Agca: true confessions

Lobster Issue 9 (1985) £££

During the current farcical trial of Ali Agca a most interesting snippet appeared in the press which looks like finally seeing off the alleged ‘Bulgarian connection.’ Signor Giovanni Pandico, a jailed former member of the upper echelons of the Naples-based Camorra, claimed that it had played a part in convincing Agca to accept the role … Read more

The Bilderberg Group and the project of European unification

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996) £££

Introduction Despite their reputation for ’empiricism’, British academics have tended to treat political power by means of abstract concepts rather than empirical information about the actions of determinate individuals and groups (e.g. Giddens, 1984, 1985; Scott, 1986). After a brief efflorescence of empirical studies of the so-called ‘Establishment’ in the early 1960s, sociologists in Britain … Read more

The Party of Business and the Business of Parties

Book cover
Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

Labour Party PLC David Osler Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, £15.99, 2002 Colin Challen MP Having written a history of Conservative Party funding, (1) I had been wondering when somebody would get round to doing a similar job on Labour. However, Labour Party plc is more than a simple history of party financing, it seeks to show … Read more

Behind right-wing conspiracy theories

Lobster Issue 8 (1985) £££

Part 1 The world of ultra-right conspiracy theory is of interest to researchers into clandestinism for 3 reasons. First, because critics of research into clandestinism frequently attempt to bracket it together with ultra-right believers in The Protocols of Zion and similar fantasies.(1); secondly because the ultra-rightists, in the last decade, have been showing an interest … Read more

Loose cuts and short ends

Lobster Issue 31 (June 1996) £££

Is the picture on the right that of the old Spycatcher himself, Peter Wright? It has been used as if it is three times, in the Sunday Times on 12 July 1987 and 16 October 1988; and more recently, the version shown, heavily cropped to illustrate Wright’s obituary in the Independent, 28 April 1995. It … Read more

Parapolitical bits and pieces

Lobster Issue 7 (1985) £££

[…] arm of the legislature. A similar move had been made when the Irish Republic was considering legislation against the IRA. An hour or so before the crucial vote in the Irish parliament a couple of car-bombs went off in Dublin. Although the evidence is nothing like conclusive, it seems probable that the bombs were […]

The International Centre of Free Trade Unionists in Exile

Lobster Issue 31 (June 1996) £££

[…] former head of MI5’s F Branch, Charles Elwell. In 1995 it was revealed that in 1963 IRIS had received £40,000 from the (Conservative) government via its ‘secret vote’, unaccountable funds, and a further £35,000 from a number of large companies, including Ford and Shell. See The Times, Guardian and Independent of 2 January 1995. […]

Brief Notes On The Political Importance Of Secret Societies

Lobster Issue 5 (1984) £££

PART 1 See also Part 2 in Lobster 6 Most Western political scientists, following in the traditions of Marx or Weber, scorn the study of secret and occult societies as irrelevant to understanding the politics of the age. In their view, politics can best be understood as the working out, in public arenas, of bureaucratic, … Read more

The Myth of the SAS

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995) £££

[…] paints is of a disturbed child, completely out of control. His rebellion at preparatory school and later at Harrow public school. In 1950 he painted the slogan VOTE LABOUR on a number of college walls (this did not indicate any youthful leftism, just that he thought this would cause more offense than anything else […]

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