The biggest dilemma facing most people when the names of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the Education Secretary Michael Gove are raised is working out which one you want to slap first.
Would it be the Deputy PM whose addiction to Dave has drawn the enmity of all political parties including his own? Or would it be Mr Gove – surely the brother of Miss Jean Brodie – who has managed to bringing superciliousness to a new art form?
Both were trotted out today as the Coalition launched its latest attempt to get off the back-foot which has been reversing its progress since the Budget. This time it was to trail the launch –or the re-launch—of the O” Level to put some rigour back into the exam system since too many kids were passing them.
To prove the point that foreign languages, apart from Geordie and Scouse, should be revered again the new exams will be called baccalaureates which is the national secondary school diploma in France and Romania .
To help understanding these new O’Levels won’t be called O’Levels since that would be retrograde but instead the ”English Baccalaureate Certificate”.
Try saying that in Geordie