ALL THINGS considered, we could do with moving. A house that used to be big is now small. As money is a little tight, I'm thinking of asking City of York Council to help.

Perhaps if the council had a large property to hand somewhere, preferably one surrounded by fields, I could put in a bid. Because I haven't got the readies to hand, I could offer a pittance now and promise to pay the rest at a date more to my convenience.

For some reason, I suspect my suggestion would be laughed out of Guildhall. And yet when St Peter's School came up with a similar wheeze to buy the site of Queen Anne School, the council hurried everything through in 24 hours. Such was the alacrity of this decision that objectors had virtually no chance to see what had happened - let alone make any complaint.

In an astonishing piece of accounting, the private St Peter's School has finally snaffled up the redundant state school for £4.8 million. As St Peter's appears not to have the cash to hand, the council has agreed that it can pay £250,000 now and defer the rest until next year.

These remarkably lenient terms will cost the council £273,000 in lost interest. It is generous of the council to agree to subsidise a private, pay-to-enter school with our money. Those of us whose children attend York's state schools have every reason to feel annoyed by this largesse. Such a sum could have been more fairly spent improving a state school or employing more teachers.

As this column noted last October, private education is probably all right if you can afford that sort of thing. Yet some of us view private schools with suspicion, perhaps even a little jealousy, believing, in an old-fashioned, unreconstructed sort of way that there is something wrong with a system that lets those with the most money have the best education.

City of York Council is apparently happy to help out St Peter's, a private charity, by handing this privileged school "a fantastic bargain, subsidised by the council tax payers", to quote the rightly outraged Philip Crowe in a letter to this newspaper.

Back in October, I pointed out that leaflets advertising a public meeting on the future of the Queen Anne site coyly avoided mentioning that the privately-run St Peter's wished to buy the site, instead using the friendly but vague words "junior school" to describe possible future use of the building.

At the time it seemed there was a desire to hurry everything through without a fuss - and the unseemly rush to get this decision rubber-stamped as quickly as possible only confirms such a suspicion.

SO The Archbishop of York got his wish and Tony Blair delayed the election. Quite why our own churchly figure-head thought fit to stick in his mitre is a puzzle, but a lot of people agreed with David Hope, and Mr Blair has nudged the expected election on a month, to the more or less confirmed date of June 7.

As stated here two weeks ago, I think Tony Blair should have stuck with May 3, but the momentum of events was against him, and so the foot and mouth crisis has caused a delay.

Whichever date you preferred, it is hard not to grow weary of this 'will-he- won't-he?' performance.

Surely it would be more sensible to have fixed-term parliaments, with elections falling at an agreed interval, every four or five years.

It is true that such a schedule would spoil the political conjuring trick, leaving a prime minister with nothing to pull out of the hat.

Yet 'pre-booked' elections would lead to greater stability and get rid of the endless electoral foreplay.

Fixed-term elections have already been suggested in Tony Wright's private member's bill. A good idea.

So it probably won't happen.