The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: […] 1970s Milton Friedman’s views on the money supply – monetarism – and its centrality in government economic policy had become adopted by the Thatcher faction of the Conservative Party, apparently by Labour Prime Minister Callaghan2 4 and by sections of the higher media commentariat. In 1980 Friedman presented a series of hour long films […]

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[…] to the lessons of Major’s locust years. His government needs a philosophy, a set of principles, an ideology. Indeed Starmer’s need is greater than Major’s was. A Conservative administration benefits from a sense of purpose; a Labour government cannot survive without one. Progressive politics needs a galvanising, or 3 4 5 2 uniting, liberating, […]

The miners and the secret state

Lobster Issue 58 (Winter 2009/2010) FREE

[PDF file]: […] coups, surveillance, disinformation and smears against members of the Labour government, climaxing with Wilson’s retirement.1 1 In the midst of this Mrs Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party, was briefed by the anti-subversion network and apparently took on board the Soviet conspiracy theory. Her use of the expression ‘the enemy within’ about the […]

Brexit beginnings

Lobster Issue 87 (2023) FREE

[PDF file]: […] a merchant bank. He was thus well aware of the psychological outlook that existed in the City. 2 2 Enter Goldsmith Post-1992, the official position of the Conservative government remained that the UK would rejoin the ERM as soon as was practicable. The problem was Major never had enough Conservative votes to execute such […]

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[…] destroying Jeremy Corbyn. *new* The MLK files I asked Google why the Trump administration had released the official files on 5 6 The sole exception is former Conservative minister Alan Duncan, whose 2021 memoir begins with complaints about that lobby. See the review by John Booth at or . 7 3 the assassination of […]

Going South: why Britain will have a third world economy by 2014 by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson

Lobster Issue 65 (Summer 2013) FREE

[PDF file]: […] have mobilised a majority against Castle and Wilson. Although considering In Place of Strife to be much less comprehensive an approach than would be taken by a Conservative government, Edward Heath decides against a purely party political opposition to the scheme. An admirer of the West German industrial relations system,5 of which In Place […]

Keynes, social democracy and the Great Moving Right Show

Lobster Issue 90 (2025) FREE

[PDF file]: […] of post-war British society. A range of political and economic philosophies and traditions went into the version embraced by the Attlee government and indeed successive Labour and Conservative administrations all the way to 1979. Nurtured by over a century of humanistic and religious teaching, and a respect for the rights of the individual citizen […]

A tale of two Islingtons: How Blair opened the door for Corbyn

Lobster Issue 77 (Summer 2019) FREE

[PDF file]: […] an uneasy truce between two organized groupings, had the failure of Prime Minister James Callaghan to hold an autumn ‘78 election not opened the way to a Conservative win in ‘79. After which the failure of Callaghan to immediately resign the leadership of the Labour Party led to the creation of the SDP, to […]

Beaumont novel copy

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[…] reports, while lawyers provide litigation support. . . . What’s missing from those paragraphs (and the report generally) is the millions the Russians have given to the Conservative Party.4 Why is it missing? The Intelligence and Security Committee has a Conservative majority. Add those Russian millions to the more than ten million given to […]

A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE

[PDF file]: […] reports, while lawyers provide litigation support. . . . What’s missing from those paragraphs (and the report generally) is the millions the Russians have given to the Conservative Party.4 Why is it missing? The Intelligence and Security Committee has a Conservative majority. Add those Russian millions to the more than ten million given to […]

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