Education north and south of the border has suffered from one thing for the last 40odd years. Lack of cash. This deficit has led to poor buildings, few books, large class sizes, terribly low salaries, inability to offer teacher career progression and inabilty to retain staff.

No amount of quango investigation, peer group review or charts of 'school success' is going to fix this.

Now, Mr Chris Woodhead, the head of the Office for Standards in Education, FOR ENGLAND, has criticised Scottish standards and schools.

He can get off his Westminster high horse and help push for funding, rather than bad mouthing something he knows nothing about - Scottish education.