LAST week, the last Tory in Hartlepool. This week, the last Labour MP from Hartlepool to try to single-handedly sabotage his own government (unless, of course, you count getting yourself sacked from the Cabinet on two separate occasions).

The MP in question is Ted Leadbitter, who in 1964 took over from Commander John Kerans, the extraordinary character featured here last week.

Mr Leadbitter's election was part of the swing towards Labour that enabled Harold Wilson to end 13 years of Conservative rule - but only with a majority of four. In real terms, with illness, this was a majority of two.

In such circumstances, most newly-elected MPs would do their utmost to support their new Prime Minister.

But, in astonished tones, the then Postmaster General Tony Benn recalls in his diary how early in 1964 he received a letter from the MP from West Hartlepool complaining that a telegraph pole had been erected in front of an irate constituent's house.

Mr Benn replied that there was little he could do; Mr Leadbitter was so affronted that he said that "he regards the Postmaster General's reply as so evasive that he does not propose to come to the House or accept the Labour Whip until the pole is removed". Mr Leadbitter was threatening to wipe out Mr Wilson's majority and let the Tories resume their reign.

Mr Benn told the Chief Whip. The Chief Whip told Mr Leadbitter "in earthy and graphic terms" about the foolhardiness of his actions.

A few days later, Mr Benn records that the Leadbitter fellow had relented. The Government was not about to topple - and the pole stayed in place.

However, Mr Leadbitter did not give up so easily when it came to the world of espionage. He was especially concerned that Soviet agents might have infiltrated the British secret service.

One Teesside Labour delegate to a party conference in Blackpool in the early 1970s remembers a scene straight from the 1949 film The Third Man. There our friend was, minding his own business in the Winter Gardens when Mr Leadbitter appeared, dragged him into a secretive alcove and whispered that the Fourth Man was not only alive and well but actually attending the conference!

He told our Teesside friend that he feared he might "meet with an accident", and should anything befall him our Teesside friend alone would be in a position to tell the world of the extraordinary assassination.

Thankfully, the Hartlepool MP avoided the hired killer's bullet. But he struck a direct hit himself when he stood up in the House in 1979 and asked Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher if she were prepared to make a statement about the identity "of an individual... in relation to the security of the United Kingdom."

Mrs Thatcher didn't equivocate. "The name," she said, "is Sir Anthony Blunt. There is no doubt that British interests were severely damaged by his activities."

Mr Leadbitter had exposed the Fourth Man. Amid extraordinary scenes, Blunt was immediately stripped of his knighthood and his prestigious posts - although he escaped prosecution.

In a final act before he handed the Hartlepool seat to Peter Mandelson in 1989, Mr Leadbitter was involved in the unmasking of Pamella Bordes, the call girl found working in the Commons under Conservative Sports Minister Colin Moynihan.

It's a shame Mr Leadbitter wasn't on the Joint Intelligence Committee when the spies said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...