A judge will weigh up all the evidence before condemning any witness – that is ordinary fairness

A judge will weigh up all the evidence before condemning any witness – that is ordinary fairness.The obvious partisan behaviour of the members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee cast a shadow over their proceedings. Matters were not improved when Labour members of the committee broke off in the middle of the inquiry to have a go at Mr Gilligan’s integrity as a witness. So far we have not witnessed a similar outburst from Lord Hutton and I can confidently predict there will not be one. Since he could not count either of these topics among his areas of expertise, what was he supposed to bring to the task in hand other than his proven ability to spin and gloss the truth?Confidence in the select committee was not enhanced in the eyes of the public by arranging a hearing when most of the opposition members were not available. The result was a forensic shambles – hardly surprising given that the members were not skilled advocates.In the m?e of questions no one seems even to have asked what Alastair Campbell, as Labour Party spin doctor, was doing chairing a committee that involved intelligence and military strategy. Each member asked a flurry of questions, often with no overall plan and each with his own agenda. However hard the members cautiously strove to demonstrate their independence, few believed they had cast their political allegiances to one side and taken on the mantle of a judge.Too often it was the questioner who attracted the attention rather than the witness.

Frankly, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which was supposed to investigate the case, never stood a chance.
The task of judging the accuracy of information put out by the Government to justify the war with Iraq was far too tricky to be handled with any credibility by a committee of MPs, some of whom seemed dangerously supine. Now that the Hutton inquiry is under way, those who pressed for a judicial inquiry into the reasons for war with Iraq will feel vindicated. The Government has succeeded in imposing an educational straitjacket on our young people. It has become big brother – the Orwellian original, not its mind-numbing successor, part of the same dispiriting system.Zo?ilger has just completed her A-levels. It feels like reality TV without the cameras, and has the effect of dividing people into those who have “earned the right” to feel successful and well-rounded, and those unsure of the future or themselves.Is this a healthy way to conduct the most potentially thrilling years of our children’s education? Clearly something in the system is not work- ing, as we are now faced with the bizarre paradox of a generation educated better than ever before, and yet accused of unprecedented levels of indifference. This leads to a distorted momentum of mock exams, frantic cramming, then an anti-climax until the dreaded date in August when you learn your fate. With external exams being held every summer, there is now barely nine months in which to be taught before our knowledge is tested.

A sense of helplessness or cynicism in the face of exam failure is symptomatic of a generation reared on centralised syllabuses that allow little room for creativity or improvisation.Some 50 years of British history at A-level can be transformed into a set of bullet-points which must be memorised and ticked off. A one-size-fits-all mentality prevails now in the classrooms of our comprehensive schools, which are so desperately in need of greater funding and yet are punished with extra paperwork for teachers, as well as extra hours spent negotiating the vast and inflexible syllabuses.The Government’s obsession with the exam system only exacerbates problems such as oversized classes or a reliance on inexperienced supply teachers. In the soundbite-friendly, business-orientated spirit of New Labour, its slogan was simple: “Learn more, earn more”.Exams carry a corporate flavour, a standardisation, that began with Margaret Thatcher’s championing of the national curriculum in the 1980s. Learning for the sake of learning, a concept considered “a bit dodgy” by the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, is seen as simply eccentric when cited as a worthy enough reason to go to school.Impetus is placed firmly on getting a job, getting ahead and using education as merely a stepping-stone to achieving this goal. A visiting careers advice company, while conducting an assembly to a group of GCSE students at my school, made it brutally clear what the real reasons are for progressing to higher education.