It was an era of monocles, chaps, elegant country houses, long boozy lunches and this country’s worst ever spy scandal.

Kim Philby sent countless brave men to their deaths over three decades of spying for the Soviet Union.

The story has been told before but has been given sparkling new life in a brilliant book by the Times journalist Ben Macintyre.

A Spy Among Friends is a stunning page turner which shocks and appals from first to last.

The story begins at Cambridge in the aftermath of World War Two when Kim asked his tutor how he could help the Communism cause.

He was swiftly recruited and, given his charm, ruthlessness and high intelligence, soon rose to the highest echelons of M16.

Although he was capable of consuming huge amounts of alcohol he was no blabbermouth and kept his secrets, however tight.

His damage to the security services on both sides of the pond was incalculable and when he was finally unmasked managed to send his old CIA friend James Jesus Angleton mad.

Even after reading Macintyre’s yarn, however, it is still unclear how he managed to evade detection for so long, though as Philip Hensher in The Spectator rightly says, a combination of stupidity, snobbery and the old-boy network played its part.

What is also unclear is why he did it. Of course, he was not the only one.

Philby was closely associated with those other inglorious traitors Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who accepted Moscow’s shilling.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is Philby’s intense friendship with Nicholas Elliott, a senior figure in the service.

Both were from similar backgrounds and the sense of betrayal which Elliott must have felt when the truth emerged was huge, though even then, having made a prize fool of him, he afforded him a degree of protection.

He went out to Beirut to interrogate him but, astonishingly, Philby was allowed to escape, as Burgess and Maclean were before him.

Although Philby had passed a massive amount of key security information to our enemies, caused grievous harm to our relationship with the American security services and ruined a number of major operations, the fact remained that he was “one of us”.

When John le Carré asked him years later about having him killed, Elliott, was aghast. “My dear chap. One of us.”

As Hensher points out in his review, ‘The right sort of chap’ “social connections consistently trumped any secure procedures.”

This is an interrogation of Elliott by a local head of security in Istanbul. ‘Does your wife know what you do?’ ‘Yes’.

‘How did that come about?’

‘She was my secretary for two years and I think the penny must have dropped.’

‘Quite so. What about your mother?’

‘She thinks I’m in something called SIS, which she believes stands for the Secret Intelligence Service.’

‘Good God! How did she come to know that?’

‘A member of the War Cabinet told her at a cocktail party.’

‘Then what about your father?

‘He thinks I’m a spy.’

‘Why should he think you’re a spy?’

‘Because the Chief told him in the bar at White’s’ (London’s poshest club).

As someone once said, you really could not make it up.

There are countless bizarre aspects to this tale.

Philby was quintessentially the English gentleman who enjoyed thick cut Oxford marmalade, tailored suits, and who, at the height of his treachery, was concerned about how to get his sons into good schools.

Initially the Russians were so amazed at his duplicity they had major doubts and suspected a double cross.

Sadly it was not to be and many brave men were tortured and executed.

A little-known side to our great wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill was revealed this week.

Despite his often bellicose nature he had a gentle, even sentimental, side and this was displayed in his love for his marmalade cat, Jock.

It was given to him for his 88th birthday in 1962 and was named Jock after one of his private secretaries, Sir John ‘Jock’ Colville who gave him the pet.

Churchill was so fond of Jock it was said that he would not start meals until he was at the table.

Before his death he insisted there should always be a marmalade cat with a white bib and four white socks resident at his country estate, Chartwell, Kent, bequeathed to the National Trust. Now Chartwell has a new Jock – Jock VI, a seven-month-old rescue kitten.

What a nonsense British political life is!

Poor Roy Jenkins, the son of a miner who went on to achieve some of the highest offices in the land, is damned for eternity because of his love of good claret.

Only in Britain could people be actually criticised for knowing their Burgundies from their Bordeaux.

He had such a good nose for red wine he could tell what year it was from by only taking a single sip according to a brilliant new biography by John Campbell – Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life.

Yet for some of his detractors his love of the good life permanently disqualified him from being a good socialist. But it was the unlikely figure of Gary Kemp, pop star and actor, who rightly said improving their lot was a legitimate aspiration of the working class.