What it has revealed, above all, is the way in which education and qualifications are perceived in the higher echelons of society.

No wonder A-levels have been referred to as the “gold standard” - they are indeed a commodity to be bought and sold. When well-heeled parents find that their investment in education has not yielded the promised dividends, they are inclined to demand some recompense.

Already solicitors are licking their lips at the thought of the court cases which could follow in the wake of the regrading exercise due to report next week. Not only will young people be suing the exam boards if, for example, they have lost the chance of a job with a top City firm by not getting a place at Oxford or Cambridge. Some, it seems, will also be looking for financial compensation for having to take a gap year - and thereby losing a year’s salary.

It is at A-level that private education and the national system - normally self-contained separate sectors which ignore each other politely - intersect. A-levels are enormously high stakes, not only because they are the passport to top universities and the main justification for sky-high school fees, but because success in examinations gives the children of the privileged classes a sense that they truly deserve the high salaries and comfortable lives which they expect.

Half a century ago, the late Michael Young (who founded the Consumers’

Association and dreamed up the idea of the Open University) wrote a satire entitled The Rise of the Meritocracy, criticising the 1950s’ vogue for IQ testing.

He warned that a society in which “merit” was defined as a combination of intelligence and hard work would develop into a rigid hierarchy - because those who rose to power through such a system would believe that they had a right, through their “merit”, to dominate the lives of others.

Interestingly, the word coined by Lord Young has survived with a positive spin he never gave it. Tony Blair, in particular, likes to refer to a meritocracy as being a desirable form of society to which we should aspire.

The definition of merit he uses seems to be exactly that which Young questioned in his book, and the developments which the author feared look like coming to pass. During the past two weeks we have been subjected, through the newspapers, to a parade of down-in-the-mouth young people who seem to feel that they have a God-given right to go to the university of their choice.

Of course it is very unfair if the work of conscientious students was in fact erroneously graded, and every attempt should be made to put such wrongs right. But we do not know as yet how many young people have actually lost out.

The regrading exercise may involve 90,000 or more students, but we have no idea how many of these will turn out to have been affected by the shifting of grade boundaries.

Some individuals who are dissatisfied with their grades will have jumped at the chance of a regrade. And it may be that some schools did indeed misjudge the standard required.

If that turns out to be the case, the independent schools can be expected to fight hard for their reputations - perhaps even challenging the exam boards and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

The result of such a confrontation will tell us a great deal about where power lies in Britain today.