degree inflation

I think I should keep my mouth shut, so here are just some links:

Watchdog: degree grades arbitrary

Email leak of degree inflation

Or maybe I could say just a little...

The one reason that I've seen to support the current degree classification instead of GPA is: "students' effort and qualities cannot be represented by a single number". Well, if it cannot be represented by a number then why can it be represented by a even more meaningless label such as "upper second"? (Those labels remind me of the credit crunch crisis: there are only two quality levels for mortgages, prime and sub-prime. They may sound like "very good" and "not as good", but actually they mean "acceptable" and "rubbish".)

If it cannot be represented by a single number then give me an array of numbers then. As someone involved in admissions, I like neither GPA nor degree grades. Just give me all the marks and the average.

As for "arbitrary grades", the following is a purely hypothetical situation:

[1 hour 45 minutes into a meeting]
A: Now we have a Mr. X who got this set of marks, which is just a bit below 2-1 degree, should we consider putting him to 2-1?
B: But according to our regulations, rule 37.1.2(a)(iii) says he needs at least N marks in M subjects in order to be considered as a borderline case.
A: Yes but if we raise this mark by 0.5 then his marks satisfy the condition in rule 4.69.12(f)(iv), after we execute this rule then his marks satisfy rule 15.1.2(b)(ii), after executing this rule then his marks satisfy rule 37.1.2(a)(iii) which means he can get a 2-1!

Of course, it certainly isn't like this in reality, is it?