Academy sponsors have generally behaved with great arrogance, knowing that they enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Tony Blair's Government. And this has been particularly true of Catholic and evangelical sponsors, who believed that Blair's premiership was the best chance they would ever have of bringing about a seismic shift of power in schools from the state to the churches. Yet it seems clear that the academy project is not working out as its supporters originally intended, and it might well be that Gordon Brown's new Government will feel obliged to jettison large parts of the original scheme. (Contains 3 notes.)