A LEADING anti-grammar school campaigner in Bucks is livid with Prime Minister Tony Blair's plans to alter secondary education.

Malcolm Horne, of Bucks Parents for Comprehensive Education, said the Prime Minister had a massive ignorance of comprehensive education. Mr Horne said it was wrong to suggest that comprehensives held children back.

"The Prime Minister doesn't know and wouldn't know, because he has never been to a state school or taught in a comprehensive," he added.

This week Mr Blair announced proposals to allow more schools to specialise in certain subjects and to select some of their pupils, to create more beacon schools and city academies, to let private companies run schools and to encourage schools backed by religious groups.

Of the three main political parties in Bucks, Conservatives were relatively pleased, Labour were puzzled, while the Lib Dems said it was an election ploy by the Prime Minister and the plans would probably never see the light of day

Buckinghamshire County Council cabinet member for schools, Cllr Mike Appleyard, (Wooburn, Con), agreed he could 'run' with the Blair plans as they reflected ideas already being carried out in Bucks.

Cllr Michael Brand (Amersham East), the Lib Dem spokesman on education on the county council said the Prime Minister should be concentrating on the quality, pay, and working conditions of teachers rather than changing structures.

Leader of the Labour group on the county council, Cllr Trevor Fowler, (Oakridge and Tinkers Wood) said he and other local Labour people wanted more information.