The trouble with defining politicians by their university degrees

Margaret Thatcher, pictured when a Tory candidate in the 1950 election, is the only prime minister to have had a science degree. Illustration: Chris Ware/Getty Images

I agree with Blake Morrison about the value of a humanities degree – specifically Andy Burnham’s choice of English literature (At a poet’s memorial, I saw how Andy Burnham could be a different kind of prime minister, 27 June). However, readers may have been misled by his rhetorical comment: “But do you need to have studied science, maths or PPE to become a prime minister? Maybe not.”

If only we had more prime ministers with maths or science degrees. Wikipedia tells me that there has only ever been one with a science degree (Margaret Thatcher, chemistry), and three with maths or maths and classics degrees, and all in the 1800s (maths and classics, Robert Peel 1808 and William Gladstone 1831; maths, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil 1850, fourth class). None in the last 170 years.