Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Days of hope

Iain Dale has been waxing lyrical about his time in student politics at the University of East Anglia and lists Caroline Flint, Mark Seddon, former NUS president Vicky Phillips and Tony Blair aide Jo Gibbons among his contemporaries.

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.

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5 comments:

Croydonian said...

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...

Anonymous said...

I remember a pushy young tory called Norman Lamont from my Cambridge days [63-66] charming the Union: I wonder what became of him?

Anonymous said...

.... 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

Anonymous said...

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...

janestheone said...

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.