Moscow Gold: ‘the Communist threat’ in post-war Britain

Lobster Issue 25 (1993)

[PDF file]: […] replacement. (This, rather than MI5 incompetence, may explain why so few Soviet operations were exposed in post-war Britain.) More cynically — and cynicism is appropriate where all intelligence and security services are concerned — MI5 had two compelling reasons not to ‘blow’ the CPGB-KGB link. While they would get some temporary kudos for so […]

Undercover killers at the BBC

Lobster Issue 84 (Winter 2022)

[PDF file]: […] Lobster on the professional and political activities of Guest More’s father,4 I wrote the foreword to Undercover Killers. Atkinson’s discovery of a devastating leak of raw police intelligence that dropped into the hands of professional criminals in Manchester has exposed the danger of Westminster government schemes that were pioneered by Margaret Thatcher – to […]

South of the border (occasional snippets from)

Lobster Issue 91 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] same as the old ‘C’ Much fanfare – huge media excitement, it seemed – at the appointment of a woman as the new Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (the ‘C’ of SIS, for the acronym enthusiasts). The whole point of this, it would seem, was to herald a gentler, more feminine touch to […]

Gordon Brown: in the country of the blind…

Lobster Issue 60 (Winter 2010)

[PDF file]: […] how much it resembles the way business was transacted in the 18th century. A system has developed where patronage and privilege appear to count for more than intelligence, life experience and hard work. Groups of young ambitious people cluster around significant ‘king makers’ (for the New Labour ‘project’ these appear to have been Peter […]

Apocryphilia

Lobster Issue 71 (Summer 2016)

[PDF file]: […] of Burgess and McLean in 1951, expansive liberal types like Klop were not in vogue. A strong case can be made for him being the most competent intelligence officer the British had working for them 1935-1950. At first glance it might appear that John Freeman, like Ustinov, was a casualty of the Cold War. […]

South of the Border (updated 4 Aug 2022)

Lobster Issue 84 (Winter 2022)

[PDF file]: […] insider’s account of how the CIA spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Presidio Press, 2007). 17 5 locals, asking that it be prioritised for intelligence purposes because ‘much more money was available for purely military purposes’. The author states he found it assuring to see the Afghani men going through the […]

Megrahi – You Are My Jury: The Lockerbie Evidence by John Ashton

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] continues even after al-Megrahi’s death. The book makes clear that al-Megrahi was a vulnerable figure. He, along with many other Libyans, was a US sanctions buster, had intelligence connections, two passports and did not tell his wife about his regular trips abroad, including those to Malta. But Ashton also puts that into political context […]

The long goodbye? Taking on the consultants

Lobster Issue 90 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] project’s ‘ballooning’ costs which is due to report in winter 2024/25. The latest opportunity for consultants will be how will departments fare with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology which former PM Tony Blair has set great faith in solving no end of public sector challenges. With former Tory leader William Hague […]

Consultants Challen

Lobster Issue

[…] project’s ‘ballooning’ costs which is due to report in winter 2024/25. The latest opportunity for consultants will be how will departments fare with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology which former PM Tony Blair has set great faith in solving no end of public sector challenges. With former Tory leader William Hague […]

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