Hacks, pols and PR

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

[…] hard-working, middle-of-the-road. They were victims of the Political Class who had been left with no one to speak up for them, and nowhere to go. Neither the Conservative opposition, nor the New Labour government, is speaking for these people…….This estrangement between a tiny governing elite and mainstream British society is one of the overwhelming […]

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.

The Business of Death: Britain’s Arms Trade at Home and Abroad

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Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

[…] contracts a year with the ministry, and the top 5 contractors account for 31 percent of MOD business.’ p. 178 ‘In the two years to 1995, the Conservative Party received almost £1 million from those firms paid £5 million or more by the MOD in 1995-6.’ p. 178 A European defence industry? ‘The risk […]

Twilight in the desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6) £££

Matthew R. Simmons London: Wiley, 2005, h/b   Ironic, perhaps, that I finished reviewing this book in Calgary, just south of the largest land-based oil project in the American hemisphere, the Athabasca shale tar sands oil recovery projects. Collectively these will realise investment between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the next ten years. Pipelines … Read more

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

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 […]

Dangerous Men: the SAS and Popular Culture

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Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

[…] heroes. This changed in the 1980s when the SAS found themselves enlisted as Thatcher’s Praetorian Guard, their exploits, both past and present, exploited as part of the Conservative Party’s ideological offensive against the post-1945 political and social settlement.’ (p. 3) He notes the ‘interesting cultural difference between Britain and the United States that there […]

No one ever suddenly became depraved

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6) £££

[…] ethical policy would he lead Labour into? ‘It is a fairly radical policy and it comes close to some aspects of what has become known as Neo Conservative politics in the United States — the proposal of a new kind of interventionism which has been called liberal interventionism, or in some places neo-imperialism.’ () […]

The View from the Bridge: Blair. IMF. Bilderberg, etc

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

[…] June 2000, he has been welcomed back into the ranks of the Pinay Circle and attended the June meeting of the Circle in Lisbon. Also present were Conservative MPs Michael Howard and Alan Duncan and Lord Cranbourne, leader of the Tories in the House of Lords. NATO and Kosovo The most surprising comments on […]

A note on the British deployment of nuclear weapons in crises – with particular reference to the Falklands and Gulf Wars and the purchase of Trident

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994) £££

[…] the story has been subject to some ridicule by some sectors of the defence establishment. Tam Dalyell’s initial source, shortly after the Falklands War, was a senior Conservative back-bench MP with an interest in defence matters and close links with the Ministry of Defence, and who later held ministerial office. Tam later had it […]

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