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.
My PhD supervisor (a mathematician) taught me to choose my words as carefully as mathematical symbols because each one matters. I’m passing on the message.
Prof Muffy Calder
University of Glasgow
• In his piece about Andy Burnham reading English at university, Blake Morrison says “Politicians with English literature degrees are thin on the ground”. He does not mention Chris Smith, who gained a first-class degree in English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and went on to write a PhD thesis on the poet William Wordsworth. After serving as a local councillor, he became the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. He was the first openly gay MP. From 1997 to 2001, he was secretary of state for culture, media and sport, and was made a life peer in 2005. In 2015, he became master of Pembroke College and in 2025 was elected chancellor of Cambridge University.
Shirley Neish
Great Bookham, Surrey
• I share Andy Burnham’s admiration for Tony Harrison. I wonder if he read Harrison’s beautiful poem about the first Iraq war, Initial Illumination, before voting for the second war. If he becomes prime minister, I hope he will redeem himself by reversing Keir Starmer’s baffling silence on the Gaza genocide, which lost Starmer so many loyal supporters.
Hilary Cashman
Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham
• Blake Morrison skilfully argues the case for the value of humanities degrees and credits Andy Burnham’s English degree and love of poetry as being an important factor in his success as a politician. I would like to add to the roll-call of English degree graduates someone with a more unusual career path: Matt Peet, head coach of the Wigan Warriors rugby league team. I can’t vouch for whether he likes poetry, but he can certainly use his language skills to create “poetry in motion” when his team plays.
Gill Davies
Marple, Cheshire
• “Andy Burnham will be judged not on his ability to quote poems,” says Blake Morrison, with a hint that were Burnham to do so, it would further burnish his charisma. In another age, Geoffrey Madan wrote that the Virgil quotations in William Gladstone’s speeches “were like plover’s nests: impossible to see till you’ve been shown”. Rather than worn on his lapels.
Theo Cuffe
London
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