oh, man, thanks! This is a pile of information to sort through (and I have a Canadian being very helpful on google talk). I really appreciate it. So basically someone who was going to be prime minister in 2005 would have had to get into a grammar school, and then ... I don't know what the intermediate steps are, something about A levels? then go to a good university, and then all that working-your-way-through-the-system bit?

Thanks again for helping, tacit and folk!