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This week's alumnus to be proud of is unlikely to reach for his learned friends on the basis of what follows.

Neil Hamilton, the former minister who this week abandoned a legal action against The Guardian after having the law altered to allow him to pursue it, never really had a chance. Educated at Amman Valley Grammar School and Aberystwyth (BSc Econ and MSc Econ) he then took an LLB at Cambridge (Corpus Christi College) before being called to the Bar.

His collaborator in the action, Ian Greer, attended only Cranbrook College, Essex. Among the hobbies Hamilton lists in Who's Who is "silence".