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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 […]

Holding Pattern

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: […] in other nations when Theresa 45 46 47 Another little mystery might be explained by an MI6 link. Fresh out of Oxford University, young Dave’s entrance to Conservative Central Office was smoothed by a phone call from someone at Buckingham Palace, who told the startled recipient: ‘I understand you are to see David Cameron. […]

The Richer, The Poorer, by Stewart Lansley

Lobster Issue 86 (2023) FREE

[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 […]

The Rise of New Labour: Into Office

Lobster Issue 68 (Winter 2014) FREE

[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 […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 67 (Summer 2014) FREE

[PDF file]: […] had been involved with the National Union of Students in the early 1980s. He recalled the libertarian right which was then a force in the Federation of Conservative Students – all that macho posturing in support of the Cold War, the Contras in Nicaragua and the South African government against the ANC. How many […]

Is there a ‘political class’?

Lobster Issue 61 (Summer 2011) FREE

[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) FREE

[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 […]

Europe Isn’t Working by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: […] that my economics tutor gave it to us non-specialists in our second year to kick around. Four years or so later this nonsense was adopted by the Conservative Party. It is unclear to me if they believed it or not. My guess would be that Mrs Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe – both tax lawyers […]

Peer group pressure

Lobster Issue 78 (Winter 2019) FREE

[PDF file]: […] feature which Mandelson’s connection with a cyber security outfit suggested: Labour peers seem to have a far greater predilection for working with cyber security firms than do Conservative peers. 1 Judging by the political affiliations of Vice Chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Cyber Security,2 which MPs can join, this is […]

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