Degree classifications: take 2

All this post-Burgess, league tables era discussion of degree classifications and grade inflation is shifting my viewpoint: The Burgess report pretty-much suggests we do away with the 1st/2:1/2:2/3rd/unclassified degree class system & replace it with a transcript ... when I first read about it, I was annoyed: I like the idea of a 1st etc (it's what I'm used to). However, a natural institutional response to all this measuring/league-tabling/student-satisfaction-scoring malarkey is to fiddle things (that's easier than fixing things!) and the emails from MMU, the discussion on the Beeb and stuff that's happening internally here are devaluing the classification system so that it's not fit for purpose any more. How will an employer treat a 1st in Maths from MMU, Nottingham Trent, Oxford Brookes and Thames Valley? By giving it partial credence as a primary filter and then concentrating on the real evidence: Grades, references and interviews. So for future students it's even more important to get a good profile (as well as a "good" degree). I suspect it's all a subtle plan to make 1st/2:1/… meaningless so that it dies a natural death, and that would be closing a chapter in UK HE history :-(