The Trouble With Harry: A memoire of Harry Newton, MI5 agent

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994)

[…] at various times a Communist Party member, Ban-the-Bomber and Rank and File shop steward.’ It omitted to say that he had also been a member of the Conservative Party at one stage in a rather varied career. The balloon goes up On February 20, 1985, Channel 4 banned a 20/20 Vision documentary programme and […]

Liddle and Lobbygate: reflections on a Downing Street drama

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] the way the party was changing under Harold Wilson. The trio had been at the core of the 69 pro-Market Labour MPs who had voted with the Conservative Government in 1971.(7) Bradley quotes Liddle’s future business partner, Taverne, as saying of that time: ‘We feared not only that the party would turn against the […]

The Making of New Labour’s European Policy

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] the ERM fiasco of 1992, is wary of the single currency, fearing another ERM-style debacle. (2) ‘New Labour’ is stuck in precisely the same way that the Conservative Party was stuck and it is entirely unclear whether or not a pro-single currency propaganda campaign like those described in Andy Mullen’s piece above would work […]

Marching to the fault line: The 1984 miners’ strike and the death of industrial Britain

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] Scargill made no bones about it, seeking funding from the Soviet bloc and Colonel Gaddafi. (It was as if he was following a script written by the Conservative Central Office and MI5.) But Rimington’s statement does not quite support Thatcher’s ‘the enemy within’ theory about the CPGB. I assume that MI5 knew that her […]

The Holocaust Denial

Lobster Issue 13 (1987)

[…] 1986) which is more or less an expansion of this final chapter. My opinions on the current “line” in anti-racist strategies are of no relevance here, but when I read in Heidel’s essay that “the racism of the neo- conservative New Right is cultural” it seems to me that something has gone wrong. ‘Cultural racism’?

Obituaries

Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998)

[…] during the late 1970s. Once upon a time, the stories continued, the Communist Party invited him to join. But Ace turned them down ‘because they were too conservative.’ Ace was bright and articulate, in a gruff sort of way. He had no tolerance for the well-turned subtleties of talking heads and conventional wise men. […]

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

Major Farran’s Hat

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] into pointless murder. It will come as no surprise to learn that Farran walked away from the crime, wrote a best-selling memoir, stood for parliament as a Conservative candidate in 1950 (he was defeated by the sitting Labour MP, a certain George Wigg), and went on to have a successful political career in Canada. […]

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 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 […]

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