Czech mate

"I knew and loved Teresa" - thus the World's Greatest Living Foreign Correspondent in a piece for the Daily Mail. 

John Simpson, 79, says he had a two-year affair with Terézia Javorská, revealed by the Mail as a spy for Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. She had joined the BBC World Service in 1976, was apparently first recruited to spy in 1985, and was working as "Agent Vora" from 1987, probably until the Slovak Service closed in 2005. 

Decorous John says the two-year affair was over before she was recruited. "Teresa's brilliance and good looks made her a figure of note in the BBC's overseas service. We broke up in 1982; we never met again, but I heard of her stellar progress."

John reveals they met at the Tory Party Conference in Brighton, in October 1980, when John was 36 and Teresa 30. (John was married to Diane Jean Petteys until 1983). You might think John's concentration ought to have been on his job as newly-appointed BBC Political Editor; Mrs Thatcher made the 'not-for-turning' speech. Mr Simpson's spell leading on British politics lasted less than two years.