Editorially
First, most important, our thanks to those Lobster subscribers who responded to our appeal for money. Your response, and a bit of ‘consulting’ with Fleet St. on the content of Lobster 11, has halved our debts. We shall survive.
It is tempting to say something about the developing crisis re the Wilson-MI5 story (Lobstergate?). I write this 24 hours after Colin Wallace made his first speaking appearance on British television, and very impressive it was too, despite the interview apparently being edited by a blind man. By the time this gets through the production cycle there should have been others. For while the mainland UK media have spent the past 3 months talking to Wallace (and us) but printing almost nothing, in Ireland, North and South, Wallace and Fred Holroyd have been making headlines every week. The strange silence of the British press cannot last for ever.
Fitting up Wallace was a big mistake; indeed, rumour now has it that while MI5 and Special Branch were stuffing Wallace into prison, the Ministry of Defence were trying to prevent it happening. MOD, by implication, knew better. Well, so far, the mud hasn’t been flung at MOD. In all accounts so far – ie the Wright-derived accounts – there is a single, central villain – MI5. We are getting a British version of the ‘CIA as rogue elephant’ theory of the late 1970s. And that isn’t even likely to be the whole story. While getting control of MI5 is obviously the first political task, while the politicians are doing that (or, perhaps, just thinking about doing that), we might think about the ‘rogue elephant’ theory of MI5. Some body, some section, gave them permission (if only by not turning them off). There was a wider…..climate.
Wallace was interviewed by Godfrey Hodgson who professed to find his claims “astonishing”. “There were rumours in the ’70s”, he said, “But….” To us what is astonishing is that Wallace’s first (heavily edited) statement on British television should have to wait 11 months after we splattered the whole of the British media with copies of Lobster 11. Just for the historical record, reproduced on this page is a much-reduced copy of the press release we sent out with Lobster 11 (April 1986).
We haven’t changed our minds about this.
Finally, a word of explanation. Steve Dorril’s name has been absent from Lobsters 12 and 13 because he has been writing a book. It will be out this summer and should strip a few more rolls of faded paper from the tatty edifice which is official British history.
Robin Ramsay
Subscriptions
Lobster has appeared in a variety of shapes and sizes and appears as often as we can get it together. Thus we base subscriptions around 4 issues of the size of nos. 9, 10, 13: bigger issues, such as 11, 12 are counted as doubles.
Costs
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- For subscriptions and back copies institutional are charged double the appropriate rate for individuals
Lobster is:
Robin Ramsay, 0482 447263
Stephen Dorril, 0484 518482
All written enquires to:
Lobster
17c Pearson Avenue,
Hull, HU5 2SX, UK.