Luminaries from my own days in student politics at University College London include the well-known psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud, who was chair of Labour Club in 1982, Liz Davies, famously blackballed by Blair from becoming a Labour MP, David Quantick, now a respected comedy writer, Greg Wood, now the Guardian's racing correspondent, and the Tory blogger Croydonian, who doesn't remember me.
I learned two important lessons during my time in student politics. The first was that I did not want to pursue a political career, and the second was that Tories are generally nicer people than socialists even though I disagree with them most of the time.
5 comments:
Nothing personal Paul - you were a year or so above me and I was just a first year tick.
Still, nice to be thought a luminary...
I remember a pushy young tory called Norman Lamont from my Cambridge days [63-66] charming the Union: I wonder what became of him?
.... but I can't remember the incisive Croydonian
but it may have something to do with this Gray Eagle's age - it doesn't help that I did not go to some obscure (was it a) Polytechnic somewhere in London ....
G E
I knew (slightly) Michael Gove, Stephen Twigg and Jonathan Freedland, all marked for great things. I was aware of Boris Johnson (how could you not be?. Cameron, who was in the same year albeit in a different college, seems to have passed entirely under the University's journalistic/political radar. The same was true of Blair in the 60s...
I remember a feisty Welshman called Edward Leigh at Durham (I was there 1972-75, he was above me)about whom there are indeed some tales to tell (when I met him in the House in 1997 he remembered my hair but not the rest of me) and a chap called Piers Merchant, whatever happened to him. Rachel Squire, whom I didn't know then, was a contemporary too, became a Labour MP in 1997 and sadly died last year.
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