Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995)
This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis’s book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995) reviewed below. In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran’s nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture … Read more
Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004)
Authority and order are back on the European political agenda. I want to put forward an hypothesis that readers can test against the facts. If I am right, then it opens up a new field of enquiry for parapolitical investigators. Let me state the thesis briefly: the need to create an international infrastructure of authority … Read more
Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)
MI5 and the Wilson Plot The MI5 website (www.mi5.gov.uk) has a section called ‘myths and misunderstandings’, which features, among other things, ‘the Wilson Plot’. The paragraph it devotes to this episode is worth studying. It refers the reader to Spycatcher and Peter Wright’s allegation that ‘up to 30 members of the Service had plotted to … Read more
Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7)
[…] himself on the left. He played an important part in the opposition to the Lloyd George Coalition’s Irish policy, in particular the so-called ‘reprisals’ policy with its murder squads and house-burnings. And then he joined the Labour Party. The eagerness with which the Labour Party, including the party at constituency level, welcomed this upper […]
Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)
William Blum New York: Soft Skull Press, 2002, $15 www.softskull.com The working lives of writers, especially writers of non-fiction like Blum – or me – are rather dull. To produce Lobster and my other bits and pieces I have to stay in one place, read e-mails every day, books, newspapers, visit libraries, go to … Read more
Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992)
[…] at the record of the Ulster Defence Regiment, he points out (p. 222) that in the 19 years of its existence ‘only 23 have been convicted of murder or manslaughter……. the record of the UDR is exemplary when set against that of armies and police forces in Latin America’. 23 members of one regiment […]
Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998)
[…] Ray had managed to acquire the identities of four men in Toronto who all looked like him, but omitted any of the subsequent research on the King murder, such as that by John Edginton, the British TV producer, and particularly by Dr William Pepper. Godfrey Hodgson’s obit in the Independent (25 April 1998) was […]