Charlie Bubbles One of Lobster’s contributors had dinner a few years ago with Charlie Falconer, the current Lord Chancellor, and reported that he was a fount of information on the B-sides of pop singles of the 1960s. Well, pop-pickers, our civil liberties are safe in his hands then. Or not. As New Labour prepares to … Read more
[…] convince the NCCL not to refuse legal aid to NF members, or alternatively to demonstrate that the NCCL is… a political front for the left.’ (61) The vote at the AGM did go against them, but the NF were happy in that it ‘stirred up a right little hornet’s nest and got lots of […]
Thanks to Terry Hanstock and Ian Tresman for contributions. Contributions, comments and info welcome. – My email address is Electronic Privacy/ECHELON The importance of taking advantage of the current debate about Echelon summarised by Nicky Hager: ‘…the lack of serious debate can protect the intelligence agencies from political accountability and control…..it is probably the … Read more
[…] openly influential. AIPAC and its allies allocate campaign funding for candidates at all levels of public office, provided that they support Israeli policies. They mobilise the Jewish vote to swing close elections and in a country where most US citizens know little to nothing about either Israel or the Middle East, they (successfully) put […]
Our Secret Servants: the Shayler affair Things had been going rather well for the British security and intelligence services in the 1990s. Under pressure from the Wright-Wallace-Massiter revelations of the 80s, they had conceded a notional form of parliamentary accountability with the creation of the Intelligence and Security Committee. With members who either knew nothing … Read more
The Westminster Whistleblowers: Shirley Porter, homes for votes and twenty years of scandal in Britain’s rottenest borough Paul Dimoldenberg London: Politicos, 2006, £12.99, p/b The author was a Labour councillor in Westminster during Porter’s ‘reign of terror’ and was instrumental in eventually bringing her down. With an insider’s view he has written an immensely … Read more
[…] in large areas of our cities now resembling their US counterparts….depressed, low grade, deregulated and populated by a permanent underclass who no longer matter – they don’t vote, (or aren’t registered to vote), don’t work, have no qualifications and live in a criminal twilight. Failing to run public transport as an organised, planned and […]
[…] hospitality of The Observer extended by his old Oxford pal, editor Roger Alton, to proclaim the virtues of Nicolas Sarkozy and confide, a week before the second vote, that his success in the French presidential election was greatly desired in Downing Street. The prospect of a European constitution by the referendum-less back door was […]
The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) has been in the forefront of encouraging further EU integration for over twenty years. However, many Eurorealists appear unaware of the ERT. Intended to increase awareness, this article will merely sketch the ERT and its activities. Making no claims to originality, ([1]) the article briefly examines the ERT’s … Read more
CIA: read all about it The most striking intelligence story since the last issue was Tim Spicer’s ‘CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US’.(1) It included this: ‘A British intelligence source revealed that a staggering four out of ten CIA operations designed to thwart direct attacks on the … Read more
