[…] past 40 years or so.4 He quotes a South African report from 1991 describing it as ‘an informal forum of influential representatives of a “conservative cast of mind“’ – which is what Pinay/Le Cercle was and remains. Among recent British participants are former Conservative MPs Norman Lamont, Rory Stewart and Jonathan Aitken.5 Three pages […]
[PDF file]: Peer group pressure Colin Challen Whilst engaging in the topical parlour game ‘Who in the Labour Party is trying to shaft Jeremy Corbyn?’, my mind naturally turned to the master of dark arts, Lord (Peter) Mandelson. I took a look at his entry in the House of Lords Register of Members’ Interests, where I […]
[PDF file]: […] be true that we have more police per capita than 1952, the UK remains lightly policed compared to many other 7 The only explanation that comes to mind for the extraordinary (and unprecedented) arrangements whereby the US and the UK share a nuclear deterrent appears to be that the UK took a view – […]
[PDF file]: […] between the privations suffered by ordinary citizens, especially pensioners and war veterans, and the affluence and corruption evident in senior Party circles.38 His willingness to speak his mind reinforced the paranoid school of opinion about him in the KGB and led to the temporary suspension of his training sessions and seminars: ‘It was Oleg […]
[…] just giving away part of the power of the state which NuLab were supposed to be trying to articulate in the interests of the British people (never mind the less well off/disadvantage/deprived/ poor/working class – pick a term). Such privatisation speaks of extremely low self-esteem: for we – the state and politicians – are […]
[…] defendant typically receives an expedited but much-reduced sentence for their candour and penitence. The effect of Ashton-Cirillo’s untruthful pre-trial comments was to convict Lira in the public mind as soon as he had been arrested. The reality was clarified when the Ukrainian authorities proceeded to set court dates for Lira’s defence case, in a […]
[PDF file]: […] always easy meat for the orthodoxy of the City.) What was inflation between 1945 and 1970, 2-4% per annum on average? Who, in his or her right mind, would not trade off 4% inflation for full employment and 2% growth? Vaisey’s vision Another version of the same basic perception that a great watershed had […]
[PDF file]: What just happened Crashed How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World Adam Tooze London: Allen Lane, 2018, h/b, £30.00 Robin Ramsay I once heard a history professor describe another history professor I knew as ‘a very good, old-fashioned narrative historian’. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant but I got the pejorative message. […]
[PDF file]: […] 1839. Henderson emailed on 6 April: ‘ Starmer is my MP. Mmmm . . . I wonder if I should visit him at his surgery and re mind him of the time when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions and how he refused to take action after Tony and Cherie Blair had attempted […]
[PDF file]: […] but a man laying down a trail we were supposed to follow….The man’s task appears to have been to make himself unforgettable.’ Other puzzling questions come to mind. Are we to think that the US government simulation of a domestic bioterror attack in June 2001 that blamed Saddam Hussein for sourcing the toxic bacteria […]
