‘You can work as research assistant to Ralph Miliband.’ Thus my tutor at the London School of Economics gave me the news that he had found a way for me to finance my first year of study for an intended PhD on the Labour party’s housing policy between the world wars.
The idea was that for twelve months between 1964 and 1965 I would help analyse the changing occupational structure of the British workforce by comparing statistics contained in the 1851 census with those in the 1951 census. As a first step, my new boss took me for a drink in the coffee bar next door to the main entrance of the LSE.
Our discussion about the intended project went well. We were both enthusiasts for demographic statistical analysis. But then we got on to politics and the rest of our meeting was a social disaster. The problem was that I had very strong views on the tyranny of mind and body that I had seen the previous year when on a trip to the Communist bloc countries with the LSE chess club.
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