Empire’s Workshop

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Greg Grandin New York: Metropolitan books, 2006, $25.00   Reviewing a biography of Harold Laski in 1953,([1]) the historian A. J. P. Taylor remarked on ‘the dilemma of our times’: that ‘no-one who believes in liberty can ever work sincerely with communists, or trust them, yet no-one who has socialism in his bones can ever … Read more

Stalin’s granny, Christopher Andrew and the Cold War

Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

[…] no Soviet grand plan for the invasion of Britain and world domination; and nothing in Mitrokhin’s packet of revelations proves that there was. Even if the ultra- conservative Soviet bureaucracy had wanted to conquer the world, the creaking and sclerotic Soviet system was hardly up to it. The Cold War was never as simple […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9) £££

[…] colleague of Clermont member David Stirling – was curious, as neither prior to this event nor subsequently, did he demonstrate any interest in being leader of the Conservative Party. His candidacy, which allowed Thatcher to look more ‘centrist’ than she actually was, attracted 16 votes and damaged Heath, who lost to Thatcher by 119 […]

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Recollections of an errant politician

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Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002) £££

[…] the food producers. At one point Nott describes himself as ‘a rebel by nature’. Let’s see: from public school to Cambridge University, into the City and the Conservative Party, back to the City and thence, after a brief, eye-opening but unsuccessful spell in the real economy, into retirement as a country gentleman – that […]

Re:

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

[…] from Michael Moore overload? Then you might want to take a look at Celsius 41.11, ‘…the truth behind the lies of Fahrenheit 9/11…’. Produced by a Washington-based conservative group, Citizens United, it probably won’t be coming to a cinema near you but can be viewed at . (The title, incidentally, refers to the temperature […]

Challenge to Democracy

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

[…] family’s own think-tank (St George’s House at Windsor Castle) ‘said he could see no way out of the current situation except a change of leadership in the Conservative Party.’ Were the Royals, or some of them, showing Heath the door? On March 22 1974 (p.98), we learn that the Department of Trade and Industry […]

Enemies of the state

Lobster Issue 25 (1993) £££

[…] do they have to do to get the sack?) NB on this paragraph see the correction in Lobster 26. Kevin Taylor — Manchester businessman, Chair of Manchester Conservative Association, whose life and business were ruined by MI5 and the police looking for dirt with which to smear his friend John Stalker, then deputy chief […]

Decoding Edward Jay Epstein’s ‘LEGEND’

Lobster Issue 2 (1983) £££

[…] threatened by Soviet expansionism (13). (This had always been Angleton’s view and the reason for his support of Israel.) By 1979 Commentary had become a full-blown neo- Conservative, pro-Reagan platform: the editor, Norman Podhoretz, had even seen the prospect of the ‘Finlandisation of America’ lurking behind detente. (14). Along the way two books had […]

The International Centre of Free Trade Unionists in Exile

Lobster Issue 31 (June 1996) £££

[…] Briefing, edited by a former head of MI5’s F Branch, Charles Elwell. In 1995 it was revealed that in 1963 IRIS had received £40,000 from the ( Conservative) government via its ‘secret vote’, unaccountable funds, and a further £35,000 from a number of large companies, including Ford and Shell. See The Times, Guardian and […]

Non-lethality: John B. Alexander, the Pentagon’s Penguin

Lobster Issue 25 (1993) £££

On April 22, 1993 both BBC1 and BBC2 showed on their main evening news bulletins a rather lengthy piece concerning America’s latest development in weaponry — the non-lethal weapons concept. David Shukman, BBC Defence Correspondent, interviewed (Retired) U.S. Army Colonel John B. Alexander and Janet Morris, two of the main proponents of the concept. (1) … Read more

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