THIS week, 15 years ago, Gordon Brown pledged to make state schools as good as private schools with a £34bn spending spree to open a clear divide between Labour and a Tory party planning tax cuts.

In his tenth Budget speech, the Chancellor cheered up Labour MPs engulfed in "loans for lordships" sleaze by promising to make education his priority for the five years to follow.

At its heart was a pledge to raise annual spending per pupil in state schools - at the time £5,000 - to the £8,000 enjoyed by those in the private sector.

Investment in IT equipment and repairs would rise from £5.6bn a year to £8bn in 2011 - a total of £34bn of extra spending over five years, Mr Brown boasted.

Delighted Labour backbenchers speculated whether the speech, rich in popular measures, had brought closer the day when Mr Brown would take over from an embattled Tony Blair.

The Chancellor also won backbench applause for pledging free national bus travel for all pensioners and the disabled, ending charges to cross local council boundaries.

And he tapped into excitement about the 2012 Olympics by announcing a £600m fund to train gold medal winners and an annual "schools Olympics" moving from city to city.

The Northern Echo: Chancellor Gordon Brown with Bob Geldof (right) on the platform at the Labour Party conference at the G-Mex Centre in Manchester Picture: JOHN GILES / PAChancellor Gordon Brown with Bob Geldof (right) on the platform at the Labour Party conference at the G-Mex Centre in Manchester Picture: JOHN GILES / PA

Mr Brown told MPs: "Our long-term aim should be to ensure for 100 per cent of our children the educational support now available to just ten per cent."

Rejecting tax cuts, he added: "Investing in education comes first - and investing in education is this Budget's choice."

But the opposition was quick to accuse the Chancellor of an empty pledge because, as he admitted, matching spending in private schools was a "long-term aim".

Furthermore, Mr Brown promised only to raise spending to £8,000 per pupil - without taking into account that private schools would, over time, raise that figure.

Going head-to-head for the first time with the to be Prime Minister, Tory leader David Cameron condemned his failure to improve schools and hospitals, despite sky-high taxes.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral of a leading North-East Muslim cleric.

The turnout was so great for the service for Syed Ismail Ali, a priest at the Jamia Mosque, in Darlington, it had to be held in a park.

Mr Ali died aged 49, after a long battle against a brain haemorrhage.

The Northern Echo: Mourners gather in North Lodge Park for the funeral of Syed Ismail Ali, of the Jamia Mosque, in Darlington Picture: STUART BOULTONMourners gather in North Lodge Park for the funeral of Syed Ismail Ali, of the Jamia Mosque, in Darlington Picture: STUART BOULTON

About 700 people from across the UK are thought to have been at his funeral.

But because the mosque could only accommodate about 500 worshippers, the mourners braved freezing temperatures and snow for a short blessing in the neighbouring North Lodge Park.

And such was the volume of traffic, the roads around the mosque were blocked for several minutes before and after the blessing, and parking restrictions were in operation on several roads nearby.

Mr Ali had lived in Darlington for more 20 years, and had been a priest in the Jamia Mosque since 1982.

He also taught and preached around the country, and regularly visited London and Sunderland.

Mr Ali's nephew, Badsha Miah, said everyone had been devastated at his death.

Mr Ali was laid to rest after the service in the Muslim burial plot of the town's North Cemetery.