Watching Gavin Williamson’s media interviews last week, I was suddenly reminded of the 1980s TV show In at the Deep End. Do you remember it? Each week, a likable, self-effacing beta male, merrily projecting an aura of general uselessness, would be thrust into circumstances for which he was unqualified and unsuitable. He’d get a small amount of expert advice but, by the end of the programme, he’d be expected to wing it as, say, a rally driver, snooker player, opera singer, hairdresser or chef. Often, you’d think: “He’s coping pretty well for someone so clueless!”
That’s exactly what I feel about Williamson. He has an engaging manner that might engender confidence under different circumstances – if, for example, he were proposing to valet park your car. “He probably won’t steal it or crash it,” you’d think. And even as education secretary it seems likely he’s benefited from up to an afternoon’s intensive instruction. Then I reckon someone’s given him a useful side of A4 with the main points. To say “He doesn’t know the first thing about being education secretary” would be grossly unfair. It’s possible he knows the first 12 things.
Events haven’t gone perfectly for him, but here his gangly and open-faced demeanour is a tremendous help. You can imagine him handing the keys back with an embarrassed grin as he talks you through the causes of the long scrape down the passenger side. If he’s going to be out of a job soon like everyone reckons, he’d be a great new presenter for an In at the Deep End reboot, if one is being considered, which, on reflection, it must be because broadcasters are perpetually considering reboots of every programme ever made, including some that are already in the process of being rebooted.
You can imagine him, six months from now, at the top of his first ski jump, doing a nervous face to camera and saying “Well, it can’t be harder than explaining an algorithm to the House of Commons” before swooshing out of shot. And it would help the BBC hit its quota for televising rightwingers without having to give Laurence Fox a chatshow.
I don’t understand why people are so convinced Williamson is about to be fired. It’s not as if he’s getting any worse. In fact, if you compare the situation now with what happened last summer, you could argue he’s getting the hang of it. The full majesty of his 2020 exams cock-up was missed because everyone focused on how unfair the algorithm was. But there’s a deeper ineptitude because, even if it had been fair, people wouldn’t have accepted it. A magical perfect algorithm that predicted the grades everyone would have got with 100% accuracy would still not have enjoyed social consent because most people think they’ll work harder than they really will. So it wasn’t merely that Williamson’s strategy didn’t work, it’s that it couldn’t. He was rolling a six-sided die and he needed a seven.
Having kept his job despite such exhaustive incompetence 12 months ago, what could possibly justify his dismissal now? His performance bar has been set so low that the fact that he can dress himself and get into his ministerial car is more than we have a right to expect. I’m trying to work out what would be the education secretary equivalent of the health secretary breaking his own social distancing rules by groping his mistress’s bum on CCTV. Is “forgetting his own A-level results” enough? That’s what Williamson admitted to last week. But I don’t think it is. To reach Matt Hancock levels of hypocrisy Williamson would have to cheat in an exam and, thanks to him, there currently aren’t any.
When I said he “admitted” he’d forgotten his A-level results, that was inaccurate. It would be closer to say “claimed”. He was being interviewed on LBC by Nick Ferrari and was waxing lyrical about the wonderful moment at his sixth form college when he’d opened the envelope with his results in and realised he’d secured a place at university. “What were those grades?” asked Ferrari, predictably enough you’d think. But not predictably enough for Williamson. He was totally thrown, repeatedly refused to answer and eventually said he’d forgotten because it was 27 years ago. Considering that the entire thrust of what he’d been saying moments earlier was that getting his results had been a hugely memorable experience, this seemed less than deft. And it just makes you speculate about how bad those results must have been. What was wrong with them? Were they somehow evil results? Did he get “666”? Why else wouldn’t he just say?
His main recent floundering point has been the issue of “grade inflation” and his handling of it clearly shows he’s been studying the A4 sheet. What education secretaries say in response to concerns about grade inflation, according to the sheet, is that the students have worked very hard and deserve their grades. This is clever because it recruits all the students who are pleased with their results to the government’s cause and makes the argument that the whole examination system is gradually being rendered futile more awkward to make. So Gavin said: “Youngsters… have worked incredibly hard for those grades, wherever they have been, right across the country, and I think we should be celebrating that.” Solid work.
The only trouble is the grade inflation that’s happened on his watch is so stratospheric that the “they’ve worked very hard” argument falls flat. Unless the current generation of sixth formers are, despite the educational disadvantages of the pandemic, 80% more learned than their predecessors, which is impossible, then this year’s grades aren’t remotely comparable to any other’s.
The inflation is such that the results become meaningless, as academically insignificant as honorary degrees. At best, they’re baubles to apologise for the pandemic; at worst, they render the academic attainment of a whole year (or “cohort” as the sheet reminds Williamson to say) permanently unknowable for universities and employers alike. Yes, the students worked very hard, in unprecedented circumstances, but the government has insulted them with a fundamentally devalued reward.
Never mind, Gavin – you had a go. Next week, sumo wrestling!
