The Blair Trilogy

On 1 October 1996, at the Labour Party Conference in the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, Tony Blair — then Leader of the Opposition, not yet Prime Minister — announced the political trilogy: “education, education and education.”

It has now become necessary to examine not merely the slogan, but the machinery and people behind it. The question is whether the “education” trilogy was only a public policy phrase, or whether there was an additional hidden limb: the child-record, care-record and education-data mechanism through which vulnerable children could be moved, renamed, obscured, or lost inside the system.

Publicly evidenced: Matt Dunkley was an East Sussex education officer and a 1995–96 Harkness Fellow based at the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote in TES that his project concerned pre-school education and care, its relationship to statutory education, and that he travelled in the US including New York and Washington DC. Your FOIA point: your published FOIA account says Clinton Library case 2025-1058-F produced the search result “Dunkley and Blair — 1 hit / 5 pages”, and you are asking why those five pages have not been released or fully explained.https://thestealingofemily.co.uk/2026/04/24/breach-of-article-32-of-directive-eu-2017-1371-foia-case-2025-1058-f/

Dunkley was not merely a later children’s services figure. The public record places him in the United States in 1995–96 as a Harkness Fellow based at the University of California, Berkeley, researching pre-school education, care, statutory education, and related child-development policy. His own TES account records travel across the United States, including New York and Washington DC, and describes him giving talks and discussions on aspects of the English education system.

That matters because the Clinton Presidential Library FOIA case 2025-1058-F is said to identify a specific search result: “Dunkley and Blair — 1 hit / 5 pages.” Those five pages are now central. If they concern Blair and Dunkley in New York in 1997, then they may sit directly behind the public slogan “education, education, education” and the hidden machinery of education, social care, and child-record policy.

The question is therefore no longer abstract. It is: what are the five pages, why have they not been released, and what lawful exemption is being relied upon if they remain withheld?

The first member already known to us is Matthew Dunkley: the education official connected to Blair-era education discussions, later Director of Children’s Services in East Sussex, then connected to Victoria’s Department of Education during the Ultranet / Operation Dunham scandal, before returning to senior children’s services roles in Norfolk and Kent. By February 2025, I had already escalated the Victoria / IBAC / Operation Dunham issue to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner under CASE-20246844. That complaint concerned IBAC’s failure to facilitate access to FOI material relating to Operation Dunham. This matters because Operation Dunham sits directly in the education-technology record, and Matthew Dunkley appears in the wider Victoria education context before returning to senior children’s services roles in England.

The second “education” figure can be framed as Jeffrey Epstein, because before he became publicly known as a financier and sex offender, he had an education role in New York: he taught maths and physics at the Dalton School, a private K–12 school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. https://www.wlrn.org/news/2019-07-17/poor-smart-and-desperate-to-be-rich-how-epstein-went-from-teaching-to-wall-street

The passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act has now placed that background into a wider public-record context. The Act compelled the release of DOJ-held Epstein material, and the question is no longer merely who Epstein knew, but how an education-linked figure moved between schools, finance, elite networks, and child exploitation.

The third person has been illusive as we were looking for the wrong gender Jacqui Smith — former Blair-era MP, now Baroness Smith, Minister for Skills in Education.

“Jacqui Smith is a Blair-era Labour figure, former Home Secretary, now brought back by Starmer into education/skills. Her main public scandal was the 2009 MPs’ expenses affair, especially the second-home claim and the pay-per-view bill.”

According to the official IICSA inquiry says PIE campaigned to normalise sexual relationships between adults and children. 1974 — PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) formed / began operating. 1970s — allegations about Home Office/Voluntary Services Unit funding were investigated. GOV.UK describes the review as concerning allegations that “during the 1970s” the Home Office provided funds to PIE. A date 1984 — commonly given as the point PIE disbanded/stopped operating by we now know this is called egov.uk.com as early as 2006.

The evidence you pasted is from a UK IPO trade mark decision about ePEP. It records that Patrick Finegan, formerly Virtual Headteacher at Dudley Council, said he met Gary Daniels around 2006, when the Virtual Schools project began, and that Daniels proposed an online ePEP platform to reduce the burden of paper-based Personal Education Plans. https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o023125.pdf

The bigger point is Bradford. The decision records that Ewen Godfrey, formerly lead Education Officer for children in care in Bradford, said Bradford was involved in the first statutory guidance for children in care, published in 2000; that Bradford developed a PEP template; that Gary Daniels demonstrated a CD-ROM version called ePEP — Electronic Personal Education Plan; and that Bradford adopted it in 2006 and worked with Daniels on developing the first online PEP.https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o023125.pdf

The decision also records the weak points: no evidence from Gary Daniels himself, no dates for key meetings, no copy of the CD-ROM exhibited, no clear company details for the alleged early provider, and the registered proprietor was not incorporated until 31 October 2018. https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o023125.pdf

It is not merely a school policy phrase. The UK IPO evidence places Gary Daniels, Patrick Finegan of Dudley, and Ewen Godfrey of Bradford inside the early 2006 rollout of electronic Personal Education Plans for children in care. Bradford is especially significant because the decision records that Bradford contributed to the first statutory guidance for children in care, developed its own PEP template, adopted the CD-ROM ePEP in 2006, and worked with Daniels on what was described as the first online PEP.

