Grapevine: Oswald Mosley named 'worst Briton'

The magazine asked historians to put together a list of the ten worst Britons in the past 1,000 years - with one Briton from every century. Among those elected was 19th century serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

Mosley senior, who founded the British Union of Fascists, was picked by Professor Joanna Bourke of London's Birkbeck College, who said Oswald still has "a pernicious impact on our society". 

"On his death in 1980, his son Nicholas concluded that his father was a man whose 'right hand dealt with grandiose ideas and glory' while his left hand 'let the rat out of the sewer'," Bourke said.

FIA president Max Mosley has never made his family lineage a secret, but he did admit he felt more comfortable in the motorsport world.

Mosley told Atlas F1 in 2000: "There was always a certain amount of trouble [being the son of Sir Oswald] until I came into motor racing.

"And in one of the first races I ever took part in there was a list of people when they put the practice times up as they do.

"Everyone stood around looking at the times. All the competitors in that class of racing looking at the list and they came to my name and I heard somebody say, 'Mosley, Max Mosley, he must be some relation of Alf Mosley, the coachbuilder.'

"And I thought to myself, 'I've found a world where they don't know about Oswald Mosley.' And it has always been a bit like that in motor racing: nobody gives a darn."