South of the border

Lobster Issue 78 (Winter 2019)

[PDF file]: […] have previously been released by the National Archives.9 Hess and the Doppleganger Hess Andrew Rosthorn’s piece on Rudolf Hess in the current issue10 makes mention of the BBC Timewatch episode ‘Hess: The Edge of Conspiracy’. The programme was fronted by the eternally smug Professor Christopher Andrew – he who was chosen by MI5 to […]

Taylor Operation Chiffon

Lobster Issue

[…] then that ‘Robert’ might also have 4 These were Frank Steele and Michael Oatley, both of MI6. I found it redolent of first episode of the 1985 BBC TV series ‘Edge of Darkness’ – a bit of a niche reference, I admit, but if you know, you know. 5 6 This is in the […]

Donald Trump and the Christian Right

Lobster Issue 76 (Winter 2018)

[PDF file]: […] America believe in angels than they do in evolution’.2 When it came to covering the 2016 election even so relentlessly superficial an observer as Jon Sopel, the BBC News North American editor, could not help noticing that as far as religion is concerned, ‘America is bucking the trend that can be observed throughout the […]

Suddenly in September?

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021)

[PDF file]: […] framing the ‘war on terror’ narrative around Osama bin Laden in a New York studio, former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak was doing the same from a BBC World one in London.34 His ‘the world 27 28 or 29 30 31 or 32 and 
 or or 33 34 5 will never be the […]

South of the border

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021)

[PDF file]: […] had killed at least four people – one of whom was teenager Michael Kelly.1 This fact had first been established at the Saville Inquiry in 2003, with BBC news reporting: ‘Soldier F agreed at the Saville Inquiry on Thursday that he killed four people, but insisted he did not murder them. Soldier F admitted […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 88 (2024)

[PDF file]: […] between the country as it actually is and as it is represented in Westminster.30 If Butler and McTeague are political commentators, Libby Purves is not. Times columnist, BBC presenter for many years, Purves is the personification of the middle-of-the-road, mainstream, apolitical (but conservative) journalist.31 But things are now so bad even Purves was moved […]

Dangerous Hero, and, Boris Johnson

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021)

[PDF file]: […] of the ‘Boris-haters’ who have done their best to use his character – i.e. his dishonesty, his irresponsibility, his unreliability, his selfishness – to discredit him. The BBC, the Guardian and Polly Toynbee are particularly guilty in this regard; but Matthew Parris and Max Hastings on the right get a mention as well. They […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 93 (2026)

[PDF file]: […] with the help of the joint intelligence committee . . . Due to be published last autumn it was blocked by No 10 as too negative’. The BBC discussed it on the 27th,6 so evidently Whitehall had ‘As Trump menaces Greenland, this much is clear: the free world needs a new plan – and […]

finklestein 1976

Lobster Issue

[…] 1974. However, 1976 saw Harold Wilson’s resignation but the advancement to PM of James Callaghan – who immediately lost Labour’s tiny majority in the Commons. See ‘ BBC on this day: 5th April, 1976’ at . 2 1 deficit and a pound that was in danger of falling too far against the dollar.3 The […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] economic commentator has named it. Dallas ‘63 W e are going to get a torrent of bullshit about the Kennedy assassination in the next couple of months. BBC Radio 4 contributed a piece called ‘The Reunion’ in which a group of people who were in Dallas in 1963 when it happened recalled the events. […]

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