omission of Nigel Forman, from successive ministerial reshuffles over the past few years has surprised many at Westminster when several apparently less talented politicians have secured top posts. But after 16 years in the Commons, he has become an under-secretary at the education department” Immediately after the general election in April 1992 Forman was appointed Under Secretary of State for Education (with the job title Minister of Higher and Further Education) under Education Secretary John Patten. During his tenure of office, Forman dealt with high-profile issues such as the financing of student unions, student loans and the quality assurance of degrees issued by the new universities. Forman unexpectedly resigned from his ministerial post on 11 December 1992 for "personal reasons". The nature of those personal reasons was never disclosed. Colleagues commented that Forman was "a very private man" and nobody claimed to know why he had resigned. Thereafter, Forman's political career went into decline. His political interests appeared to become more theoretical in nature. In January 1996 the Demos 'think tank' published a paper written by him on reform of the income tax system. Demos was generally considered to be closely associated with New Labour. At the 1997 general election, Forman lost his seat to the Liberal Democrat candidate Tom Brake. Forman's 10,000 vote majority in the 1992 general election was converted into a 2,000 vote Liberal Democrat majority with a 12% swing from Conservative to Lib Dem. After Parliament Forman initially developed a portfolio of lecturing and writing work. In 1999 he joined the faculty of Wroxton College, the UK (Oxfordshire) campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). Forman delivered courses for ‘Westminster Explained’, Parliament's own in-house training facility which provides courses to members of both Houses and the wider public service. He was a visiting lecturer at Essex University and an honorary research fellow at University College London. Forman died of dementia-related issues on 11 May 2017. In the last year of his life he was reported to have been dismayed by the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum and to have stated that the UK had become a country he hardly knew. However, obituarists drew attention to his comment (quoted above) published thirty years earlier concerning the tendency of the Conservative party to be occasionally swept along in particular ideologies. Bibliography His later, most notable, publications were: Constitutional Change in the UK (2004) Mastering British Politics (co-editor) Mastering