[…] their first instinct was to resume the practice. And indeed sales did recommence – but not on a very grand scale. The anti-climax (from the perspective of Tory imperialists such as Julian Amery) has been ascribed by recent historians to an unwillingness to upset the Commonwealth, especially the newly independent African states. Heath certainly […]
[…] and now a freelance writer whose work appears widely. The purpose of the 1988 gathering – as of all the BAP functions — was summed up by Tory MP David Willetts, previously director of studies at the Centre for Policy Studies founded by Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph in 1974. Willetts said: ‘The […]
[…] appendix – containing five essays by occasional Lobster contributors Challen and Hughes. The Challen essays bring together a good deal of what is known about the post-war Tory Party and its links with the secret state – in this case, almost exclusively MI5 – and various disinformation and smear campaigns against Labour Party politicians […]
I: Wilson, Cromer and the City One anniversary which has come and gone this year without much comment is the attempted 1968 ‘coup’ orchestrated by Cecil King against the Labour government of Harold Wilson. The plot was provoked by collapse of confidence in Wilson in the media (led by King’s Daily Mirror), finance, industry and … Read more
[…] of informers. That has the potential to completely undermine the effectiveness of any investigation.’ Scott free Mark Phythian, Professor of International Security and Director of the His tory and Governance Research Institute, University of Wolverhampton, compares and contrasts the Scott and Hutton inquiries, the resulting reports () which ‘… the process whereby the British […]
[…] car, the Customs had found documentation of a massive purchase of the LSD base, ergotamine tartrate, but failed to see its significance.(6) When Stark moved his labora tory from Paris to Orleans, he claimed he had been warned about an impending raid on the lab when, ‘by chance’, he ran into an old pal […]
How public relations became the cutting edge of corporate power David Miller and William Dinan London: Pluto, 2008; £45 h/b and £14.99 p/b This is big stuff, ambitious and wide-ranging with an enormous amount packed into 180 pages of text (with 50 pages of notes, tables and index). Many books are too long: this is … Read more
[…] rerun, though not with the same conviction as before. The ‘rogue elephant’ theme, recycled by Mooney, was launched, unnoticed, by Chapman Pincher in 1978, in Inside S tory. ‘In the psychological war against the IRA, the Army ran an ‘Information Policy’ operation in which false stories were foisted on newspapers to such an extent […]
[…] (1) What a coincidence! The day before the government’s new Bill to increase its anti-terrorism powers came into force the Sunday Telegraph (18 February) carried a s tory headed, ‘Police foil terror plot to use sarin gas in London’. Said story contained not a single verifiable fact, suspect’s name, terror group’s name, nor reference […]
[…] the miners’ strike of 1984-85, read alongside each other, offer real insights into this epochal confrontation. Seumas Milne’s updated account of this watershed moment in British his tory is investigative journalism at its very best. It is a stunning exposé of the strategy and tactics of right wing elements in the British state and […]
