Laid and paid

Alumnus to be proud of No 107 is Tony Banks, our ebullient new sports minister whose evident capacity for enjoying himself was well developed by the time he went to York University as a politics undergraduate.

He told the 1995 Political Studies Association conference, held in York: "It was a time when the number of times one could get laid was exceeded only by the number of job opportunities - a state of affairs which applies today only in the House of Commons. And to think we did it all on local authority grants."

We suspect he had a good time as a postgraduate at the LSE as well.