In the early 1970s, the set of data I collected for my PhD was so enormous it had to be sent away to London University’s Atlas computer for processing, because my own university’s mainframe was unable to cope. Today, my laptop would handle it without a murmur.

At that time, our department wanted to buy a desktop calculator - about the size of a manual typewriter - for pound;1,200. A lecturer in the engineering department advised us to wait. He showed me the first hand-held calculator I had ever seen, a small half-brick, purchased in America for a mere pound;400 and it had four memories. Four memories - wow! Today’s equivalent would probably come free with a packet of crisps and weigh a few grammes.

It was disappointing, therefore, to read that primary teachers have been criticised by the Office for Standards in Education, among others, for not feeling confident teaching about calculators. I do not blame Ofsted, since its pronouncements are unspun nowadays, but this conclusion was predictable.

In July 1998, calculators were given “poison” status by Stephen Byers, then minister for schools, making a feeble attempt to appear a macho guy taking tough action (while appealing to traditionalists who might normally vote for another party). Stevel Knievel leapt over 20 metaphorical buses, crying “Batten down the hatches, me hearties; I tell ‘ee there’ll be none o’ them new-fangled instruments o’ the devil aboard this lugger”, which was not very clever for someone who thought eight sevens made 54.

Stevel’s spin to the press gave the public the impression that the Government was banning calculators in primary schools. “Calculator ban marks return to tradition” was one headline. It did nothing of the sort.

Advice was simply issued that calculators should be used sparingly in infant schools (surveys showed that this was the case anyway) and that junior school pupils should understand the processes involved. These late 20th-century tools are commonplace, so it would be folly not to prepare children to use them intelligently.

Nonetheless, the damage was done. Primary teachers became apprehensive about offending the mighty. Would calculators have to be used in a lead-lined cellar, while wearing a face mask, and then only when Shrove Tuesday fell on a Friday? Perhaps the sole permitted calculation in class would be to multiply a huge sum by another colossal number so that the letter E appeared in the window, showing that Satan’s evil little implement had had a nervous breakdown. All these political machinations lead me to one conclusion.

One way or another, teachers will get the blame. Castigate them in 1998 for using calculators in the classroom, then hammer them four years later for not using them.

The Conservatives sold national testing to parents as a means of smoking out poor teachers, saying their over-generous marking would be exposed by objective tests.

In the event, schools’ assessments turned out to be stiffer than the test scores, so the same government simply announced to parents that teachers were failing to recognise their children’s talents. It’s a dirty world. So what will be the next somersault? Will a 2003 Ofsted report complain that each numeracy hour, like Caesar’s Gaul, is divided into three parts? Will the teaching of literacy be damned as too predictable, because every lesson starts with 15 minutes of shared text? Er ... surely that is what teachers were told to do, under threat of having their vitals severed and their pensions cut to three carrots a month.

Funnily enough, I doubt it, and the reason is simple. Inspectors have actually been forbidden from criticising the structure of these hours. There, the truth is out. Shocked? Didn’t realise? Can’t believe anyone would be so manipulative?

The evidence lies on page 9 of the Ofsted update of winter 1997, which commanded inspectors clearly: “While it is right and proper for inspectors to criticise poor teaching and badly structured lessons wherever they occur, schools must not be criticised for adopting the principles and practice required by the national literacy and numeracy projects.”

Just like the Kafka character accused of committing an unspecified offence and then executed, while never discovering what his crime was, you are guilty anyway. Guilty if you smile, guilty if you don’t. So what are you waiting for? Take all the school’s calculators outside, pile them up in a field somewhere, and then widdle on them, you anarchist.