One friend joked to me the other day that Prime Ministers should only appoint Chancellors whose eyebrows match their hair colour, pointing out that the last two Chancellors to lead Britain into recession have both had black eyebrows and silver hair. But Alex Massie points out that it might be the schooling not the eyebrows that are at fault: both Norman Lamont and Alistair Darling are products of Lorreto, the prestigious Edinburgh boarding school.

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