Politics

Liz Truss claimed she’s the only Prime Minister to have gone to a comprehensive school – she isn’t

Liz Truss claimed she’s the only Prime Minister to have gone to a comprehensive school – she isn’t
Liz Truss arrives on stage to Moving On Up by M People …
Conservatives

Liz Truss spoke about her background as she delivered her first Conservative party conference speech today, and proudly stated she was the first Prime Minister to have gone to a comprehensive school.

That isn’t true.

“I stand here as the first prime minister of our country to have gone to a comprehensive school,” the PM said, pausing for applause.

Only, as plenty of people pointed out on social media, she isn’t the first Prime Minister to have gone to comprehensive school.

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Gordon Brown, who was in Number 10 from 2007 to 2010, went to Kirkcaldy High School - now a comprehensive in Fife.

Mr Brown was reportedly taught in a special fast stream while at the school..

Theresa May attended Holton Park Girls' Grammar School, which was initially a state school that became Wheatley Park Comprehensive School while she was a pupil.

The government website even states that she attended "both grammar school and comprehensive school" in its official biography on May.

Questioned about the other leaders who went to state schools, Ms Truss’s press secretary said: “My understanding is this is quite complicated and it changed halfway through and comps weren’t actually called comps until the 60s or something like that.

“I’m not going to do a pop quiz on former PMs’ schooling.”

Others also pointed out that John Major, Theresa May, Lloyd George, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, and even Margaret Thatcher all went to non-fee paying schools.

It came as Truss took to the stage for her speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham with 'Moving On Up' playing as her intro music – a song by the mother of a Labour councillor.

The speech was interrupted by fracking protestors who shouted “who voted for fracking?” as the prime minister vowed to “get Britain moving” in her make-or-break speech to the Conservative Party conference.

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