[PDF file]: […] British exports of educational and financial services; but they also pay for military hardware, building on the relationship which started in the 1960s. British governments since the Thatcher era have actively supported arms exports to the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region which now accounts for 50 per cent of ‘all defence sales […]
[PDF file]: […] history of bribery in Britain’s arms trade Nicholas Gilby London: Pluto Press, 2015, p/b, £14.00 This is very good: clearly written, massively documented1 and carefully done. Mark Thatcher, for example, some of whose wealth is widely believed to come from BAE’s 1985 Al Yamamah deal with the Saudis, isn’t mentioned. What might be sayable […]
[…] 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 Tony Blair reimagined a stale, outdated Labour Party into one that could […]
[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 […]
[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 […]
[PDF file]: […] BBC TV veteran also followed him into membership of the British American Project (BAP), the informal network of aspiring Brits and Americans set up during the Reagan- Thatcher years to revive what the White House and No. 10 feared was a weakening ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. Paxman was recruited into the BAP […]
[PDF file]: […] ‘given by the Prince of Wales in honour of Wafic Said and his charitable work, and to mark his eightieth birthday’. This wonderful man had given Margaret Thatcher ‘the 4 run of a lovely country house in Oxfordshire’ during her final years. (pp. 483, 535) Wafic Said, it is worth remembering, was involved in […]
[PDF file]: How New Labour stopped listening to the voter and why we need a new politics Deborah Mattinson London: Biteback, 2010, £17.99 People, Politics and Pressure Groups: Memoirs of a lobbyist Arthur Butler Hove: Picnic Publishing, £12.99, 2010 Tom Easton Deborah Mattinson is just one of the many early enthusiasts for what became New Labour to […]
[PDF file]: […] telling management exactly what it wanted to hear….McKinsey has, indeed, provided the cover an executive needed to carry out distasteful dismissals, restructurings, downsizings’.3 Most 2 Simon Jenkins, Thatcher & Sons, (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 277 3 James O’Shea and Charles Madigan, Dangerous Company, (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1999), pp. 256, 261-262 infamously, they advised […]
[PDF file]: […] like to be transgender two generations ago. But most of all it is a stunning indictment of the lawless, literally murderous, unaccountable British secret state in the Thatcher years. Olivia’s experience shows that MI5 committed arson, falsely imprisoned people, manipulated the National Insurance system, the passport office, the prison service, the criminal justice system, […]
