Double-U turn

The Liberal Democrats last week welcomed Lord Smith of Clifton of Mountsandel in the County of Londonderry to the Lords. It was a fair choice of title for the vice chancellor of the University of Ulster, which has a big Londonderry campus. But the former Sir Trevor Smith wanted to take the name of UU's would-be future site, not its current one. Only with some difficulty was he talked out of being Lord Smith of Springvale in honour of his long-running scheme for the university to open up in west Belfast.