Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007)
[…] the shape of IRD. The only bits of interest are an entertaining account by Alan Sked of his career as a eurosceptic and this snippet from former Conservative MP Richard Body: ‘Carefully selected people were invited to luncheon and dinner ……..to hear speakers give what they claimed to be confidential briefings “off the record”. […]
Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)
[…] in this field? Why do MPs sit on the ISC doing degrading, keep-em-busy, shit-work? Why do MPs take no notice of a £200 million overspend? From a Conservative government we would expect nothing else, of course. The security agencies simply are not on their agenda. The Tories are historically the Queen and country party, […]
Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)
[…] three-year window of opportunity, to out-flank New Labour with a national welfare model and fully caught in the time warp of the period 1983 to 1992. The Conservative Party has not recognised that sufficient of the electorate did not reject it because of scandal but because the Thatcherite model of society was unbalanced – […]
Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994)
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
Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)
[…] constructive statesman, admittedly flawed, but certainly not a criminal; in fact, as a great wasted talent. This man, we are routinely assured, could have led either the Conservative or the Labour party; but then so could Tony Blair, so this hardly amounts to a great endorsement, even assuming its validity. But what does this […]
Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994)
[…] 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 […]
Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998)
The history of the police, fascism and anti-fascism in Britain, is dominated by three very different interpretations. First, there is the argument that the police acted as a constraint against fascism: intervening against fascist groups as the need arose. Second, there is the opposite view: that the police were a hindrance to anti-fascists, acting always … Read more