Two politi­cians, both of whom I had a chance to see close up at uni­ver­sity. For Labour, I present Dave Miliband, JCR Pres­id­ent of Cor­pus Christi (I was his oppo at Exeter). We both rep­res­en­ted the most over-privileged elect­or­ate in the world (he more con­scien­tiously than me).

For the Con­ser­vat­ives, Boris John­son, pres­id­ent of the Oxford Union, whose mantle of sham­bolic gen­i­al­ity I observed being cast off in the uni­ver­sity news­pa­per offices, as he grumbled about some lost oppor­tun­ity for self pro­mo­tion. Later too, whilst Spec­tator editor in Doughty Street, he chose to con­duct his liais­ons in a cof­fee shop on Grays Inn Road, next door to ITN where I worked. It was unedi­fy­ing stuff. Enough to sour the froth on your macchiato.

Miliband was enthu­si­astic, decent and smart. Someone with prob­ity, who has prob­ably not lost that qual­ity des­pite — one ima­gines — get­ting his hands dirty along the way. The kind of per­son you thought ought to go into polit­ics, but prob­ably wouldn’t.

John­son was ruth­less, ambi­tious and amus­ing. A vent­ri­lo­quist taken over by his dummy, vic­tim of a pub­lic charade that brought suc­cess — but only so much. The kind of per­son you thought ought to stay out of polit­ics, but prob­ably wouldn’t.

The voters, of course, elec­ted them both to safe seats.

Do per­sonal qual­it­ies influ­ence the choices open to politi­cians? The For­eign Office will find out, and so too may Lon­don.