THE TRAITORS

(John Murray £9.99) WHEN we think of British traitors, those who come to mind tend to be the Communist spies, including Burgess, Philby and Maclean.

But World War II spawned a crop of Fascist sympathisers who worked for Nazi Germany, and four of these are the subject of Josh Ireland’s first book.

William Joyce, or ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, was the best known as the propaganda director of the British Union of Fascists who made notorious radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany. John Amery carried a gun and a teddy bear and Harold Cole was a petty criminal who betrayed at least 150 members of the French resistance, while Eric Pleasants was a circus strongman who ended up in a Russian gulag.

Ireland gives a vivid account of this repellent, but fascinating, quartet.