The Labour member for Rhondda has other strings in abundance, as an author, having written biographies of Stafford Cripps and Glenda Jackson, as a BBC executive and as an Anglican priest - he resigned his holy orders in order to fight the seat of Wycombe in 1997.
On the island of Kos, there are the mighty towers of the Castle of the Knights of St John, the medieval order of holy crusaders who went to Jerusalem but never returned home.