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, […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Are spies useless? A Hack’s Progress

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Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

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

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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