The United Kingdom of Golgafrincham

The New Labour administration has provided a worthy example of how governments mess up systems of accreditation, especially those established by themselves. Since these are designed to mirror the political biases and triumphs of their founders, rather than provide an objective appraisal of developments, governments begin to tinker with the tables when they produce the wrong results.

One example of this is the education league tables where the government has recently introduced the recording of vocational qualifications in order to offset the academic predominance of private and grammar schools. This has the additional consequence of downgrading academic performance even amongst state schools which are run on an adequate basis.

Under the new system, a distinction in a certificate in cake decorating is worth 55 points – more than a GCSE grade A in physics.

And a City and Guilds progression award in bakery was worth more than five GCSEs at grade C.

The public sector professionals thought this was a terrific wheeze.

But John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads’ Association, said the added complexity gave parents a better picture.

“In the past the tables have been too simplistic.

“The new tables give parents a broader view of the achievements of schools,” he said.

The more complex the better. No doubt parents prefer complexity since this makes those important decisions so much easier. Time for the market to provide an alternative.

This government hopes to cut its cake, cook it and eat it. However, although Britain is ending up like Golgafrincham, we cannot offload the cake decorators or the telephone earpiece cleaners, so all of the skilled workers and the professionals are emigrating, leaving the Golgafrinchams behind.