‘I stand here today as the first prime minister of our country to have gone to a comprehensive school,’ Liz Truss told the Conservative Party conference.
It’s a startling declaration, but is it true?
Well, it appears not.
Theresa May went to Holton Park Girls’ grammar school in Oxfordshire, which became the new Wheatley Park comprehensive school when she was still a pupil.
And then there is Gordon Brown, who was educated at Kirkcaldy High School, a co-educational comprehensive in Fife, Scotland.
However, veteran journalist Andrew Neil has waded into the raging debate to claim Kirkcaldy was the Scottish equivalent of a grammar school up until 1970, by which point Brown had gone to university.
While Ms Truss’s education is miles apart from Eton chums, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, many of her Tory predecessors were state-educated before the introduction of comprehensive schools in 1965.
Sir John Major, who was dubbed a ‘working class kid from Brixton’ in campaign posters, went to a state primary before Rutlish School in south London. Rutlish was a grammar school when Sir John attended but it later became a comprehensive.
Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher also went to state grammar schools.
Callaghan, the Labour PM from 1976 to 1979, left school early to get a job because he could not afford to go to university.
Which Prime Ministers were state educated?
Liz Truss – Roundhay School in Leeds, West Yorkshire
Theresa May – Wheatley Park Comprehensive School in Holton, Oxfordshire
Gordon Brown – Kirkcaldy High School in Kirkcaldy, Fife
Sir John Major – Rutlish School in Merton Park, south London
Margaret Thatcher – Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School in Grantham, Lincolnshire
James Callaghan – Portsmouth Northern Secondary School in Portsmouth, Hampshire
Harold Wilson – Royds Hall Grammar School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Edward Heath – Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, Kent
MORE : Where did Prime Minister Liz Truss go to school and what has she said about it?
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
