This is a brilliant idea.

According to Professor Ken Smith at Bucks New University (where?) “teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.”

So instead of there being a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way of spelling, there are only ‘variants.’ Or perhaps that should say, “they’re our only variants.” Except it shouldn’t because that second version has a significantly different meaning.

But let’s not allow a piffling little detail like that get in our way! Let’s do what the Government always does with these ideas and roll it out into other areas. We can have “Variant Economics” - there is no recession! Our economy is booming!

Variant education: SATS administration this year was unbelievably smooth, marking was accurate, grade inflation is a myth and our students are doing better than ever in spite of crap teaching, all because Government policy is so wonderful.

Variant data protection: HM Revenue & Customs are the best people to look after our personal financial data.

Variant politics: Boredom Frown is the best man for the job of leading our country through these difficult times.

Oh, hang on. New Labour PR does this already…