Conscientious elector

Paul Marsden, the Labour MP in the firing line for opposing the bombing of Afghanistan, may have dropped out of higher education but the experience seems to have done him no harm. Mr Marsden studied civil engineering at Teesside Polytechnic in the 1980s but did not complete the course. Undeterred, he went on to become the first Labour MP for his constituency of Shrewsbury and Atcham and, aged 29 on his election to Parliament in 1997, one of Labour's youngest MPs.