[…] for deeds and orders are taken for their effects. Nor is this a new phenomenon. The political genius of the group that surrounded Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the 1990s was to see this system for what it was and then to develop rules for the acquisition of power that may have been […]
Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Little Brown, 1997) Seymour Hersh is one of those figures with no real equivalent in British journalism. For one thing, the budgets, the armies of fact-checkers and, indeed, the market for this sort of extended politico-analytical foray just does not exist over here. Writing from […]
[…] then, in the 1990s, by ‘new’ Labour. The criticisms from the right were reinforced from the left by arguments that Wilson, his Chancellor Jim Callaghan and George Brown, the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (directly responsible for the National Plan), should have devalued immediately. This view was advocated at the time by Nicky […]
[…] means but cannot say is that while a lower exchange rate would benefit manufacturing, since a lower exchange rate is not going to be forthcoming from Gordon Brown, British manufacturing is going to have to survive by improving its productivity. Like all Ministers at the DTI, Hewitt is essentially powerless against the chancellor of […]
[…] of the story, he is (as Dave Letterman might say) just plain goofy. False Quotation Syndrome He may be worse than that. Researchers Harold Weisberg and Walt Brown, as well as medical expert Dr. Gary Aguilar, have been double-checking Posner’s claimed interview subjects. Apparently, the Warren Commission’s foremost apologist has seriously misrepresented some of […]
[…] made membership of the Euro its principal campaigning issue. Keen single currency enthusiasts on the paper include political editor Andrew Grice, columnists David Aaronovitch and Yasmin Alibhai- Brown (see below), and political commentator and author of the pulped Mandelson biography Donald Macintyre. Still influential at the paper now taking ‘the broader view’ is former […]
Desmond Bristow with Bill Bristow Little, Brown and co., London, 1993 Shoot the marketing department. There is almost nothing about ‘moles’ in this book. The reality is a mildly interesting account of Bristow’s MI6 career from 1940-1956, most of it spent in Spain. A few names are named — but 40 years on, who […]
[…] deep into the heart of the Blair project and into the history of its precursors. Follow Draper, the Labour student initially offered work by Agriculture Minister Nick Brown and then taken up by Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Mandelson, and we get a few insights into New Labour of the ‘stuffing my bank account […]
David Stirling: the authorised biography of the creator of the SAS Alan Hoe Little, Brown and Co, London 1992, £17.50 As the subtitle suggests, most of this book is taken up with the story of the foundation of the SAS. I didn’t read that section. I read the last third which contains lengthy accounts […]
[…] the two men became friends. (4) A month later the leader of the Labour Party, John Smith, died, and Blair won the leadership election contest with Gordon Brown – in some accounts with financial assistance from Levy. (5) All accounts are agreed that Michael Levy then set about raising money – the figure of […]
