The official history of MI5 by historian, Christopher Andrew, has, again, directed us to the potential number of politicians and trade unionists who gave or sold information to the Soviet Union.

Three Labour MPs named in the history, written by the historian Christopher Andrew as Soviet bloc agents are John Stonehouse, who became postmaster general in Harold Wilson's government, Will Owen and Bob Edwards. The three were "outed" by a Czech defector, but there is no evidence the politicians passed over sensitive information....

Andrew says Jack Jones, the trade union leader who the Guardian has been told was the subject of many volumes of MI5 files, was not "being manipulated by the Russians", but the Security Service was "right to consider the possibility that he was". Britain's top KGB spy, Oleg Gordievsky, said Moscow "regarded Jones as an agent", Andrew notes. He says Jones accepted some money from the Russians but there is no evidence that he gave them any information.

Now that remittances for socialist traitors have dried up, does this partially explain why some on the Left were so quick to adopt kleptocracy as a principle of government, perhaps in homage to their dearly departed ideals.