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Any other business

The joy of fulfilling my youthful ambition

17 December 2022

9:00 AM

17 December 2022

9:00 AM

Half a century ago this week, I left school in Scotland and travelled to Worcester College, Oxford for an interview to read politics, philosophy and economics. I can still picture the trio of scary dons who quizzed me: the grumpy political historian ‘Copper’ LeMay; the deeply obscure philosopher Michael Hinton; and Dick Smethurst, a jovial left-leaning economist, in and out of Downing Street in Harold Wilson’s years, later a popular provost of the college.

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