View from 92

Lobster Issue

[…] Cold War there have been occasions when the intelligence services, the CIA and SIS for example, actually did provide intelligence of substance. The first that springs to mind was the Cuban missile crisis, when the information from the Soviet intelligence officer Penkofsky about the actual accuracy of Soviet missiles did appear to play a […]

Brexit Revisited: Europe Didn’t Work, and, Brexit Unfolded

Lobster Issue 84 (Winter 2022)

[PDF file]: […] seen as paramount, thus closing off links to allies in Europe and the nature of the viper at the bosom (the US). The analogy that comes to mind is leaving the frying pan for the security of the fire. Narcissism Grey mentions the grandiosity and super confidence of Brexiteers, the irrationality of many of […]

Trump and Trumpism: The Destructive Politics of American Fascism by Andrew Kolin

Lobster Issue 90 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] is Jacob Chansley) was wearing a costume that cost hundreds of dollars, paid for by his job as an accountant’. This, as Kolin points out, ‘brings to mind the social composition of fascist movements’. As for Trump, he is ‘a populist Wizard of Oz, presenting himself as a champion of the masses. But when […]

Assange again

Lobster Issue 71 (Summer 2016)

[PDF file]: […] his semen-smeared reputation? I won’t go over the whole issue again. I’m getting bored too, which is a shame, as I’m broadly on his side. To my mind the basic question is quite simple. Assange was perfectly willing to face trial either if he were questioned in the UK, which is a normal practice; […]

The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock

Lobster Issue 90 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] things would work, then he would try them and see. Failure would be down to the patient; success was his alone. What was his theory of the mind? (Though theory might dignify and elevate his thinking, such as it was.) It was quite simple and, shorn of psychiatric and psychoanalytic baggage, it is revealed […]

The economic crisis continues

Lobster Issue 61 (Summer 2011)

[PDF file]: The economic crisis continues Robin Ramsay The bottom line (of the bottom line) At the end of December 2010 Her Majesty’s Treasury put out a document which stated: ‘…net debt excluding the temporary effects of financial interventions was £889.1 billion, equivalent to 59.3 per cent of gross domestic product (£2322.7 billion, equivalent to 154.9% including […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] a clear sense of the marginal concerns that preoccupied conspiracy theorists . . . .’ 19 A conspiracy theorist, moi? * new * It’s all in the mind There’s a new book about Sweden by a Swede living in the US, Kajsa Norman: 16 or <http://uk.businessinsider.com/swedish-people-embedmicrochips-under-skin-to-replace-id-cards-2018-5?r=US&IR=T 17 See, for example, from 2007 Todd Lewan’s […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 89 (2024)

[PDF file]: The view from the bridge Robin Ramsay As always, thanks to Nick Must and Garrick Alder for editorial help with Lobster. Check this I am not a lover of faction. I prefer my facts and my fiction distinct. I didn’t even read Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup. However I received an email from one […]

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