“I would dread spelling tests, I would get 2 out of 10. It was terrible,” said Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who last week revealed — in the week of his 40th birthday — that he has dyslexia. “As a child the list of words I could not spell was endless. I would work so hard. Nothing I could do made me better.”

He struggled at school undiagnosed, dropped any subjects that involved essays, excelled at maths and did not receive the help he needed until he got to Oxford University. He graduated with a first in philosophy, politics and economics.

Hancock said it was a relief to open up about the condition which affects a tenth of the population and can cause problems with