Oswald Mosley emerged from World War I with the urge to make a name for himself in politics, but he never stayed in one party for long. Successively a Conservative, Independent and Labour MP, he lost patience with the normal democratic processes of this country and in 1931 he founded the New Party, having become 6th Baronet Mosley on the death of his father three years earlier.

His charismatic oratory soon attracted many people to his British Union of Fascists, but his party failed to gain any seats in parliament. This was not entirely surprising, since Mosley, an admirer of Hitler, advocated antisemitism, and his Nazi-style blackshirted followers brutally suppressed hecklers. In 1936 Mosley marched 1,900 thugs down Cable Street, a Jewish area of London’s East End, but public sympathy was with the Jews who repelled the Blackshirts by throwing stones at them.

During the Second World War, Mosley and his second wife, Diana, one of the famous Mitford sisters (b. 10th June 1910, d. 11th August 2003) were interned as a threat to national security. They lived in France after the war, but to the end of his days - he died on 3rd December 1980 - Mosley was never truly repentant for what he did. Some historians have suggested that Mosley was Labour’s "lost leader" but it seems he could never have coped with the compromises, the grubby deals and slow democratic processes which can be found in normal everyday British politics.

OSWALD ERNALD MOSLEY: 16th November 1896; London (51N31 000W10); 11:40 pm (23:40) GMT.

Source: Black Shirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism by Stephen Dorril (Penguin/Viking 2006), p3: "his mother ... wrote in her diary 'Infant Tommy began to arrive at 6:00 am and finished up after an awful 18 hours at 11:40.'"

Many people are aware of the Cambridge Spy Ring which sprang up in the 1930s, but it is the names of Philby, Burgess, McLean and, later, Sir Anthony Blunt whom everyone recalls. There was also a lesser-known man, however, and his name was John Cairncross. Recruited by the KGB in 1936, he worked in the Cabinet Office from the start of World War II and used his position to pass secrets to the Soviet Union dealing especially with nuclear technology and German ciphers. Cairncross was subsequently dubbed "the Fifth Man" although he had originally come under suspicion in 1951, but was allowed to resign without being prosecuted. MI5 eventually confronted Cairncross in 1964 with irrefutable evidence of his espionage activities, but he was placed in a 'safe' job where he could do no harm, in Italy where he retired and later died on 8th or 9th October 1995.

JOHN CAIRNCROSS: 25th July 1913; Lesmahagow, Scotland (55N39 3W55); 01:00 am GMT. Caroline Gerard from birth certificate. (She tells me that the place is pronounced Lesma-HAY-go)