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 […]

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 […]

Secret Justice: Public Interest Immunity Certificates (PIICs) and their use in the Asil Nadir trials

Lobster Issue 66 (Winter 2013)

[PDF file]: […] PIIs were issued to prevent an officer of Special Branch, DS Wilkinson, from verifying that Paul Grecian had been acting with official backing in order to gather intelligence on Iraq. The Public Interest Immunity certificates were signed by Kenneth Baker and Peter Lilley, relying on an assessment by the prosecuting council that the documents […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Team mercenary GB: Part 1 – the early years

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016)

[PDF file]: […] operation into motion. Each time, however, it seemed as if the usual unofficial sanction was not entirely forthcoming. From impounded arms shipments to stern warnings from the Intelligence community, the plot seemed doomed. Indeed, 2 See Christopher Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies, (London: Routledge, 2006) pp. 46-49. […]

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 […]

Thatcher’s Secret War by Clive Bloom

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015)

[PDF file]: […] lines later there is the following quotation. ‘Brutally summarised……Mrs Thatcher and Thatcherism grew out of a right-wing network in this country with extensive links to the military- intelligence establishment. Her rise to power was the climax of a long campaign by this network which included a protracted destabilisation campaign against the Labour and Liberal […]

Everybody Knows: Corruption in America by Sarah Chayes

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021)

[PDF file]: […] had testimony from 36 victims. The US Attorney for South Florida at that time, Alexander Acosta, later claimed that he had been told that ‘Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and to leave it alone’. The incredible deal that Epstein’s legal team, including Dershowitz, negotiated involved him being on work release for twelve hours a day. […]

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