The former international development minister appeared to suggest last week that anybody who wasn't wealthy was a 'low achiever'.

And it sustained me when everyone around me had kind of written me off as a low achiever.

At school, however, he remained a low achiever.

All of the recent gains have been made, deliberately, at the low end of the socioeconomic scale and among the lowest achievers.

Many graduates have been grateful to him for transforming them from low achievers to successful people.