Just weeks after Mr Blair entered Downing Street, a review of university funding commissioned by the previous Tory government recommended introducing university-tuition fees.

ECONOMIST: A briefing on the British election: A for effort, C for attainment | The

David Cameron, the Tory leader, went from university into the party's research department and, apart from a few years studying the dark arts of public relations, has been in politics all his adult life.

ECONOMIST: Selection bias in politics: There was a lawyer, an engineer and a politician... | The

Analysis of local by-elections by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University suggests that there has been a 10% swing from Labour to Tory in the South and Midlands.

ECONOMIST: How to see through the spin

Joining Mr Kennedy was Menzies Campbell, Mr Dewar's university friend, and the Lib Dems' foreign affairs spokesman, who walked beside former Tory minister and Tory MSP for the Lothians region, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, another of Mr Dewar's lifelong friends.

BBC: A nation says goodbye