[…] classical Marxist) explanation of the growth of interest on the British Left in things spooky and conspiratorial. He suggests ‘the timing of this is not fortuitous: ….the Conservative Victories in 1979 and 1983, the defeat of the miners in 1985 (in which the security services played an intelligence gathering role)….. the collapse of cherished […]
[…] by Assistant Secretary Will Clayton, a liberal in the Hullian tradition. Morgenthau left the Treasury and the post of Secretary was taken by Fred Vinson, a fiscally conservative mid-Western machine politician. White’s influence began to diminish (after the end of the war he came under suspicion of being a Soviet agent).(35) Power shift The […]
[…] appeared in 1991. This is easily the most interesting and informative book on the Thatcher years to have appeared so far. Ranelagh was a member of the Conservative Research Department (CRD) between 1975-79 — a member of the internal opposition to Mrs Thatcher while ‘Thatcherism’ was being cobbled together by group around her. The […]
[…] (3) Porter seems to be unaware of the literature concerning the role of what has been called the ‘core institutional nexus’. So he can argue that the Conservative Party’s right turn in the 1970s was a function of disappearing paternalism, a product in turn of decolonisation. This very sweeping post hoc ergo propter hoc […]
[…] diverse expressions of sexuality; styles of dress and appearance; life style attributes such as drug-taking or nomadic travelling; personally held philosophies and political positions; and even more conservative views such as an insistence on the use of cash rather than cheques or credit (10). All of these things militate against order in the strictest […]
[…] its Empire intact while simultaneously allowing Hitler to proceed on his crusade against the real enemy, the USSR. This defeatism was encouraged by powerful sections of the Conservative Party, the City, industry and the Royal Family, all of whom were disposed on ideological and/or racist grounds to take a favourable view of Nazism. So […]
[…] another vicious attack on a Catholic. Campbell and Longstaff were both defended at their trials by Donald Findlay QC, Scottish Barrister, Dean of St Andrews University, leading Conservative, and who himself was caught on video giving a fine rendition of the Protestant anthem ‘The Sash’ at a post-match piss-up at Glasgow Rangers’ ground, Ibrox. […]
A spook, moi? One of the formative experiences of my youth – and we’re talking early 1960s here, beatnik days, when wearing a narrow leather tie was pretty hip – was going to the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday nights. The Mound is like Hyde Park Corner in London, a place where local by-laws allow … Read more
[…] the mid-1980s to train, arm and direct loyalist para-militaries against the IRA. The one piece missing from his analysis is evidence of the political dimension. Did the Conservative government approve of this? Did they know of this? Larkin presumes so but cannot demonstrate it. Larkin lacks a senior British Army, intelligence officer or civil […]
[…] given the absence of a real subversive threat in CND which would provide a legitimate excuse for penetration and surveillance, and unwilling to tell this to its Conservative political masters, MI5 did simply fabricate a communist/subversive role CND didn’t deserve. However, assuming that MI5 will simply fabricate a ‘new threat’ to keep themselves in […]
