Wednesday night is family history night, so I’m currently watching Who Do You Think You Are?, featuring Jeremy Irons. They’ve just shown the marriage certificate of his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Irons. He was a Chartist, and prior to that was a London policeman living at 10 Cowley Street, Westminster – a few doors away from the building (or the site at least) that became the SDP headquarters and currently home to the Liberal Democrats.

Thomas Irons was subsequently arrested in connection with a planned insurrection and ended up with an 18 month sentence in prison.