[…] wants to replace Trident, begin to stray from Atlanticist orthodoxy. Thinking even further ahead we have BAP veteran ‘two brains’ David Willetts on hand for a future Conservative cabinet. Already a powerful influence on David Cameron is Steve Hilton,() an early BAP recruit and a fellow trustee of the Citizenship Foundation with Maclay. Guardian […]
“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
[…] the West: ‘In the Communist sphere outside of Europe, we [KGB) worked closest with the Cubans…….The Cubans’ ardour also spurred them to take chances that we, a conservative superpower (USSR), were reluctant to take. A perfect example occurred shortly after I became head of Foreign Counterintelligence in 1973. CIA officer Philip Agee approached our […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
A Hack’s Progress Phillip Knightley Jonathan Cape, 1997, £17.99 This is a highly enjoyable and very well written memoir by one of our senior investigative journalists. As a young-Aussie-leaves-home-and-sees-the-world tale this is nearly as entertaining as the celebrated Clive James version (and with fewer forced jokes). Any journalist’s memoirs are welcome: it’s always interesting to … Read more
Robert Fisk London: Fourth Estate, 2005, £25.00 This very fine book runs to more than 1,300 pages, is well footnoted, referenced and indexed, carries a helpful bibliography and is written by one of the most fluent, knowledgeable and thoughtful journalists of our time. That part of its dedication is to Fisk’s parents ‘who taught … Read more
[…] Sutch. There was the Moyle affair in which a police report about Colin Moyle’s nocturnal activities on the streets of Wellington somehow got into the hands of Conservative leader Muldoon. There was the “Think tank’ affair, in which the newspaper Truth concocted a conspiracy fantasy in which Labour was going to nationalise all the […]
