Contemporary British History 1931-61: politics and the limits of policy

Lobster Issue 22 (1991) £££

[…] World War and post-war official controls’ huffs and puffs merely to show that while the City was sat on between 1939 and 1951, as soon as the Conservative Party got into office, it got its hands back on economic policy. Notice how Roberts puts this: “Two decades of cheap money came to an end […]

The Rebel Who Lost His Cause: the tragedy of John Beckett MP

Book cover
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 […]

An Unbiased Watch? the police and fascist/anti-fascist street conflict in Britain, 1945-1951

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

Plotting for Peace and War

Lobster Issue 22 (1991) £££

[…] 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 […]

The View from the Bridge

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

Listen, Marxist

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

[…] 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. […]

MI5: New Threats for Old? Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War

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 […]

Willy Brandt: the “Good German”

Lobster Issue 22 (1991) £££

[…] 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 […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

Votescam (again) Reading the papers and listening to the radio in the days immediately after Bush’s election victory brought home what a parallel universe we – readers of magazines like Lobster – are living in. Here we had an enormous election surprise: despite many of the pre-election polls in the last few days of the … Read more

Watergate revisited: Hougan’s ‘Secret Agenda’

Lobster Issue 9 (1985) £££

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 […]

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