David Cameron could not know, as an undergraduate, how useful it would prove to have been tutored by a man whose specialities include coalition government, fixed-term parliaments, Lords’ reform and the Alternative Vote. Vernon Bogdanor’s passion for constitutional issues has not always been fashionable. But it is so relevant to modern politics that the joke at the last election was that the Queen had his number on speed dial.
Last night a dinner was held at the House of Lords to honour Mr Bogdanor, who has stepped down as Professor of Government at the University of Oxford. For forty years he enthused politics students at Brasenose College with his energetic tutorials, his puckish impatience with any failure to nail an argument, and his instant recall of pertinent facts and anecdotes. His Nuffield politics seminar with David Butler exposed youngsters to influential people they could not then sloppily caricature. He encouraged female students to pursue high-powered careers, believing that women were at least the equals of men, and frequently better.
Mr Bogdanor has been a public intellectual in a country — and a university world — that generally dislikes public intellectuals. He is part of an ageing band of academics, which includes Peter Hennessy and David Butler, who are interested in public administration rather than the nowfashionable public choice theory. These men treat the world as one that they live in, not as a petri-dish. That makes them good teachers, at a time when universities value teaching too little. It also makes them relevant. Mr Bogdanor is apt to be disappointed when former pupils forget things. As the referendum on AV approaches, the Prime Minister will no doubt be re-reading him.