Smoked out

Alumni to be proud of Nos 146 and 147 have the power, not apparently granted to anyone in the world of higher education, of persuading the government to change its policy.

Bernie Ecclestone, the motor racing tsar who achieved the rare double of a government U-turn on tobacco advertising and a full refund from the Labour party, learnt some of his formidable skills while reading chemical engineering at Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich). His partner in lobbying, Max Mosley, he of the politically interesting lineage, was at Christ Church, Oxford where he read natural sciences and was secretary of the union.