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 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££
A secret service? In the Guardian of 12 June 2000 David Leigh had an important piece on the relationship between our secret servants and the media. At the core of this was his account of the revelation, via a libel suit in London, of an MI6 operation to plant disinformation in the Sunday Telegraph about … Read more
Lobster Issue 18 (1989) £££
Lobster is Steven Dorril (0484 681388) and Robin Ramsay (0482 447558). David Teacher is European Correspondent. All written correspondence should be sent to Lobster 214 Westbourne Avenue, Hull, HU5 3JB. UK Subscriptions Lobster appears occasionally, three times a year at present. Each issue from here on will cost £2.00 or its equivalent. Send at least: … Read more
Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££
On 1 January 2005 several new laws and regulations governing access to information come into force: the Freedom of Information Act 2000, covering England, Wales and N. Ireland; the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002; new Environmental Information Regulations 2004/5; Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004; and an extension of the Data Protection Act 1998 to … Read more
Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££
The big news in this field is the announcement that the distinguished scientist, Dr Rosalie Bertell, is apparently involved, assembling data on microwave or electromagnetic harassment. This is on the Web at http://www.calweb.com/~welsh/bertell.htm Preliminary conclusions were due to be announced in September but I understand those in the study are extremely busy and the September … Read more
Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002) £££
Crime fighting? There must many candidates for the title ‘The most damaging thing I have read about this government’. My current candidate is a piece by Simon Jenkins, ‘A Keep Police off the Streets Strategy Unit’ (The Times 2 February 2002). After reminding the reader that in the UK the police are a local service, … Read more
Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994) £££
A spook, moi? One of the formative experiences of my youth – and we’re talking early 1960s here, beatnik days, when wearing a narrow leather tie was pretty hip – was going to the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday nights. The Mound is like Hyde Park Corner in London, a place where local by-laws allow … Read more
Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999) £££
Roundtable I get regular e-mail bulletins from an organisation called the roundtable – not the Round Table but somebody? some people? – trying to document the US ruling elite by the study of its organisations. Really they should be called Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – because it is the CFR they mostly write about; … Read more
Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££
Yesterday’s loony tunes become today’s reality. Here are some recent examples. Gulf war syndrome, whose existence has been denied by the Ministry of Defence for over a decade, is now being admitted. As the Telegraph’s version of the story put it: ‘Soldiers sent to the 1991 Gulf war were given a combination of vaccines that … Read more
Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££
Olivier Schmidt Atlanta (USA): Clarity Press, 2005, $14.95, p/b www.bookmasters.com/clarity/currenttitles.htm Here’s a new name to me, the publisher Clarity; and a familiar one, Olivier Schmidt. In the 1980s Schmidt was producing a very good newsletter in Paris, Intelligence and Parapolitics. This got expensive, professionalised and eventually went on-line for subscribers as Intelligence.(1) This is … Read more