The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] (of which I am a member): the British state was and remains beyond democratic control. Pluralities Political identities can be complex. Take Sir Robert Atkins: as the Conservative MP for Preston North and South Ribble from 1979 to 1997, he was part of the conspiracy to destroy Labour-supporting, millionaire businessman Owen Oyston (described at […]

Brexit: an accident waiting to happen

Lobster Issue 73 (Summer 2017)

[PDF file]: […] and degradation of politicians and politics generally. Electoral legitimacy The British Parliamentary system is designed to reflect the predominance of two adversarial parties: initially Whig/Tory then Liberal/ Conservative and latterly Labour/Conservative.1 After the franchise was extended in 1918 to create a true mass electorate, and other possibilities emerged, this was not especially ‘fair’ but […]

In the Thick of It: The private diaries of a minister Alan Duncan

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021)

[PDF file]: […] there. She never had. But, as a result, reports suggest she has been sentenced to an extra five years.’ With all this damning material by an important Conservative figure so readily The Times 29 August 2017 at or . 2 Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain’s Battle with Coronavirus by Jonathan Calvert […]

The Christian Right Revisited

Lobster Issue 85 (Summer 2023)

[PDF file]: […] bought her to the White House and informed her time there. It was all God’s will. McEnany proudly proclaims that ‘I was a Christian. I was a conservative’. This was ‘at the central core of my being, firmly sown within me. It is the prism through which I see the world’. She got her […]

I helped carry William Burroughs to the medical tent

Lobster Issue 59 (Summer 2010)

[PDF file]: […] proved to be highly popular. As well as his immensely lucrative commercial interests Plugge also had a political career: in 1935 he was elected 35 Summer 2010 Conservative MP for Chatham. He also moved in the highest of high society circles with all the usual trappings of the uber-rich, including a London residence on […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] early Cold War. In effect that alliance, exemplified most clearly in the relationship between James Angleton and Jay Lovestone, moved out of the Government and into the conservative movement. Questions of intelligence thereafter remained central to the development of neoconservatism at every major turning point from Team B to Iran-Contra 9 See . to […]

The Reinvention of Britain 1960-2016: a political and economic history by Scott Newton

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] and beer in the fridge. Labour’s return to office in 1964 (narrowly) and, more convincingly, after a second election in 1966, saw many continuities with the post-1960 Conservative administrations but also some important differences: ‘Macmillan’s version of social democracy notwithstanding, the Conservative Party and its allies retained both their connections to the City and […]

Historical Notes on Tom Nairn and the British State

Lobster Issue 85 (Summer 2023)

[PDF file]: […] Labour Parties and religious observation by Nonconformity and Roman Catholicism. The ruling class, however, remained located in ‘Consumers England’, where the ‘Southernbased hierarchy’6 reproduced itself through the Conservative Party, the Anglican Church, the public schools and the ancient universities. Its power and influence continued to thrive in the late twentieth century and the first […]

Historical Notes on British complicity in the Gaza genocide

Lobster Issue 92 (2026)

[PDF file]: […] population felt that the Israeli response to the events of 7 October 2023 had gone too far.8 All the same, both the current Labour administration and its Conservative predecessor have generally supported the Israeli Government, albeit tempering this from time to time with statements highly critical of its conduct.9 Following the UN verdict of […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] early Cold War. In effect that alliance, exemplified most clearly in the relationship between James Angleton and Jay Lovestone, moved out of the Government and into the conservative movement. Questions of 9 See . 3 intelligence thereafter remained central to the development of neoconservatism at every major turning point from Team B to Iran-Contra […]

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