The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] the (theoretical) risk of prosecution. Today it wouldn’t. What has changed? Then it seemed worthwhile to stick two fingers up to the British state, headed by Margaret Thatcher, by revealing (minor) state secrets. Today we have Cameron and Clegg, imitations of Tony Blair, Thatcher’s successor, who hardly matter. Then, influenced by research on the […]

A Thorn in Their Side: The Hilda Murrell murder by Robert Green with Kate Dewes

Lobster Issue 62 (Winter 2011)

[PDF file]: […] are not Socratic dialogues; for the most part they are the necessary pantomimes to rubberstamp decisions taken in Whitehall. On the other hand, this was 1984: the Thatcher regime was still being challenged by the left; the Labour Party had not then embraced the ‘Washington consensus’; the American banks had not completed their take-over […]

L0b 92 Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] in explaining Soviet policy and thinking just at the point when the Soviet Union was cracking up, thus smoothing to way for the Gorbachev relationship first with Thatcher and then with the Americans. ‘Decisive’ – maybe not; but not insignificant. . . . or get off the pot I have distrusted Andrew Neil since […]

L0b 92 Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] in explaining Soviet policy and thinking just at the point when the Soviet Union was cracking up, thus smoothing to way for the Gorbachev relationship first with Thatcher and then with the Americans. ‘Decisive’ – maybe not; but not insignificant. . . . or get off the pot I have distrusted Andrew Neil since […]

View from Bridge 89

Lobster Issue

[…] of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them. Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism. Tony Blair reimagined a stale, outdated Labour Party into one that could […]

The long goodbye? Taking on the consultants

Lobster Issue 90 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] consultancies rocketed: At the time of the 1979 general election in the United Kingdom, the government was spending about £6 million on consulting services annually; when Margaret Thatcher stepped down as prime minister eleven years later, the amount was more than 40 times greater at £246 million.8 Where the Iron Lady failed, Reeves’ ‘Iron […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 61 (Summer 2011)

[PDF file]: […] the online condolence book for Smith1 show that Harold was held in high regard by Nigerians. Revolutionary defeatism A piece in the Guardian (19 March 2011), ‘ Thatcher papers reveal how she stoked rightwing rebellion in war against “wets”’, notes that Thatcher’s private secretary, Ian Gow MP, met with Labour MP Neville Sandelson, six […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 91 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] Conservative MP Matthew Parris and Gerard Baker, former editor of The Wall Street Journal. They devoted their columns in The Times to bemoaning the decline of the Thatcher legacy (Baker, 17 October) and yearning for someone like Mrs Thatcher to sort things out (Parris, 20 October). The difficulty most of us have in changing […]

Consultants Challen

Lobster Issue

[…] consultancies rocketed: At the time of the 1979 general election in the United Kingdom, the government was spending about £6 million on consulting services annually; when Margaret Thatcher stepped down as prime minister eleven years later, the amount was more than 40 times greater at £246 million.8 Where the Iron Lady failed, Reeves’ ‘Iron […]

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