[…] of Labour MPs could effectively bring down the government. For some years past the arguments for a realignment had been taken seriously by a section of the Conservative Party who had been close to MacMillan. Since 1973, Reg Prentice had taken a lone path, one which would eventually take him out of the Labour […]
[…] MI6.’ Not mentioned by Crozier: G.K. Young, Airey Neave ….. In the 1970s and 80s Crozier claims to have run, inter alia: Peter Shipley (last seen at Conservative Party Central Office); Douglas Eden of the Social Democratic Alliance; Dr Julian Lewis (last seen at Conservative Party Central Office); Tony Kerpel (last seen listed as […]
The CIA In a recent ‘Witness Seminar’ on the 1975 British referendum on entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), the Conservative MP, Sir Richard Body, who in 1975 was co-chair of the anti-EEC National Referendum Campaign, had this to say: ‘At the very beginning of the campaign two CIA agents came to see […]
[…] there was not a single academic essay about it between its formation and 1980. Yet in its history it must have spent nearly as much as the Conservative Party. No account of British domestic political history in the 20th century can be anything but incomplete without incorporating the Economic League. Yet I have never […]
[…] patriotic nationalism served as the basis of fascist ideology throughout the inter-war years.’ The same concepts served as the basis of the ideology of much of the Conservative Party in this period. In 1927 it was not difficult see the ‘radical right’ as the continuation of the Tory Party; and the whole a part […]
[…] Barclays Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Commercial Union Assurance. Another board member, Lord Poole, was a Tory MP from 1945-1950 and chairman of the Conservative Party organisation from 1955-57. The 1st Viscount Blakenham married a daughter of the 2nd Viscount Cowdray and held several positions of state, as well as being […]
[…] the mid-1980s to train, arm and direct loyalist para-militaries against the IRA. The one piece missing from his analysis is evidence of the political dimension. Did the Conservative government approve of this? Did they know of this? Larkin presumes so but cannot demonstrate it. Larkin lacks a senior British Army, intelligence officer or civil […]
[…] governments. Quite what they will do now that this is clearly not the case will be interesting. (Presumably their calculation will be that Labour = 55% ok, Conservative = 35% ok….Therefore continue to back Labour ). The curious accidents of geography and history still resonate. The departure of John Edmonds in 2003 meant a […]
[…] fifties his sympathies were very much with Labour until it fell into hands of what he regarded as Wilson’s gang of spivs. His subsequent support for the Conservative Party was somewhat qualified and he had utter contempt for Heath after his economic U-turn in 1972, his surrender to the miners and his kow-towing to […]
[…] was not the case. Not only did Parliament and The Focus give him a platform, in Parliament he could eventually count on the support of some forty Conservative MPs, the Liberals under Archibald Sinclair, and, after Munich, almost all of the Labour Party. Origins of The Focus The Focus was partly a dining club […]
