the national curriculum believed that children in infant classes(5-7yrs old) should be able to distinguish between classical and renaissance art.....!

The rumour was that Sheila Lawler member of the tory think tank would ring up the minister of ed in the middle of the night with some outlandish idea and he would add it immediately to the NC.

Eventually a reasonably sane man became minister of ed, John MacGregor. THe messages coming down the pipeline was that he had talked with teaching unions and agreed the NC was total bollocks.

within weeks he was booted off to become minister for Northern Ireland, where he had the job of defending demented tory policy over there.