More on the Global Campaign for Education meeting

As I heard Andrew Mitchell, the British development secretary (more about him later), say yesterday, this Millennium Development Goals summit resembles an upmarket political conference.

My first event of yesterday was organised by the Global Campaign for Education at a hotel near the United Nations Building. Among the speakers were Queen Rania of Jordan and a notably relaxed Gordon Brown. Clearly, not being prime minister does wonders for your state of mind.

There were lots of speakers and limited time, so it was a very soundbitey event. Rather than try to report it in full I shall just send you to the Global Campaign for Education website, which will tell you all about the campaign to make primary education available to every child.

The star of the show was the 12-year-old South African girl Nthabiseng Tshabalala. Not so much for her address to the meeting as for what happened afterwards.

A crowd of us were waiting for the lifts to come to take us down from the second floor after the meeting, but none came for ages. "Are there any stairs?" she asked and the whole crowd went down that way instead.

You can't beat a good education.