Worse still, I knew there were many back at home who would agree with them. The insults - "Go back to where you come from" - and the interrogation - "But where do you really come from?" - were still ringing in my ears. A few years later Norman Tebbit would set us his notorious test. So if news of the black MPs' election validated me in the eyes of the Sudanese, it also helped to legitimise my own personal narrative. It assisted me with a meaningful description of who I was, at a time when no definition was readily available. I was a black Briton; I even had "compatriots". I might have been born here, but their electoral success helped me feel that I had arrived.

"Lightning strike!" said Benn. "What's it about?"

The five economic tests that Britain must pass before joining the euro have never been particularly convincing. Since Brown both laid down the criteria for them and will judge whether or not they have been met, it is a bit like students sitting an exam in which they have written the questions and will mark the paper. Anyone who doesn't pass under those circumstances must have far greater problems than the subject matter could ever pose.

Now his statue stands on one end of Monument Avenue in the city - a tribute to the late humanitarian and only black man ever to have gained an All-England Club singles title.