Spare a thought for anyone who took their A-levels this year when they go for job interviews in the future.

The person across the desk will look down at the grades, then look at the date, and then start asking some rather harder questions than they might otherwise have done.

Is this person as clever as they say they are, slightly cleverer, or not quite as clever? It was the year when the marks couldn't be trusted.

The unspoken assumption with all the talk of moderating grades down was that you can't trust teachers.

But then a blunt instrument like a government algorithm downgrading pupils more from schools that did not do well in the past will mean that the archetypal smart kid from a bad school gets punished for being in the wrong place.

The Government made a last minute 'triple lock' adjustment to offset this, possibly to avoid the Scottish government's predicament, but still ran into criticism from heads.

If you are going to tell teachers they can't be trusted, you had better be ready for the backlash. How come your algorithm knows better than they do what the 'credible' results are for their pupils?

As ever with bad marks, perhaps the question to ask is not whether the grades are fair, but why all the work seemed to be done at the last minute.