[…] Harold Macmillan, it was not surprising that the Nigerian political leader of great personal integrity and honesty — Awolowo — who based his party machine on the Conservative Party and was a devout Christian and believer in British fair play would soon after Independence find himself not in the President’s or Prime Minister’s office […]
‘I know nothing about it. I don’t want to say I didn’t at the time, but today I have no knowledge of it.’ Former US Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara on the attack on USS Liberty. ‘As with the assassination of John F. Kennedy four years earlier, the official version [of the attack on … Read more
[…] that they ‘could be flown into a trouble spot rapidly and discreetly, and operate in a remote area without publicity – a capability much valued by the Conservative Government of the day’ (pp. 150-151). There was considerable demand for their services throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. De la Billiere himself served in […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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’ […]
[…] the banks another £46 million: the public finances were running out of cash. (2) At this point alarm bells rang in London and Paris. In 1875 the Conservative administration of Benjamin Disraeli used the crisis to buy the Khedive’s shares in the newly built Suez Canal. In 1876 Egypt was forced to accept a […]
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
[…] the possibility of a ‘third party’ in the US. The media’s chosen standard bearer last time was the extraterrestrial Texas magnate Ross Perot (the media, liberal and conservative, regularly ignore the sizeable Libertarian Party and the efforts of Jesse Jackson while fixating on weird eccentrics). This time as a ‘third party’ possibility both Perot […]
[…] 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 […]
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
