Crime fighting? There must many candidates for the title ‘The most damaging thing I have read about this government’. My current candidate is a piece by Simon Jenkins, ‘A Keep Police off the Streets Strategy Unit’ (The Times 2 February 2002). After reminding the reader that in the UK the police are a local service, […]
Rodney Stich Diablo Western Press, USA, 1994 The first thing to be said is that this is a huge (650 pages), fascinating book; and I recommend it. It is really three stories interwoven. The first section describes the author’s experience of trying to alert the American civil aviation industry, then the politicians and then the […]
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices Thanks to: Tim Pendry, Chris Tame, Jane Affleck, Richard Alexander, Tom Easton and Robert Henderson. Among the Contributors to this Issue Michael Carlson has written books on the film directors Oliver Stone, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood in the Pocket Essentials series. He has … Read more
[…] sort of stability to Anbar – but we are sure it is not quite what the mild-mannered liberal and evangelical advocates of peace and reconciliation had in mind when they surged around the government for pet project funding. The illusion of Northern Ireland is that constant dialogue and alternatively talking tough and offering concessions […]
[…] Russians. The KGB did the same with Russian students. The intelligence value was nil. In the early sixties the CIA placed a lot of hopes on ‘ mind control’, experimenting with drugs, hypnosis and programming a la ‘Manchurian Candidate’. The most bizarre episode in Beck’s book concerns an attempt by a CIA shrink to […]
[…] (p. 222) (emphasis added) ‘Hollis had set up the entire operation, without the knowledge of his staff’ (p. 255) A one-man Hollis operation? Hollis the Superman? The mind boggles. According to West, ‘The only conclusion possible from all of this is that Hollis was personally responsible for the Profumo debacle from start to finish. […]
[…] advice which, looking back, I should not have taken. I was right to shoulder the political responsibility …… I could not have soldiered on with an easy mind.’ He was a sensitive person who placed a great deal on personal integrity and loyalty. At the moment of crisis “government officials and even Ministers, hastened […]
Dick Russell Carroll and Graf, New York, 1992 This is one of the most interesting JFK assassination books to have emerged from the movie and 30th anniversary tie-in crop. Given the vast amount of attention paid to Gerald Posner’s ‘Oswald did it after all!’ apologia, Case Closed, it is unfortunate that Russell’s book still hasn’t […]
The Westminster Whistleblowers: Shirley Porter, homes for votes and twenty years of scandal in Britain’s rottenest borough Paul Dimoldenberg London: Politicos, 2006, £12.99, p/b The author was a Labour councillor in Westminster during Porter’s ‘reign of terror’ and was instrumental in eventually bringing her down. With an insider’s view he has written an immensely … Read more
[…] the standard academic studies of domestic Italian post-war politics the ‘apertura’ merits merely a line or two. But with hindsight, and the recent events in Italy in mind, this is surely an area which will repay further study. This reminds me again of how important it is to re-read everything. I haven’t looked at […]
