Grange Hill bully Gripper was my role model, jokes PM

Prime Minister David Cameron has joked that TV bully Gripper Stebson was a role model during his school days.

Mr Cameron was promoting his "big society" initiative alongside Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond.

The PM said he had been a fan of the show, adding: "Indeed Gripper Stebson was one of my role models in life."

According to the Grange Hill Online website Gripper bullied fellow pupils from 1981 until being expelled in 1983 after turning to hardcore racism.

Mr Redmond, who also created Brookside, had just introduced Mr Cameron at the event at Liverpool Hope University.

In contrast to Gripper Stebson's reign of terror at the fictional London comprehensive, the prime minister was described as a popular pupil at Eton.

Although he left his secondary school at around the same time as Gripper, he did so with A-levels good enough to win a place at Oxford University.

Gripper, by contrast, went on to get a job as a butcher's boy.