WHEN fledgling Labour

MP Parmjit Dhanda was asked in conversation with the Duke of Edinburgh what he did before entering Parliament, he could have answered: ‘ Measuring distances using a gallium arsenide laser.’ That is what it says on his CV. Instead, the 31yearold Member for Gloucester replied that he had been a student and then trade union official.

‘You didn’t do anything then,’ was the Duke’s somewhat brusque response.

There the matter might have ended until Mr Dhanda decided to turn the subject on its head. ‘What did you do before becoming the Duke of Edinburgh?’ he demanded in front of astonished guests at a Buckingham Palace reception for parliamentarians.

Prince Philip, 50 years Mr Dhanda’s senior, replied that he had served in the Royal Navy.