Welcome to a brand new week, and there'll have been a smug David Cameron munching through breakfast this morning. The Mirror has bought the whole "throw a wedge between Labour and the PM over education" trick hook, line and sinker. Here's one of their leaders in today's paper:

Tony Blair is muddying what should be clear blue water between a Labour government and Tory opposition over selection in schools. The Premier's qualified support for cherry-picking of pupils according to how heads guess they'll perform smacks of the dreaded 11-plus.

His distinction between selection on academic ability, as measured by an exam, and showing an aptitude for a subject, possibly gauged by other exam, is disingenuous. Blair should champion good local secondaries for all kids and expose the Tories as a divisive force harking back to the bad days when most pupils were branded failures before their teens.

[source: The Mirror - 'His-tory lesson']

I'm surprised that's worked quite so easily. Meanwhile across the political divide, The Telegraph is also having a dig at our Tone, demanding to know why the Government has spent £1m on a website which asks people to nominate national icons. The Telegraph's first nomination is foxhunting, which is why I don't generally read The Telegraph.

Elsewhere in the news, a Somerset man finds himself competing for Russia in a trans-Atlantic boat race, having previously had to be rescued from that very same ocean when trying to cross it using kite power. There is no hope for some people. Closer to what is currently home, in London, the National Portrait Gallery is employing front-of-house staff to smile at visitors, thereby preventing terrorism. The Londonist:

According to the press, the welcome means that anyone entering the gallery who has a "malevolent purpose," will now immediately "realise they have been recognised," by the chirpy, headset-sporting gap year student on the door.

As international art thieves are undoubtedly too clever to walk in through the front door, and Banksy probably doesn't warrant such high levels of security, we can only imagine that "malevolent purpose" is a euphemism for terrorism.

[source: The Londonist - 'Welcome to the NPG - unless you're a terrorist']