of the Hurworth protestors, he could see their banners, he could meet their representatives and he could learn that parent power in Hurworth demanded that its secondary school be freed from the control of Darlington Local Education Authority to develop in the way it wished.

But he, the local MP, could not say that he supported them, even though they were dancing to his music.

It was unsayable because it would have landed him in embarrassing conflict with Labour-controlled Darlington council and his neighbouring Labour MP, who had taken up the dance on behalf of his constituents in Eastbourne.

That neighbouring MP is Alan Milburn, the man Mr Blair put in charge of running the General Election campaign. Head-to-head. Milburn versus Blair. What a prospect!

So for 20 minutes at Hardwick Hall last November, while the protestors were ensconced with the PM, his aides were outside, dancing around, denying there was any conflict.

But at the same time, they were saying there were other aides working behind the scenes to find a resolution - even though there was nothing to resolve.

Shortly before 1pm yesterday, Mr Blair was still dancing on the head of the pin. When The Northern Echo asked him at his monthly press conference - which fell the day after his Education Bill enshrining school freedom had been passed with the backing of the Tories - why he was not supporting Hurworth, he pirouetted sweetly on the spot.

He said: "It's a very difficult situation and a delicate one.

"There are meetings that are taking place, have been for the past few weeks and will for the next few weeks, to try to resolve the issue. I hope that it can be resolved.

"We want a situation where the children at Eastbourne get a high-quality education and likewise for those at Hurworth School, who want to keep their school as it is."

Half-an-hour earlier, Mr Milburn had stopped the music. He had announced that both schools were to stay open and that it was a victory for everyone.

It is the obvious solution. It saves the PM from embarrassment. It saves Mr Milburn from wrestling with his leader, and it saves Darlington council from an unwinnable conflict with the people of Hurworth.

It may even save the council leadership from a challenge from a directly-elected mayor.

The council will, though, be wondering how it got into this position. It asked Mr Blair's Government for money to rebuild its ageing schools, but twice under the Building Schools for the Future initiative was knocked back. No money was available until 2011 at the earliest - although if it embraced Mr Blair's brand new idea of City Academies, it could have £25m tomorrow.

Understandably, the council took the money and concocted a plan. It was a strange plan that involved closing one of the town's best schools and it was a plan that did very little to address the overall falling pupil numbers.

It persuaded the Labour group that this was the best way forward; it persuaded the local educational establishment that this was the best way forward.

It even persuaded the headteachers and governors of Hurworth that this was the best way forward - although they soon found cause to dance to a different tune. And it took four full pages in its magazine to persuade the people that this was the best way forward, without argument.

Only yesterday it discovered that this wasn't the best way forward. Despite all of its efforts.

But at least everyone from the Prime Minister downwards will be grateful that the dance on the head of the pin has finally stopped.