Before they were famous....

Having just said that I didn't spot any likely future Prime Ministers amongst my peers at University, it suddenly occurs to me that there was one - David Milliband, who was the President of my college's undergraduate student association one year (or 'Junior Common Room', as it's called in Oxford).


Perhaps still not a widely-known name amongst the general public (although I really wouldn't know, having happily quit England 5 years ago, and having paid almost zero attention to its politics since), he has 'risen without trace' through the ranks of New Labour: for a long time, he was one of the shadowy backroom boys (even said by some to have been an eminence grise of the Blair regime) working on policy and strategy in comparative anonymity; but now, I believe, he is an MP and a Minister..... and might well end up residing in No. 10 himself a decade or so from now.


I once wrote this silly little poem 'in his honour' (published on the college's toilet-door newsheet, Bogmopolitan). I wonder if he still remembers this? I wonder if Bogmopolitan is still going??


Lines on the retirement of the JCR President

So, farewell then,
David Milliband -
Or 'Dave', as we used to call you.
Yes, you were a real man
Of the people.
You were a good Prez
And a helluva hack.
One day,
Keith's mum will have heard
Of you.
Probably.


Note 1: Some readers will recognise (others will not) that this frippery is in the style of "E.J. Thribb" - a faux naïf schoolboy 'poet' (an invented character, of course) whose flippant obituaries in this form were a regular feature in the long-running UK satirical magazine Private Eye.


Note 2: 'Hack' is not used here in the general sense of a drone, a talentless but dependable worker. At Oxford (I really have no idea how common or uncommon it might be on other campuses or in other areas of life), it was a ubiquitous slang term with the special meaning of someone who was particularly active or ambitious in a certain field (hence there were drama hacks, debating hacks, journalism hacks, Conservative Association hacks, Labour Club hacks, Student Union hacks, and so on). As a verb, it meant to aggressively promote oneself, and especially to attempt to solicit votes in an upcoming election.