Responsibilities, old boy The Big Breach Richard Tomlinson Cutting Edge, Edinburgh, 2000, £9.99 I found it hard to ‘see’ this because so much of its contents have been published in the media. There have been some changes – names altered – since the newspaper versions; and I am told that the original hardback version … Read more
Lord Stevenson Media coverage of four senior bankers arraigned before the Treasury Select Committee in February centred on whether the representatives of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS would utter the word ‘sorry’ about behaviour that has landed the British taxpayer in the soup. In what appeared to be a well-rehearsed effort, all duly … Read more
Hugh Wilford London: Frank Cass, 2003; £22.99, h/b This book is a striking example of how far we have come. A senior British academic writing a book with this title was inconceivable 20, even 10 years ago. But there is now a group of British academics, historians mostly, who are working on the history … Read more
Hess: A Tale of Two Murders Hugh Thomas Hodder and Stoughton, London 1988 This is an update of Thomas’ 1979, The Murder of Rudolf Hess. Thomas argues (a) that the ‘Hess’ in Spandau prison wasn’t Hess at all but a double; and (b) that both the real and false Hess were murdered. The first proposition … Read more
See note (1) Robin Ramsay The topic was suggested to me by Kevin O’Brien [of ICSA]. It wasn’t clear to me if it was simply that I was being played out a very long piece of rope with which to hang myself. At any rate, given such a wide title – and a title to … Read more
Ken Hollings London: Strange Attractor Press, 2008, p/b, £11.99 This is a fascinating book but I found it terribly hard to write about. Looking for the opening thought to kick-start this I read again the introduction by Erik Davis.(9) He writes: ‘Hollings has collected together a mass of real signs and symptoms drawn from a … Read more
The Sewer not the Sewage? David Mills, Berlusconi and New Labour Imagine that Robert Maxwell had become British Prime Minister. A similar situation actually obtains in Italy with the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi. I examine below one strand of Berlusconi’s activities, mainly through his relationship with one of his senior lawyers. Until recently, David McKenzie … Read more
Ian Macgregor, Lazards, Pearsons, and Amax PART 1 See also Part 2 in Lobster 6 Summary This article attempts to show that the present chairman of the National Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, is far more than the “right man for the job” imported from the U.S. by a Government set simply on technical efficiency. Macgregor’s … Read more
Dr. David Kelly The death of Dr David Kelly refuses to go away. Two groups of medical experts have expressed doubts about the suicide verdict. The International Toxicology Advisory Group have queried the conclusion that Kelly swallowed at least 20 co-proxamol tablets, which contributed to his death; (1) and a group of surgeons wrote to … Read more
This is from No 3 volume 7, 1988 of Geheim, the German member of the international brotherhood of parapolitics mags (of which Lobster is apparently the smallest, poorest and least frequent). The good news for those of us too lazy to learn anything but English is that Geheim is going to produce an English- language … Read more
