Peter Mandelson nearly didn’t apply to Oxford. His headmaster at Hendon County Grammar fiercely opposed the idea, describing the young leftist in a school assembly as “an industrial militant”. Mandelson did however find his way to St Catherine’s College, with the help of a friendly economics teacher, and studied PPE (politics, philosophy and economics) like any good aspiring politico. Now 70 and attempting to win an election for the gilded role of chancellor of Oxford, Baron Mandelson of Foy has certainly travelled far from his youthful radicalism, and the idealistic year he spent before university working at a rural aid centre in Tanzania.“I loved my time here,” he says of Oxford, while warming himself in the sunshine on the roof of Corpus Christi college, wearing an elegant navy corduroy suit cut by Richard James of Savile Row. “But a lot of my head was still in Africa. I had Africa flowing through my veins. Actually, literally, I contracted bilharzia while I was…
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