The Tory conference was a pseudo-sacred affair, with devotees paying homage in front of Thatcher’s old shrouds — and your reporter, initially barred, only need mention he’d once met her to gain access. But would she consider what was on offer a worthy legacy, asks ANDREW MURRAY

IF you were building a perfect rebel leader from a kit, I don’t think you’d end up with John Wilkes. You’d probably prefer someone who wasn’t a member of the orgiastic Hellfire Club, and who hadn’t been expelled from Parliament for writing a libellously pornographic poem. But there you go: history has its whims.
John Wilkes (1725-97) was and is famous for many reasons, not least his celebrated witticisms, which appear in quotation anthologies to this day. (Any reader who has spent time knocking on doors during elections will appreciate Wilkes’s reply to a constituent who told him he’d rather vote for the devil: “But if your friend decides not to stand?”).
For all the colourful gossip fodder with which his life was filled, however, there was one cause to which he stubbornly clung and which was, then and now, of fundamental democratic importance.

MAT COWARD looks back to a 1931 protest against mass unemployment featuring a young Ewan MacColl

Cat show killer, avenging the pawns, women hunt the Ripper, and running dry in the outback

Spice up your life – and your greenhouse – with MAT COWARD’s gardening tips

Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller