[…] 2001 in the presence of Saudi investors like Shafiq Bin Laden, estranged brother of Osama. In the wake of such events and in line with wider neo- Conservative foreign policy objectives, the Carlyle Group has sought to divest itself of its dependency on the querulous House of Saud in favour of the new ‘opportunities’ […]
[…] series this hasn’t mattered too much, but with a subject like this the results are pretty catastrophic. The most striking example concerns Joseph Ball, who founded the Conservative Research Department back in the 1930s, which was then, and may still be, the Tories’ covert ops./black propaganda operation. Ball is an interesting figure in the […]
[…] dating from, I would guess, the early 1930s. When the Jansons sold their apartment in the late 1960s it was purchased by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the former Conservative Prime Minister. The Jansons also sold their house in Cowes and they now live in the west of England. Olwen Janson told me the following. The […]
[…] Steve, and, in publishing it, we breached the Official Secrets Act in a big way. But apart from being denounced in the House of Commons by a Conservative MP – who was among those listed – nothing happened. Evidently the British state had learned the lesson that prosecution merely makes those prosecuted the subject […]
Thanks again to Terry Hanstock and David Turner for contributions. Although all URLs are checked shortly before publication, occasionally websites unaccountably disappear. Contributions, comments and info welcome – my email address is Secrecy, censorship FOI and released records Freedom of Information Draft Bill http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/foi/dfoibill.htm Link to the draft FOI Bill (May 1999) and FOI … Read more
[…] July 2007, Charles Glass wrote in The Nation about what he knew well in those heady days during which he composed his diary: ‘Washington’s ideologically charged neo- conservative coterie possessed little or no understanding of the Middle East, allowing it to dismiss the easily predictable consequences of invading and occupying Iraq.’ A defensible charge, […]
[…] and former vice führer of the National Front, and, word has it, a range of other nazis, racists and extreme right-wingers from Western Goals to the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus. When I described him in my column as an errand boy for Patrick Harrington, the Press Complaints Commission held that this was fair comment. Not […]
Wayne Cocroft and Roger Thomas, edited by P.S.Barnwell English Heritage, 2003, h/b, £24.99 A very high-quality, well presented book that is considerably more appealing to look at than most of the unlovely structures which are illustrated between its large, hardback covers. It is partly because of the non-photogenic subject matter that the book is … Read more
[…] Bunyan’s been doing this work for over twenty years, a long time to be pissing into the wind. In Defence of The Party: The Secret State, the Conservative Party and dirty tricks Colin Challen and Mike Hughes £3.95 from Medium Publishing, 1 Main Street, East Ardsley, Wakefield WF3 2AE This is a sixty-five page, […]
[…] to have gone even farther, terrifying both the left and the right with the fear of incipient slaughter by their enemies. Thus militant trade-unionists as well as conservative generals in Chile received small cards printed with the ominous words Djakarta se acerca (Jakarta is approaching). (103) This is a model destabilization plan — to […]