Gordon Brown told students about winning better pay for cleaners
Gordon Brown has told a student website about his own campaigns as a student - opposing apartheid in South Africa and supporting "decent pay" for cleaners.
The Labour leader was answering questions on the Student Room website.
His comments on cleaners' pay come as a campaign from today's students is set to call for university cleaners in London to receive a "living wage".
Mazdak Alizadeh of the University of London Union says he would like Mr Brown to "champion" the campaign.
'Tough fight'
Asked about his own student days, Mr Brown said: "The thing I'm proudest of as a student journalist was the campaign I led to get the university to disinvest from apartheid South Africa.
"It was a tough fight, but we won it, and it meant a lot to me to be able to talk with Nelson Mandela years later.
"I also got involved in the campaign for the cleaners to get decent pay and became the second student to be elected Rector, chairing the governing body of Edinburgh University.
"I like to think we had a real impact on the university. So I guess you could say I have the same interests today."
The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, has also answered questions on the website about his own university days and highlighted an interest in meditation over politics.
"I wasn't into student politics, but I did campaign for things I believed in, like the rights of indigenous peoples through an organisation called Survival International," said Mr Clegg.
"In terms of hobbies I tried out a few things, quite a lot of sport, I did some acting, and I even got into transcendental meditation for a while, which my friends still love to remind me."
Conservative leader David Cameron is set to answer questions next week.
Mr Brown's recollection of raising university cleaners' pay has parallels with student campaigns being launched 40 years later.
The University of London Union and campaign group London Citizens want cleaners at the University of London's colleges to be paid at least £7.60 per hour, which they say is the minimum needed to live in an expensive city such as London.
It is already paid in several of the universities' colleges - including the London School of Economics, Queen Mary and the School of Oriental and African Studies.
'Dignity'
But there are other colleges in London which fail to pay this wage - with campaigners set to press for this higher rate of pay.
Mr Alizadeh, the vice-president of the ULU students' union, says the living wage is what is needed "to live with any kind of dignity in a city as expensive as London. It's a bare minimum."
"It's a figure that represents the reality of living in London - rather than living and working in poverty," he says.
Cleaners paid less than this rate are caught in a cycle of needing two or three different jobs to survive, he says.
Political leaders were accused by student leaders of ducking questions about tuition fees earlier this week - and when asked about fees in the Student Room website, he said: "We have commissioned a review of the whole system of student finance which is due to report later this year."