Martin Rowson’s devastating caricatures are the best antidote to today’s culture of slick spin, writes Lord Kenneth Baker

IN the 18th century Charles James Fox made Brooks’s Club in St James’s the rallying point for the Whigs. In the late 20th century Michael Foot made the Gay Hussar Restaurant in Greek Street, Soho, the rallying point for Old Labour. You could find Michael there with Nye Bevan, Tom Driberg, and Sidney Silverman tucking into delicious goose and good Hungarian red wine. Utopias were dreamt up; plots hatched; manifestos written; and faint hearts coruscated. As a Tory I enjoyed dropping into the Gay Hussar from time-to-time to have a peep into the enemy’s camp.
The Gay Hussar was founded by one of the great bon-viveurs, Victor Sassie, and it is now under the imaginative leadership of John Wrobel. John had the idea of having his most celebrated clients cartooned by Martin Rowson. From 1999 to 2005 journalists, editors, Trades Union leaders, spin doctors, TV interviewers and politicians have all been captured by Rowson and the result pinned to the walls. Most came from the Labour Party – there are only five Tories of which I am very proud to be one – and no Liberals. It is a remarkable gallery that captures a generation of political activists.

An account of the largely forgotten tales of World War II’s children is tragically poignant, says Illtyd Harrington

EVERY day some 2,000 petitions arrived in Hitler’s office – good Germans humbly seeking his benevolent interventions to solve their problems.
One, which arrived early in July 1939 was from a Protestant farm labourer and his wife asking for their severely disabled child to be killed.
Hitler acted not out of compassion but to achieve racial purity, for five-month-old Gerhard Herbert K died on July 25 after a visit from one of the Fuhrer’s entourage.
His death was of great historical significance. In August 1939, days before World War II broke out, the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses was formed.