[…] 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”. […]
[…] 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 […]
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
[…] Brandt was an emigre and therefore suspect in many eyes. This was used in 1961 when, in one of the dirtiest political campaigns in post-war Germany, the conservative CDU/CSU parties called Brandt “a traitor to the fatherland”. Nazi propaganda that emigres were untrustworthy had a lasting effect. This unease even extended into the West’s […]
[…] 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. […]
Watergate revisited: Hougan’s Secret Agenda Introduction No apologies for returning to Jim Hougan’s Secret Agenda. As Steve Dorril said in Lobster 8, this is a major event. This essay is in two parts. In the first I make some critical remarks about Secret Agenda’s central theses; In the second I speculate about other items on […]
[…] English and this may explain what appear to be errors. The Pinay Circle is an informal group which meets twice a year in different locations. It includes conservative and anti-communist politicians, journalists, bankers etc., and occasional guests, all of whom originally gravitated around former French President Pinay. A meeting took place at the Madison […]
[…] across to the States to absorb the meaning of the ‘special relationship’ at first hand. Put-down of the decade? Edward Du Cann, some time Chairman of the Conservative Party, Chairman of the Party’s 1922 Committee, and, until 1991, Chairman of Lonrho, published an autobiography in 1995, Two Lives (Image Publishing, Upton upon Severn, UK), […]
[…] that other material from my collection was used in a speech by Mr Neave at the Young Conservatives in Brighton on 6 August 1976 and in a Conservative Party paper about Northern Ireland issued in September that year. Furthermore, as Mr Neave’s other letters to me show, I continued to do work for him […]
[…] gave the main reasons (not including the original strategic ones): in the ensuing debate, Milner, Lloyd George, Smuts, and Barnes were all in favour. Bonar Law (bourgeois Conservative) was neutral and Curzon (aristocratic Conservative) was the only one to oppose it. The decision to publish was on October 31. After this debate, Balfour communicated […]
