Our useless state

The regulator Ofsted has been marking schools as outstanding even when their teaching isn't. Only one of 18 factors refers to "quality of teaching and learning".

Some 150 secondary schools were given the top rating by inspectors last year – even though they failed to score high marks for their teaching. And 260 primaries were similarly trumpeted after inspectors found their teaching was just ‘satisfactory’, or ‘good’.

So Mr Gove has called for the 18 criteria to be cut to four.

It's beyond obvious that a school can't be considered outstanding unless it has outstanding teaching. Effectiveness in tackling discrimination, for instance, can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If the teaching is graded 'good', the school shouldn't score higher than 'good' - though it could score less if some other aspects weren't up to standard.

The shameful over-inflation of hundreds of schools was also damned by former chief inspector of Ofsted, Christine Gilbert, before she stepped down in June.

This would be Christine Gilbert partner of expenses fiddler and former Labour MP Tony McNulty.

Well, dahling (and I'm being deliberately offensive because you deserve it), you were paid a lot of my money to get this right.

You didn't then. So now shut up. You had your chance and we set no store by your opinions.

In the NHS, the Care Quality Commission was given too little money to regulate effectively, and then decided to concentrate on bureaucracy rather than inspections, making a bad situation worse.

Did the head of the CQC stand up and proclaim that it couldn't do its job?

No she did not. Here's another one who took the money and fouled up. People got abused in care homes while the CQC ticked its boxes.

Two regulators going for the mushy options rather than stark policing. They are there to represent the consumer interest. (That's you and me.) Clearly they don't.

Ofsted and the CQC are unfit for purpose.