View from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] He is In this column in Lobster 87 I mentioned two of his recent essays which are online. They are ‘UK “Black” Productions: Forgeries, Fake Groups, and Propaganda, 1951–1977’ at and ‘The Information Research Department, Unattributable Propaganda, and Northern Ireland: Promising Salvation but Ending in Failure?’ at 1 . 2 1 self-described there as […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 78 (Winter 2019)

[PDF file]: […] his blog Craig Murray refers to Bellingcat thus: ‘Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations. . .’ 15 One of their reports begins thus: ‘A sophisticated phishing campaign targeting Bellingcat and other Russia-focused journalists. . .’ (emphasis added) or 16 […]

AFRICOM, NATO and the EU

Lobster Issue 67 (Summer 2014)

[PDF file]: […] developed into colonies between the 17th and 20th centuries. The deep imperial interests, complex trade associations, and huge profits (potential or actual) meant that ‘postcolonialism’ – a propaganda word for reconstituted colonialism – was never going run smoothly, particularly in the face of rising Soviet influence in Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, and elsewhere in the […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 92 (2026)

[PDF file]: […] the two accounts offer an interesting set of claims about the role of intelligence in the politics of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.15 FIMI YouTube is now littered with AI political propaganda. The material I have seen, mostly talking heads, is anti-Trump. And much of it is good, too. Indeed, the AI talking heads are more interesting – […]

The secret life of Bellingcat’s so-called ‘Timmi Allen’

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] aware of his borough’s historic status, and he would no doubt have learned all about its glorious past during his formal education. Living alongside this flourishing pro-Soviet propaganda installation, and occasionally venturing inside it, can only have exercised a strong influence on Olaf’s developing mind. One might describe it as immersive indoctrination, and it […]

Intelligence, Security and the Attlee Governments, 1945-51: An Uneasy Relationship? by Daniel W B Lomas

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] had to decisively crush opposition from the Left to its pro-American stance. The Conservatives faced no such problem. The government was very much concerned to counter anti-British propaganda, much of it communist-inspired; and to this end established the Information Research Department. This was intended to covertly advocate a ‘Third Force’ approach, portraying Britain as […]

Volodymyr Zelensky and the breadbasket-case of Europe: The deep politics of a hybrid regime

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] from the point of view of reporting news, then yes, here, of course, the media will no longer have such relevance.18 Zekomanda saturated social media with electoral propaganda while telling potential voters almost nothing about what Zelensky stood for. This online astroturfing had been cued well in advance. In the first series of Servant […]

lob81-british-gladio2

Lobster Issue

[…] in 1978, and later at various MOD establishments where courses and seminars were held. It was on one of those weekends that I heard Hart advocate ” propaganda by outrage” as an extreme policy.’ In short: this speakers’ list makes no sense for people being trained to run a genuine ‘stay behind’ network – […]

In Spies We Trust: the story of western intelligence by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

Lobster Issue 66 (Winter 2013)

[PDF file]: […] well as betrayed by their friends, and misled, even turned against, their own democracies. In their favour, signals intelligence probably shortened the Second World War, and covert propaganda may have helped bring down the Soviet Union (Jeffreys-Jones doesn’t seem certain about this). The record is mixed, but it is far from reassuring. Hence the […]

Zelensky Ukraine parapolitics

Lobster Issue

[…] from the point of view of reporting news, then yes, here, of course, the media will no longer have such relevance.18 Zekomanda saturated social media with electoral propaganda while telling potential voters almost nothing about what Zelensky stood for. This online astroturfing had been cued well in advance. In the first series of Servant […]

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