The Atlantic Semantic

Lobster Issue 67 (Summer 2014)

[PDF file]: […] him revealing a London-based Soviet spy circle. These came from Czech defector Josef Frolik.2 3 Teacher observed that in February 1979, two weeks after Thatcher’s election as Conservative leader, a House of Lords debate on ‘Subversive and Extremist Elements’, initiated by Lord Chalfont, aired the Frolik allegations.2 4 Josten was a member of the […]

Gordon Brown: in the country of the blind…

Lobster Issue 60 (Winter 2010)

[PDF file]: […] experience on her part, Mattinson lacks a certain perspective while making many of her otherwise correct points. The role of the SDP in disastrously splitting the anti- Conservative vote in 1983 and 1987 is not mentioned at all; nor are the very real difficulties for any major political party, led by even the most […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 84 (Winter 2022)

[PDF file]: […] the standards of France, Germany, Denmark etc, it is one. But uniquely, among European states as far as I know, there is a minority of the ruling Conservative Party which wants the state to fail; which welcomes a failing state; which regards the state as essentially a necessary evil to be kept as small […]

Our Fight for Democracy: A History of Democracy in the United Kingdom by John Strafford

Lobster Issue

[…] of Ministers should meet in public. 32: The European Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons should meet in public. 39: Both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party should reform themselves to become democratic bodies answerable to their membership so that members can change the Constitution of their party on the basis of […]

View from Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] and McTeague are political commentators, Libby Purves is not. Occasional Times columnist, BBC presenter for many years, Purves is the personification of the middle-of-the-road, mainstream, apolitical (but conservative) journalist.4 But things are now so bad even Purves was moved to write that the privatisation of public services has been a disaster5 – something the […]

View from Bridge 89

Lobster Issue

[…] original formulation of something akin to the ‘power elite’ idea was the 1959 anthology edited by historian Hugh Thomas, The Establishment. This suggested that there were unelected conservative forces within the state which existed to prevent any (elected) liberal/left from enacting policies which threatened the status quo. The recent talk on the right about […]

Collapse of stout party: Eden, Suez and America

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: Collapse of stout party Eden, Suez and America Simon Matthews Have you heard the one about the Conservative Prime Minister who is disowned by the right-wing of the Tory Party for not seeing through a bombastic and nationalist policy, and disowned by its left-wing for duplicity and generally ridiculed by the wider public? Forget […]

View from Bridge 89

Lobster Issue

[…] original formulation of something akin to the ‘power elite’ idea was the 1959 anthology edited by historian Hugh Thomas, The Establishment. This suggested that there were unelected conservative forces within the state which existed to prevent any (elected) liberal/left from enacting policies which threatened the status quo. The recent talk on the right about […]

How our politicians helped to kill UK manufacturing

Lobster Issue 80 (Winter 2020)

[PDF file]: […] Barber was Heath’s Chancellor the Exchequer. Of the Thatcher/Major period, 1979-97 he notes: ‘ . . . Britain’s manufacturers should have thrived during the 18 years of Conservative rule . . . yet the reverse was the case with the manufacturing industry suffering painful reductions in markets, capacity Dan Atkinson’s thoughts on what is […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 89 (2024)

[PDF file]: […] original formulation of something akin to the ‘power elite’ idea was the 1959 anthology edited by historian Hugh Thomas, The Establishment. This suggested that there were unelected conservative forces within the state which existed to prevent any (elected) liberal/left from enacting policies which threatened the status quo. The recent talk on the right about […]

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