Three degrees of bearded Labour

The good news is that Labour education exec Derek Pickup has taken to the local radio airwaves to try to fend off his growing reputation for utter uselessness.

The bad news is the coward chose to offer up his excuses to a bunch of school kids on BCFM, Bristol’s new(ish) community radio station that has about three listeners.

More good news, though, is that two of those three listeners bothered to write to the Evening Cancer to tell the rest of us what the weirdly bearded one said.

And it seems he claimed to have three degrees. Really Derek which ones? Are we talking 1973’s minor Phillie classic The Three Degrees? Or do you have 1975’s The Three Degrees International? Both of course featuring the classic line-up of Ferguson, Pinkney, Holi–

I beg your pardon?

Oh my aching sides . . ! Can it really be . . ? Pickup attempting intellectual gravitas? (In front of children at least)

He means he’s got three university degrees! What better example of the collapse in educational standards could we find than the fact that a man apparently with no clue about anything is the proud owner of no less than three supposedly high quality further education qualifications.

What are these qualifications for then Derek? An honours degree in Adventure Playground Development Studies from the University of Milton Keynes? Maybe a Voscur-sponsored MBa specialising in Managing Voluntary Organisations Without Bothering to Look at the Balance Sheet? And what’s the doctoral thesis? Ridiculous bearded people in the Bristol Labour Party 1997 – 2007 (a study incorporating myself, Peter Hammond and George Micklewright)?

Next they’ll be telling us that the City Academy’s head honcho and spinner-in-chief is now suddenly known as Dr Ray Priest!