The most useful maths I ever learned I learned between the ages of five and nine, including memorisation of times tables, fractions, percentages and division. These come into daily life and understanding them on a very basic level is completely essential. Beyond that, attempts to force maths down my throat and have it digested as meaning something other than terror and confusion – and there were a great many attempts – came to little. That’s not quite fair. When I put my mind to it I found I liked numbers, so long as I wasn’t forced to go beyond say quadratic equations (of which I now remember nothing).

If only someone sensible who is bad at maths but successful at life could have sat down with Rishi Sunak before he announced a policy to make all schoolchildren take maths till 18.

This is a pointless and unpleasant idea. Unpleasant because for those who struggle with maths, it is a deeply humiliating, fruitless process being made to do it to a level beyond the basic. And they will never remember it as anything other than hell - in short, it’d put them off for life.

Britain is meant to be a society where individualism can flourish, and that surely ought to include education. In the Soviet Union or China, enforced maths for all might have been de rigeur, but here in Blighty, those who like or want to pursue digits should have every encouragement, and those who don’t should be allowed to devote themselves to things they like. That way, one day, if they feel it’d be good to know more maths, they may actually feel like learning some.