There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

THE apparent link between digestive troubles and radicalism is often noted, though rarely pursued with any kind of scientific rigour.
Are people with bothersome guts disproportionately drawn to the revolutionary cause? Or do leftwingers develop such symptoms from worrying about the state of the world? Or is the whole thing a statistical illusion — the result, if you’ll pardon the expression, of relying on too small a sample size?
Whatever the case, “Sir Stifford Crapps” was an inevitable nickname for a man as famous for his asceticism and his stomach problems as for his political actions.

MAT COWARD tells the extraordinary story of the second world war Spitfire pilot who became Britain’s most famous Stalag escaper, was awarded an MBE, mentored a generation of radio writers and co-founded a hardline Marxist-Leninist party


