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

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 […]

A short history of Lobster

Lobster Issue

[…] Steve, and, in publishing it, we breached the Official Secrets Act in a big way. But apart from being denounced in the House of Commons by a Conservative MP – who was among those listed – nothing happened. Evidently the British state had learned the lesson that prosecution merely makes those prosecuted the subject […]

Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since The Industrial Revolution

Book cover
Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007)

[…] interest in whether fortunes are inherited or acquired in one generation, and his interest in ‘politics’ concerns only which parties the rich support. His approach is unquestioningly conservative. This edition is an update of the author’s now classic book from 1981 on the history of the super-rich in Britain. It coincided with the rise […]

The British Watergate

Lobster Issue 13 (1987)

[…] may not appear to be elements within MI5, but these fringe organisations operated in conjunction with MI5 officers. That is what an inquiry would establish. Indeed it might establish that some of the people involved were in the mainstream of British politics. As I have said, two Conservative hon. Members are identified by Mr. Wright.

Pariah: Misfortunes of the British Kingdom

Book cover
Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] that followed the collapse of communism in the 1980s.’ Notes 2 Here is Gordon Brown on 26 February 1992: ‘Let no one, absolutely no one on the Conservative benches, try to peddle the misleading statement that the Labour party is not committed to playing its full part within the workings of the ERM and […]

The Oyston Affair continues: D909 and the friends of Margaret Thatcher

Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998)

[…] and offences under the Official Secrets Act. I was already aware of the activities of Michael Murrin, a private investigator who was employed and financed by prominent Conservative politicians, including the MPs Sir Peter, now Lord, Blaker and Robert Atkins, now Sir Robert Atkins. Michael Murrin recorded his telephone conversations and following a compromise […]

Another Pinay sighting

Lobster Issue 22 (1991)

“There was another institution which gave Billy particular pleasure. It was called Le Cercle, and outside the circle nothing was known about it but the name. Its origins and membership were (and still are) as deeply cocooned in mystery as those of the most exclusive Masonic lodge. It appears to have been founded by the … Read more

Blairusconi: populism and elite rule

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007)

Tony Blair will be remembered not just for the slaughter in Iraq, and the subsequent collapse of Labour in Scotland in face of a resurgent SNP, but as the Labour leader who could have forged common links across Europe but chose to side with one of the continent’s most despised figures. Charles Clarke, one of … Read more

British Spooks “Who’s Who” part 2

Lobster Issue 10 (1986)

[…] FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS. HEAD OF COMMITTEE LOOKING INTO PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST COMMUNIST REGIMES 1954 PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SEC FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS 1947-50 CHAIRMAN BRITISH EMPIRES PRODUCERS ORGANISATION 1962-64 CONSERVATIVE COMMONWEALTH COUNSELLOR DONELLY, MAJOR FRANK MI6 (B) 1946 DEPT Q RESPONSIBLE FOR ‘CLEAN’ ARMS AND EXPLOSIVES FOR CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS 1949 ALBANIAN OPERATION DONNELLY, JOSEPH BRIAN B […]

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