The recent GCSE results reveal a worsening North-South divide. In London, 28 per cent of exams were graded 7-9, compared with 17 per cent in north-east England. A-levels results showed a similar pattern.

Two years ago, the Schools Recovery Tsar, charged with drafting a post-Covid catch-up strategy, delivered his recommendations. Only 9 per cent of these were implemented – the equivalent of £22 per primary school pupil. By contrast, the USA invested £1,600 and the Netherlands £2,500 a head.

Since 2010, British schools have been so poorly funded that we have sunk to 29th place out of 34 in the European table of education spending in relation to GDP. This puts us behind Greece, Bulgaria and Albania.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan talks to students who have just received their GCSE results. PIC: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

This deliberate policy has a disproportionate effect on less advantaged areas of the country and has hit us hard in the North.

The 'levelling-up strategy' of the Johnson era quickly withered away with all his other overblown promises, and the Sunak government shows no interest in compensating for the regional divide.

Our cleverest children can't find graduate jobs here, so they leave for the South, making the problem worse.

While our competitor countries in Western Europe have coordinated economic, social and educational strategies to support their regions, Tory dogma opposes this.

As a result, the North gets poorer while the South gets richer. This is no way to run a country.

Regional inequalities in education come to the fore in recent results - Yorkshire Post Letters