DURING the recent election campaign, Michael Heseltine – who was once Deputy Prime Minister of this country – announced that in terms of educational attainment, the UK is the 29th country in the world.

We have also been told that, according to the Office for National Statistics, that one per cent of our population owns 14 per cent of the national assets and 15 per cent own absolutely nothing.

At the same time, people between these extremes are less well off than they were 10 years ago.

We are also told, in another international survey, that our National Health Service occupies 14th place compared to other countries.

As for our armed forces – and particularly the navy – the picture is extremely depressing.

In a recent practice, a dummy Polaris missile fired by one of our submarines went completely off course and headed for Trump land.

You’ve got to give it to the Russian hackers, they know their business.

The cuts to the police force are dreadful. Recently it was announced that there is an attempt in Gloucestershire to recruit 150 Special Constables.

These will have police-type uniforms and will be encouraged to be visible but, in truth, have no more powers of arrest than a common citizen.

They might be useful in crowd control but the true situation over security is frankly appalling.

With regards to education, Michael Heseltine is well up in the one per cent and I recall him at Oxford.

I expect he learnt his debating skills at Shrewsbury public school and he was open about his ambition in challenging for the leadership of the Oxford Union which has, several times, been an important step to becoming Prime Minister.

The sad thing is that our latest Prime Minister, like others in her party, believes that bringing back grammar schools will improve educational standards. This is utter nonsense.

In my own school in Dover there were always a few sons of miners who succeeded in their 11-plus – I do not remember a single one who managed to get into the sixth form.

I am sure many had the ability but lacked the middle class environment that stimulates academic success.

I taught history in one of the first comprehensives and one class contained 25 students and 22 passed first time.

I concentrated on particular areas providing plenty of notes and little tests. I was playing the system.

I turned myself into an English teacher as I thought it would give greater scope for individuals to enjoy drama, literature and self-expression.

There was much enthusiasm for our interpretation of Macbeth – unfortunately my satisfaction disappeared when, in the literature exam, all but two failed.

We will only improve our education system when we have decided what education is for,

I should have given them notes to learn by heart. Silly me.

– Roger Horsfield, Bream.