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, […]
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
[…] as the Nixon people knew that the CIA knew, they (the White House) must have known that it was all going to come out. With this in mind we should perhaps not so readily accept Hougan’s assertion that the Agency couldn’t have foreseen the outcome. Indeed, we need not assume – as Hougan does […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] out no operation, investigation, surveillance or action against any individual otherwise than for the purposes laid down in its directive.’ The words ‘lying’ and ‘bastard’ come to mind, as they say. Gill takes a deep breath and contents himself with observing that ‘such an inquiry, to be carried out properly, would have taken many […]
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 […]
[…] 30 July 2000 The Punch story, in issue 117, October 2000, about Sir John Browne of BP, Prime Minister Blair and the Russian oil money comes to mind – unless the retired SIS officer that sits on BP’s board forgot to check out the latest news from Russia with his former SIS colleagues. It […]
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
[…] of our civil libertarian position on immigration, victimless crimes, sexual freedom and tolerance, free speech and censorship, and threats to civil liberties, is hardly what comes to mind when the term ‘right-wing’ is used. Neither does the author mention that we have as many ‘links’ with libertarian socialists, anarchists, sexual minorities, other civil libertarians, […]
Global Intelligence: the World’s Secret Services Today Paul Todd and Jonathan Bloch, London and New York, Zed Books, 2003 h/back £32.95/ $55.00 p/back £9.99/ $17.50 ‘We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq’s WMD program’ Vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Stuart Cohen, December 2003 With the spectacular failure of […]
