Gibb Sahib. His name was Peter Roebuck. Like I said, a very good lecturer, and I was absolutely fascinated by what he had to say. But he was firmly in the conservative tradition of economic history.

There's nothing wrong with that of course. Indeed, given the nature of economic history, debate between the two sides is an essential part of undertsanding it.

But I never could understand why Hill and Hobsbawm needed to be read any more critically than, say, Chambers, Mingay or FML Thompson.

A propos of buggar all. Some years after I graduated, I ended up on an industrial relations course at Manchester Polytechnic. The lecturer gave us the course reading list and then wrote a name on the board.

"Don't go near anything by this man", he said. "He's a Marxist. An absolute bloody anarchist."

The name of the authority he'd written on the board. It was one RALPH MILIBAND. A highly respected sociologist and father of the present leader of the Labour Party.