In an article on Britain’s Far Right, Hugh Purcell examines the career of Oswald Mosley.

Thirty years ago in Paris, I attended the funeral of Sir Oswald Mosley, Britain’s pre-war Fascist Leader. I was making a BBC radio biography that turned into his obituary. The sublime strains of Fauré’s In Paradisum filled Pere Lachaise chapel and the journalist next to me whispered ‘At least he hasn’t been strung up by his heels!’ I thought at the time that this juxtaposition of high culture and low ugliness was typical of Mosley’s life. As his eldest son Nicholas said in 1971 ‘I see clearly that while the right hand dealt with grandiose ideas and glory, the left hand let the rat out of the sewer.’