Paris Hilton and I have something in common (not vast inherited wealth, unfortunately). At various stages in our adult lives it has been illegal for us to drive a motor car.

The distinction between us is that she had a relatively short ban that she violated and hence was sent to a California prison, whereas I have never held a full licence and never broken the law by driving when I was not allowed to. This is because I discovered at a young age while attempting to learn to drive that I was terrible at it. I was so bad that I made Mr Bean look like Lewis Hamilton. My one and only driving test can be summed up by the fact, I kid you not, that I was pulled over by the police for speeding towards the end of it. The rather humourless fascist who was conducting the test was highly aggrieved at this, since technically he was responsible for my errant behaviour. I loathed every second of the experience.

So on that basis I would like to call for driving tests to be abolished. Let’s face it, most aspiring motorists are only taught to cope with passing the test and are not offered a more rounded experience of the philosophy of motoring. The test focuses on what are, if you think about it, a disturbingly narrow range of skills. And the test is appallingly stressful. I have nightmares about mine 25 years later. We should instead have a system where you are still obliged to employ a driving instructor but when the pair of you reach the point that you agree that you are competent enough to be placed on the M25 behind a wheel by yourself, then that is what should happen. Cut out the middleman, I say.

If you agreed with that transparently ridiculous thesis, then you must be a member of the General Teaching Council. For I can see no logical difference between its argument that all tests for children below the age of 16 should be scrapped and my modest plea to get rid of the driving examination. According to this so-called professional body, British children are the most “tested in the world”, these tests are leading bored teenagers to drop out of school as soon as they can, and they are producing anxiety on a massive scale. All these tests should, the Council insists, be scrapped in favour of a small and random number of children (perhaps 3 per cent of the pupil population) being tested every year to allow for a “snapshot” of the progress made by young people.

This notion is so mad and bad that one barely knows where to start in demolishing it. Let us begin with it being a blatantly false premise. Children in England and Wales are only the most “tested in the world” if you consider that planet Earth consists only of a small part of North West Europe and that Asia either never existed or all the people there were wiped out centuries ago or, sadly, collectively topped themselves from stress about impending examinations.

If anyone thinks that we have an undue “exam culture” then they should spend time in schools in the Far East. We look like hippy anarchists compared with them, and they are the competition.

The idea that that tests are driving people out of school at the age of 16 is also rubbish. We have had these tests now for the better part of 20 years and during that time the number of children staying on at schools has consistently increased, not fallen. We are close to the stage where we could raise the school leaving age to 18 and nobody would moan about it. Tests are emphatically not forcing kids to quit schooling early.

Then there is “stress”. Stress happens. It is what life is about. It occurs everywhere. The concept that children should somehow be cocooned is crackers. Let me be even more blunt and politically incorrect. Stress is often very good for you. It creates a challenge. It inspires. It forces you to raise your game and fulfil your potential. There is no stress in a graveyard – but I don’t want to go there.

As for the warped alternative of having a random sample doing tests instead, that is insane. On the basis of that rationale, because opinion polls –especially those run by Populus, the fine organisation which conducts surveys for this newspaper – are generally accurate, we should just hold a larger than typical opinion poll on election day and thus save the rest of us the hassle of traipsing down to the polling station.

This alternative plan is far more unfair and unreasonable than the status quo. Can you imagine how angry the tiny minority who had to work for the tests would feel about it?

Neither the Government, nor the Conservative Party (which under David Cameron has become obsessed about appeasing public sector professionals) should have anything to do with this awful suggestion. As a policy it should therefore be left where it belongs, with the Liberal Democrats. No tests means no credible league tables. No credible league tables means far less public and parental accountability.

More accountability is always, unambiguously, better than less accountability (even if it is stressful). If testing were abolished tomorrow, really good schools – particularly the ones where you have to pay an arm, a leg and several internal organs for your offspring to be admitted – would choose to carry on testing children before the age of 16 while less distinguished institutions, to put it politely, would not bother with them.

So who would lose most from the General Teaching Council’s crusade? Children from poor backgrounds for whom education is the best and only route (bar becoming a footballer) to a better life. We should and must keep the testing regime – but, as a compromise, be shot of the General Teaching Council.

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