Liddington became boss of the academy sponsor E-ACT, outlining his mission 'to improve the lot of the most-deprived children'.
[1] Liddington was disgraced and resigned from the chain of academy schools following the disclosure of his overseeing its culture of extravagant expense claims, irregularities, and trips to prestige venues funded by public money, which the Times Educational Supplement compared to corruption in the US education system.
[3][4] His mother worked in a shoe factory and his father was a stonemason, he attended Wellingborough Grammar School.
[1] He did his first degree in English at Queen Mary College, and moved on to do a PGCE in Cambridge where he listened to a lecture by the prominent chief education officer of West Yorkshire, Sir Alec Clegg.
Clegg believed schools should pursue "the education of the spirit … the child's loves and hates … hopes and fears", and Liddington who said in a Guardian interview "I've always been attracted to kids who've had a hard time in life", was inspired to work in the deprived mining community of Conisbrough.