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Lobster Issue

[…] 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 […]

The Rise of New Labour: Into Office

Lobster Issue 68 (Winter 2014)

[PDF file]: […] excessively high exchange rate.’ – Wynne Godley, The Observer (Business) 23 August 1998. By the time Labour took office Brown and Blair had promised to toe the conservative line on economic policy: no income tax rises, no increased public spending, no attempts to use government to direct the economy; and no reacquisition of the […]

Is there a ‘political class’?

Lobster Issue 61 (Summer 2011)

[PDF file]: Is there a ‘political class’? Scott Newton It has become fashionable to argue that Britain is in the grip of its own ‘political class’. Most recently the idea has been promulgated by Peter Oborne, in his 2007 book, The Triumph of the Political Class. I have been sceptical about this, remembering the dominance of Oxbridge-educated […]

When the Lights Went Out by Andy Beckett and Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen

Lobster Issue 58 (Winter 2009/2010)

[PDF file]: […] twenties’, ‘swinging sixties’ – irritates serious historians; but in the case of the 1970s it does make a a kind of sense, the decade being bookended by Conservative Party election victories in 1970 and 1979, heralding a return to the market: the half-hearted version under Heath, ‘Selsdon man’, and then the real thing with […]

Misleading Parliament – a case to answer

Lobster Issue 86 (2023)

See also: Misleading Parliament – Appendices

[PDF file]: […] to cover up abuses of power? 19 Having read this document, it is important to bear in mind the following comment made by Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party Conference, Winter Gardens, Blackpool, 10 October 1975, only eight months after I was moved out of Northern Ireland. The first duty of Government is to […]

Misc reviews

Lobster Issue

[…] wanted the author to make a judgement: this one, although denied, looks true. He never does. So we finish as we began: Opus Dei, officially, is a conservative, proselytising sect within the Catholic Church. Its critics, including some former members, say it is also a conspiracy; that while there is a public front, a […]

Labour, the anti-semitism crisis & the destroying of an MP by Lee Garratt

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021)

[PDF file]: […] that recaptured the seat for Labour with a majority of 2,015. Garratt introduces his short but well-sourced book with events two years later which led to the Conservative party regaining Derby North in 2019 with 4.8 per cent swing and with Williamson coming bottom of the poll as an or 1 Independent with 635 […]

The Richer, The Poorer, by Stewart Lansley

Lobster Issue 86 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] pro-inequality model of political economy, dysfunctional as it has been, proved remarkably resilient.’ How and why has this happened in the 21st century under Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments? Lansley says the key explanation for Britain’s high poverty rate lies in profound economic and social shifts. These include the speed of industrial change, the […]

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