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Margaret Hodge is reported as describing her undergraduate experience at the LSE as "outrageous". I have to agree.

Hodge says that she "was off university for six months after I injured my back and nobody knew I wasn't there". Did she not think to advise her lecturers, tutors, departments or university administration of her enforced absence?

She then states: "I wrote one essay in my three years at the LSE and I got a third." Hardly a surprising outcome, then.

She complains that she should have been forced to do more work and concludes that "it was outrageous". It certainly was outrageous for a student to spend three years on an undergraduate degree course, write one essay, gain a third-class degree and then complain that she was not forced to work harder.

Fortunately, it has not proved to be a barrier to a ministerial appointment.

Michael Pacione
Department of geography
University of Strathclyde