He then went on a £30,000 spending spree with his unwitting girlfriend. He had fed her fantasies about his alleged abilities as an international tennis player He was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. In The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is described as, “an all pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour); a need for admiration or adulation and a lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts.” And incurable. Only much later in the 1990s, did the American Psychiatric Association give it a definition. Its diagnosis and treatment has spawned a multitude of support groups for those affected by narcissists (usually women who believe they have fallen for a “jack the lad” only to discover someone far darker; more manipulative and no fun at all) as well as a lucrative stream of books.Freud was the first to discuss narcissism. If Sienna sees Law in the same way as do the gossip columnists, instead of taking him back, she might have done better to have given “the ambassador of narcissism”, Sam Vaknin, an Israeli-born writer and businessman, a call.
Vaknin, a self-confessed narcissist, once imprisoned for fraud, is the author of Malignant Self Love, Narcissism Revisited, allegedly one of the most requested books in the British Library, which – as a narcissist would – he vigorously plugs at every opportunity on his website.Narcissism is big in the USA.

It’s the “musts” that give it away – as does the graphic picture presented in the press of a controlling, possessive, cheating individual who doesn’t appear to know what he wants – until it’s in danger of slipping away. According to the “source close to Ms Miller”, who appears never to leave her side for nanosecond, Law must stay faithful; he must stop spending time with his ex-wife; he must stop asking Sienna for her hand; he must make Ms Miller fall in love with him all over again; he must control his temper; he must let her make her own career decisions and he must not stop her seeing her friends. A consultation paper is slowly doing the rounds of the education service while university vice-chancellors, as usual, defend the status quo. Next year, top universities will be encouraged to set aside some places for those whose grades are better than expected.

The Government is right to want to broaden participation in higher education It has mechanisms at its disposal; it should use them.. Jude Law has as much chance of sticking to the six commandments dictated by his newly reinstated girl friend, Sienna Miller, as a large slice of humanity has had in adhering to the ten presented by Moses. But the universities are reluctant to do so – and anyway, such a feeble change hardly addresses the problem.There would be great benefit, both to the individuals themselves and to the country as a whole, if the brightest, rather than just the best-educated, pupils had an equal chance of being admitted to the best universities. Post-qualification application to universities (PQA for short) would put all candidates in the same position.It would also tackle the problem of low aspiration, where pupils in poor schools may be told by teachers or parents that the top universities are not for them, and it would counter any prejudice that teachers may unwittingly apply to predicting a pupil’s grades.As with the introduction of aptitude tests, however, the Government seems to be dragging its feet. Contrast this with the speed with which the Government is introducing its academies programme to reform inner-city schooling, and the testing programme looks like a very poor relation.The second area which is ripe for change is the timing of university applications.

Few contest the idea that it would be fairer all round to base university recruitment on actual exam results rather than predictions. The first is the introduction of US-style aptitude tests for university applicants. This was recommended by the government task force on university admissions earlier this year. And in the United States these tests have led to top universities such as Harvard recruiting more students from deprived neighbourhoods.So-called Sats are not the whole answer. Even in the United States there is criticism that good teaching or expensive private tutoring can improve scores Pupils from poor schools may still be at a disadvantage. But with the performance of public schools and many comprehensives in this country so far apart, Sats deserve to be tried.Yet it is only this November that the first pilot project will start in this country, and it is designed to last for five years.