Ed & me

Here's an update. If you didn't read 'Is Ed Miliband a "maths geek"?' now is a good time.

So I didn't get a reply from Ed, nor from anyone with concrete knowledge of his maths geek status. (Though I am grateful to @ColinTGraham, @MitchKeller, @Tysess and @stecks for re-tweeting my question to him.) But here are some more snippets I've learned.

Ed studied economics at Oxford and the LSE, and taught economics at Harvard on sabbatical from the Treasury. However, there are more and less mathematical ends of economics. Somehow, I hope his "maths geek" status is more than that.

Ed does seem to have had a flair for mathematics in school. He and his brother David went to Haverstock school, from where the Camden New Journal has teacher Oscar Gregan, who taught David mostly and Ed a little, paraphrased as saying that Ed's "reputation in the staffroom was that of being something of a number-crunching genius" and quotes him saying "David was not a natural, geeky mathematician – Ed was more like that". "Later", claims the Scotsman, "it was his speed at mental calculations that caught Gordon Brown's attention".

So the question is: Does a childhood talent for "number-crunching", good mental arithmetic and an academic pursuit of economics translate into maths geekery?

There's a tantalising piece of information that seems to point Ed to the geeky end of the spectrum: the BBC quotes Robin Blackburn remembering meeting Ed as a child and saying "Ed amazed me by being able to do the Rubik's Cube... in one minute 20 seconds and, as I recall, just with one hand too." If true, this hints at excellent geek potential.