They would have been better off politically just giving them all their predicted grades and letting the universities sort out the mess. I think that's a bit cow

They would have been better off politically just giving them all their predicted grades and letting the universities sort out the mess. I think that's a bit cowardly but it would have taken the heat off. Concerns over long-term grade inflation are totally overblown anyway since the majority of these exam results get used that year or the next for university admission and only for that. What does it matter whether my grades from 20 years ago are comparable with grades now? It's not like we'd be competing for the same university places. The only problem with accepting the CAGs is that some centres will have been laxer with them but that could easily have been sorted by using similar techniques to the ones they used here to look for way out-there schools that clearly aren't taking the process seriously.