Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008)
[…] received. All aspects of running a railway have become far more expensive…’ Why should this be? First, of course, privatisation itself was a costly exercise. At a conservative estimate, the total cost of the process, including the amounts paid out by bidders, was reported to be at least £1bn. For the taxpayer, the direct […]
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 […]
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’ […]
Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006)
Tons of documents and tape recordings recovered from an old manor house in Lancashire reveal the true depths of corruption in English provincial life at the end of the twentieth century. Owen Oyston was the British Labour Party’s biggest private financial contributor in the Thatcher years. The millionaire owner of radio stations and glossy magazines … Read more
Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)
[…] foreign policy executive arm of the British monarchy.’(11) Ha! (And no evidence offered.) p. 29 ‘Lady Thatcher had been dumped as head of state by her own Conservative Party on Bilderberg orders and replaced with trapeze artist (sic) John Major.’ Not only is there no evidence that Thatcher was dumped on the orders of […]
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. […]
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, […]