By James Naughtie
BBC News
Ask anyone today who it was in the 1970s who left his clothes on a beach and wandered into the sea in search of a new life, and the answer would probably be Reginald Perrin, not John Stonehouse.
Yet the enduring comedy of Reggie’s fictional crack-up, in the classic BBC sitcom, has a matching drama in the real story of the missing MP, a posse of Czechoslovak spies and the mysterious trail he left behind.
Stonehouse was a young star in Harold Wilson’s first Labour government of 1964, apparently heading for high office.
But within a few years he was interrogated by MI5 on suspicion of espionage, sank into financial ruin as his political ca…
Read the full article at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-57942759
