[PDF file]: Contents Lobster 58 Laissez faire as religion Robert Henderson The enemy of rationality is ideology. By an ideology I mean a mental construct which consists of a menu of tenets which the adherent applies without regard to their utility or truth. The observance of the ideology becomes an end in itself. All ideologies are inadequate […]
[…] of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), told its annual conference that they had to ‘to take the gloves off and have a bare-knuckle fight’ with the Thatcher government.34 But no such fight ensued, Beckett resigned and in the following decade while the City boomed, British manufacturing shrank by about 20%. The focus these […]
[…] 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, […]
[PDF file]: […] case. It’s Scotland’s biggest terrorist atrocity. These are serious questions raised by serious people, and the world is watching.’ But Mr Salmond, following the precedents of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, was adamant in his refusal: ‘They’re looking for an inquiry for the responsibility, ultimately, for Lockerbie. That […]
[…] on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as being essentially about economic ideas: the clash between the ‘new’ (but old, pre-WW2) free market ideas of the City/ Thatcher faction, and the ‘old’ (but post-WW2) ideas of the welfare state and social democracy. Lauria’s first omission is the substantial political underpinning to the government’s assault […]
[PDF file]: Ten Years Hard Labour Chris Williamson Lola Books, 2022, £19.00 ISBN 978-3-944203-48-5 John Booth This is a revealing and powerful book by a Labour MP who vocally supported the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and paid the price by losing his career. It’s an angry book because he says that this loyalty was not reciprocated when […]
[PDF file]: Disrupt and Deny Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy Rory Cormac Oxford University Press: 2018, £20.00, h/b Robin Ramsay First things first: this is very good and anyone interested in our secret services, post-WW2 British history, or British colonial history, let alone the actual subject matter implied by the title, […]
[PDF file]: […] Outsourced state terrorism and the contras The link between British Special Forces and military privatisation partly entered the public domain in the IranContra Affair. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher was returned to office with an increased majority only because of the Falklands’ War. But victory in that war carried a price. Britain won the Falklands […]
[PDF file]: […] for creating a recession – which they did. Recessions reduce inflation. (Creating more poor people, you reduce demand in the economy, which inhibits price increases.) Like Mrs Thatcher, Peter Jay had been persuaded that there was no alternative. It is not difficult to understand why: in 1976 no-one had ever seen ‘Keynesian’ policies deal […]
[PDF file]: […] you really want to change things and you want to get listened to, that’s the place to be.’ 1 On the other hand, Norman Lamont wrote: ‘Margaret Thatcher certainly knew when to disregard market research. In the 1980s, opinion polls regularly showed that voters preferred public spending to tax cuts. Mrs Thatcher insisted on […]
