Estelle Morris, another cabinet minister in the Blair government, was cruelly exposed as being out of their depth.
A-levels have been steadily simplified for years so that more students can get the grades they need to go to university. Whereas only 5% of students went on to university 50 years ago, now 50% do so.
The A-level scandal intensified when even easier AS-levels were introduced a year before A-levels were completed. These were even easier and then contributed to the overall score for A-levels when the final exams were taken.
Belatedly someone realised that this meant that standards were being driven down even further and attempted to stop the rot by arbitrarily cutting the grades of some of the final year students. These of course were the ones at the OCR examination board favoured by fee-paying schools. About time we had less toffs at university! Head teachers then alleged that the boards changed the grade boundaries at the 11th hour and also pressurised examiners to mark coursework down. Hundreds of A-grade students have received U grades for their course work.
The hapless Ms Morris asked the most likely culprits, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), to investigate the matter, and they promptly judged themselves and everybody else to be not guilty. She also asked her ex-chief inspector of schools, Mike Tomlinson, to conduct a second "independent" enquiry.
And then Ms Morris tried to deflect attention from the scandal but drove another stake into the heart of A-levels by suggesting that they should be abolished in favour of the French style baccalaureate. Where do they get these people from?
Then the Tomlinson inquiry into A-level grade fixing then exploded into an acrimonious public row as the head of the examinations watchdog, the QCA, accused the Ms Morris of trying to influence the inquiry's outcome before it has reported.
Sir William Stubbs, the under-fire head of the QCA, effectively confirmed that he would be an early casualty of the debacle, with an emotional late-night statement.
He alleged that Ms Morris had "acted in a most improper way" in pre-empting the inquiry by Mike Tomlinson which is due to deliver its initial findings within a day. Ms Morris denied the claim.
"In the last few hours we have learned that she has instructed her officials to discuss matters relating to the outcome of the review with the awarding bodies that are part of this investigation, in such a way that might cause them to conclude that the outcome of the inquiry is already determined," Sir William said.
He said her officials had told the chief executives of two exam boards, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance and the OCR board that "the outcome of the review could be a re-grading of all A-level results this summer ... The clear inference is that she has pre-empted the judgement of Mike Tomlinson, independent investigator, and assumed only one outcome of his findings."
Sir William said Ken Boston, the chief executive of QCA, was "seriously concerned" and had complained to Mr Tomlinson.
"It is wholly improper in this context, when the inquiry is scarcely half way through its initial phase, for the secretary of state to have intervened ... This development is a serious risk to the integrity of this inquiry."
But Ms Morris responded: "We have naturally been looking at contingency plans in advance of the first report of the independent Tomlinson inquiry. To do this, officials at the department have spoken to many agencies including UUK [the vice-chancellors' body] on the position of higher education institutions, to Ucas [the university admissions service] to talk about student clearing and to the examination boards about what might be best for students.
"I have a responsibility to act swiftly and decisively to whatever the independent inquiry might say and I need to make sure that everybody is making whatever preparations may be necessary. At no stage have I ever sought to prejudice the outcome of the inquiry."
91,000 exam papers had to be regraded to correct the errors - but not before many of students had their choice of university excluded due to the fiasco.