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Political Parties and Elections Bill

My reaction to the amendment moved by my noble friend was exactly 180 degrees opposite the reaction of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. My reaction was that it was a credit to the University of Hull and the quality of its academic staff that this immense vigilance and attention to detail had been expressed. I was the more reinforced by that from a recollection of the Festschrift delivered to Philip Larkin, when he was the librarian of that library, at the age of 60. The chapter contributed by his publisher recorded the frequent correspondence that he had by postcard with Philip Larkin, including an occasion when Philip Larkin was on holiday in Windermere and reported to his publisher that it was pouring with rain outside. The only literature that the hotel contained was the Times crossword and the poems of WH Auden. It was, he said, a rare case of F6 across—that being one of Auden's greatest poems. With that quality of intellectual acuity, I was not the least surprised that my noble friend sat up all night going through the 2000 Act.