Politics' Strangest Characters is the latest offering from Robson Books' hugely successful 'Strangest' series. British political history teems with eccentrics, and as the contents of this book prove, Britain has a pre-eminent claim to the title of the World's Leading Political Asylum. Consider Col. Sibthorp, the most reactionary MP ever, who in 1840 successfully opposed the granting of 50,000 a year to Prince Albert because he hated foreigners. Or A P Herbert, the only MP who specialised in making speeches in verse: he even corresponded with the Inland Revenue in rhyming couplets. Perhaps the most eccentric MP of all was Trebitsch Lincoln. Bom into a Jewish family in Hungary in 1879, he became a fraudster before emigrating to Britain to establish himself first as an Anglican curate, and then as a Liberal MP in 1910 for ten months. He later fled the country to become a German revolutionary and a secret agent, then led a Chinese cult as a Buddhist abbot, and finally, after offering his services to the Japanese and then Nazi Germany, he died in Shanghai, possibly poisoned by Nazi agents. These and many other peculiar politicians are hilariously portrayed in Politics' Strangest Characters.