"Many children are captivated by Hitler. Few remain obsessed for so long

Like Nigel Farage, as a teenager I was obsessed with Hitler and the second world war.

- Luke Turner

Unlike Nigel Farage, this fascination didn’t extend to singing “gas ’em all” and Nazi marching songs, racially abusing classmates, saying “Hitler was right”.

Earlier this week, The Spectator published a bizarre apologia for this behaviour that derided the steady drip of accusations from pupils and teachers at Dulwich College as a politically motivated “smear”. Writer Nigel Jones claimed Farage’s antics were typical of English private schools of the time, where pupils shared an “obsessive fascination with the war” and with Nazis.