The Iron Triangle: inside the secret world of the Carlyle Group

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Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003)

[…] 2001 in the presence of Saudi investors like Shafiq Bin Laden, estranged brother of Osama. In the wake of such events and in line with wider neo- Conservative foreign policy objectives, the Carlyle Group has sought to divest itself of its dependency on the querulous House of Saud in favour of the new ‘opportunities’ […]

Enemies Within?

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] British state and Thatcherism in 1984/5 and lost. (Beckett suggests that the CPGB leadership did not want this show-down.) After 1974 and the Saltley depot event, the Conservative Party and the British state prepared not to be defeated ever again: the miners and the British Left in general did nothing. Like other generals before […]

The Northern Front

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] July 2007, Charles Glass wrote in The Nation about what he knew well in those heady days during which he composed his diary: ‘Washington’s ideologically charged neo- conservative coterie possessed little or no understanding of the Middle East, allowing it to dismiss the easily predictable consequences of invading and occupying Iraq.’ A defensible charge, […]

JFK bits and pieces

Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992)

JFK bits and pieces Paul Hoch recommends JFK:The Book of the Film (Applause Books, 211 West 71 St NY, NY 10023). This contains a footnoted JFK screenplay and about 350 pages of published articles, including some of the best anti-Stone stories. The final badge of honour was bestowed upon Stone’s movie by a long, ludicrous … Read more

Cold War: Building for Nuclear Confrontation 1946-1989

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Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003)

Wayne Cocroft and Roger Thomas, edited by P.S.Barnwell English Heritage, 2003, h/b, £24.99   A very high-quality, well presented book that is considerably more appealing to look at than most of the unlovely structures which are illustrated between its large, hardback covers. It is partly because of the non-photogenic subject matter that the book is … Read more

Defector Politics: or, grooving with Mr G.

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] presence of the Labour MP Allan Rogers on the new Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. They quote examples of his support for left-wing causes taken from the Conservative Party’s 1992 Who’s Left: An index of Labour MP’s and Left-wing causes 1985-1992 (which Julian Lewis had a hand in compiling). Mr Rogers comes in about […]

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 League of Empire Loyalists and the Defenders of the American Constitution

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003)

[…] that the Chicago-based right-wing publisher Henry Regnery had agreed to issue. Regnery, however, backed out of the deal at the last minute. Chesterton next approached another American conservative publisher, Devin Adair, but it too rejected the book. (24) At Chesterton’s request, del Valle searched for yet another American publisher. Through Josephine Beaty, the DAC […]

‘Conspiracy Theories’ and Clandestine Politics

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] this century, had played a key role in establishing the system of apartheid in South Africa, and in the process helped to ensure the preservation of ultra- conservative Afrikaner cultural values and Afrikaner political dominance until 199. Yet this organization also existed. It was known as the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB), and it formed a […]

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

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