Heard the one about the Tory Old-Etonian Lord who despite being caught spying for the Japanese – giving them the know-how to take out Pearl Harbor and to capture Singapore resulting in 100,000 allied prisoners being taken, many of whom died in brutal Japanese PoW camps – was so well-connected he was never even prosecuted?

No? Take a bow Conservative peer William Forbes-Sempill, 19th Lord Sempill.

Scottish Tory Lord Sempill was an active member of several far-right, fascist and anti-Semitic organisations including the Anglo-German Fellowship, the pro-Nazi Link Organisation and Archibald Ramsay’s The Right Club, – a secretive organisation with the aim of ridding the Tory party of Jews.

Lord Sempill was discovered by MI5 to have been spying for the Japanese for as long as 19 years – right up to the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

But because Forbes-Sempill was a leading member of the Conservative Party and a Lord with connections even to the King, he got off scot-free without any prosecution.

And remarkably, at a time when other traitors were being hung for betraying their country, Forbes-Sempill didn’t even lose his job at the Admiralty.

Compare Forbes-Sempill’s treatment with war-hero Alan Turing – who suffered from not being a well-connected aristocrat or a member of the Conservative establishment.

One rule for Tories, another for the plebs …