Joseph K and the spooky launderette

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] and drug dealing began to circulate. Sound familiar? Michael Allcock, a tax inspector recently jailed for corruption, has claimed that he was fitted up after investigating a Conservative ex-government minister who was alleged to have relations with Nadir. Allcock had interviewed Robertson. Allcock was also investigating Howard Marks. In 1994, I contacted Pat through […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7)

[…] We’ve got another MP who takes a serious interest in the British secret state. In the past we have had MPs who had been secret servants (mostly Conservative) and a few Labour MPs who took a temporary interest. Almost twenty years ago Ken Livingstone took a sustained interest until the researcher who was generating […]

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 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’?

All the news that fits

Book cover
Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008)

[…] Observer had stood out against the British invasion of Suez in 1956, despite courting the scorn of the government and the loss of some of its more conservative readers and advertisers. And yet this newspaper which had thrived on scepticism was seduced into accepting unproven and extravagant claims; this flagship of the left was […]

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. […]

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 […]

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.

Philip Agee, the KGB and us

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008)

[…] 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 […]

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