Yes: he started life as a Tory MP. Yes: he then became a Labour MP. Yes: he then resigned over the unemployment problem, and Labour's refusal to implement the 'Mosley Memorandum,' forming Nupa, the New Party, which in October 1932, with the publication of "The Greater Britain" almost morphed into the BUF - all in an emulation of Mussolini's Italy, who Mosley had recently visited.

But "Mosley" is melodramatic and badly weighted to his sexual prowess (although by all accounts he was quite a charmer). We should also be very much aware that it is based on the memoirs of his son, the novelist Nicholas Mosley ("The Rules of the Game" and "Beyond the Pale"), which are an attempt, and a convincing one, of airbrushing over the bad bits.

And Mosley's political life did not end with his internment under Defence Regulation 18B, as this programme would have us believe. In 1947 he released a new politcal manifesto (though he denied it was that at the time), "The Alternative." The Emphasis of this new party, Union Movement, formed in 1948 and his later "Europe: Faith & Plan" was to the Union of Europe, although the previous extremes of anti-Semitism etc. were to remain. He did however deny this. The sincerity of this new Europeanism is debatably a cover for a revival of the BUF, which in itself would, one would think, make it eligible for another episode in this "drama," but apparently not. Mosley retired from active politics in 1966, publishing his autobiography, "My Life" in 1968, and died in December 1980.

And a conclusion to this "essay": please, do not waste your money on this dross. If you want to find out about Mosley, buy a book! I would suggest either Robert Skidelsky's "Oswald Mosley" (1975) or Richard Thurlow's "Fascism in Britain" (2nd Ed, 1998). The former is quite sympathetic, but perhaps 'the' key work on Mosley, and the latter is extremely well balanced, being based on information from the Public Record Office.