IT IS 205 years since the Cato Street conspiracy was “uncovered” on February 23 1820 and the leaders duly despatched at the scaffold or to Australia.

It warrants a section in EP Thompson’s classic account of the Making of the English Working Class (1963) but until recently has been largely overlooked both by mainstream and left historians.

The conspirators, who, like others before them, had been infiltrated by government spies — a reminder that spycops are nothing new — planned to attack a “Cabinet dinner” in central London, murder the prime minister, home secretary etc and display their heads on poles.