This means the trilogy is no longer only education, education, education as a slogan. The evidence now points to: education policy, education-linked networks, and the electronic child-record mechanism used for looked-after children.

Ewen Godfrey is important because the official UK IPO decision records him as the former lead Education Officer for children in care in Bradford, and records his evidence that Bradford was a main contributor to the first statutory guidance for children in care, developed a PEP template, adopted Gary Daniels’ CD-ROM ePEP in 2006, and worked with Daniels in developing the first online PEP. https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o023125.pdf

Patrick Finegan’s evidence separately places Gary Daniels with Dudley Virtual School around 2006, during the DfE Virtual Schools pilot period, and states that Daniels proposed an online ePEP platform for Personal Education Plans for children in care. https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o023125.pdf

Companies House supports the later company background: Ewen Godfrey Consultancy Services Ltd, company number 08696678, was incorporated in 2013 and is now dissolved; Companies House also identifies Ewen Bernard Godfrey as its director. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08696678

Slough public material also shows Godfrey later connected to Virtual School / previously-looked-after-children work, and Slough material refers to ePEP use in that Virtual School context. https://thelink.slough.gov.uk/la-services/inclusion-services/virtual-school?

the Blair/Dunkley redaction issue — the Clinton Library “Dunkley and Blair — 1 hit / 5 pages” is not just background; it is the unresolved disclosure point in the article. Your page already states that those five pages are central and asks why they have not been released or fully explained.
the Starmer-government family court change — the Ministry of Justice announced that the presumption of parental involvement is being repealed. Its own press release says courts may restrict parental involvement by ordering supervised contact, written-only contact, or “no involvement at all.”
the “sexed-up reports” context — Ted Jeory’s 2011 Sunday Express report, reproduced on Trial by Jeory, alleged that social workers were being pressured to rewrite reports considered “too positive” and to demand “more dirt” on parents to secure care orders.

he Modern Danger: Redacted Records and Repealed Parental Contact

This question cannot be left in 1996. It now connects directly to the present. The unresolved Clinton Library material — “Dunkley and Blair — 1 hit / 5 pages” — is not a minor archive issue. It is a redaction and disclosure issue at the centre of an education-policy trail. If the public slogan was innocent, why are the five pages concerning Dunkley and Blair still not fully released or explained?

The same concern now reappears in family law. The Starmer government has moved to repeal the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989. The Ministry of Justice says courts will no longer begin from the assumption that parental involvement is in a child’s best interests, and that restrictions may include supervised contact, written communication only, or no involvement at all.

That may be presented as child protection. But in a system already accused of relying on biased, exaggerated or “sexed-up” reports, it creates an obvious danger: if the report is wrong, manipulated, exaggerated, or written inside a closed family-court culture, the result can be the complete cutting-off of a parent from a child.

Epstein was not only a distant American scandal. The public record now shows that Tony Blair met Jeffrey Epstein in Downing Street on 14 May 2002, after Peter Mandelson recommended the meeting to Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell. Mandelson described Epstein as a friend, “young and vibrant,” and “safe,” and the briefing material described Epstein as close to Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. Blair’s spokesperson later said the meeting lasted less than 30 minutes and happened before Epstein’s crimes were known. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/11/tony-blair-met-jeffrey-epstein-in-no-10-on-advice-of-peter-mandelson-documents-reveal

This is why the Blair trilogy matters now. It is not just history. It is the same structure repeating: education policy, closed records, family-court power, and electronic child-data systems — all capable of separating a child from a parent while the evidence remains hidden, redacted, or procedurally buried.

Gordon Brown’s “who else?” moment is exactly the right question.

Who else was there? Who else was introduced? Who else was protected by redaction, office, party loyalty, family court secrecy, or the language of child protection?

Was “education, education, education” only a slogan — or was it the political opening to a machinery that now includes redacted Blair/Dunkley records, ePEP child-data systems, and new family-court powers capable of ending parental contact on the basis of reports parents cannot properly challenge?

May 12, 2026