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Now we know that Suffolk, too, is in chaos after the government's cuts to the school building programme.

Bedford is the other county that operates the three-tier middle school system. Bedford's already said it would have to scrap its plans for reform.

• Both counties had wanted to get rid of three-tier.
• Both counties needed the building schools for the future money to do it.
• Both are now up the proverbial without the proverbial.

Suffolk will have an odd mix of some areas with and some without, depending where you are.

One wonders if the Department for Education had foreseen these consequences.

Whatever you think about two- or three-tier education, the middle of a transition would not be the time you'd choose to have the plug pulled.

Councillor Sandy Martin, the leader of the Labour group on Suffolk County Council, told us: "We had a situation when half the county was already two tier and half the county was three tier.

"The county council made the decision to go all two tier and now the first phase of the schools organisation review is going ahead, but the second phase, involving Bury St Edmunds and the west of the county, is being put on ice.

"The only real justification for the whole organisational review was to make the whole system consistent and that's now not going to happen.

"There's no consistency whatsoever. We're going to get children taught on split sites, some in middle schools and some in secondary schools. They'll be taught in old buildings, out-of-date buildings, that now won't be replaced and then there'll be some children going to three-tier education in the west."

And talking of unforeseen consequences we hear that Michael Gove, he of the wholesale apology, may face more than criticism but legal action over cancelled contracts.

There's a pattern emerging here.

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