[…] over in 1975, and Indonesia became America’s most reliable Asian ally. One of his leading advisers is Mike Donovan, regional representative of the ‘American Institute for Free Labour Development’, a branch of US trades union organisation which “works closely with the US government in seeking information on Bishop’s supporters in the trades unions and […]
Blair and Gladstone Tony Blair’s Labour Party conference speech this year galvanised the delegates who were especially moved by his suggestions that Britain could play the role of an international troubleshooter, bringing liberal values, civilisation and the benefits of its skills in conflict resolution to troubled parts of the world. There were however some […]
[…] navy budget, later said that he ‘would have been astonished if those ships, from exercise Spring Train, had not been carrying nuclear weapons.’ (9) According to the Labour MP, Tam Dalyell, there was consternation in the Ministry of Defence when it was appreciated that a very large proportion of the Royal Navy’s entire stock […]
[…] Freedom of Information Act, and are not likely to get one from any of the British political parties. Imagine a conversation in the office of the new Labour Prime Minister in a year or three: ‘FOI? Too much trouble, too much aggro with Whitehall. As if we need any more, what with the economy, […]
[…] us that “today, in Wallace’s mind, ‘Clockwork Orange’ has become a more sinister Mark Two which … went beyond destabilising the IRA; it was aimed at mainland Labour politicians – which just happens to dovetail with similar allegations, raised in Parliament from an entirely independent source, namely Peter Wright.” This really is extraordinary. In […]
[…] on intelligence and security personnel who become MPs. Some of the material was familiar but less well known were Raymond Fletcher, and Le Cercle. Fletcher was a Labour MP who was witch-hunted by MI5 as a KGB asset when really an MI6 agent. New information on Le Cercle (aka the Pinay Circle: see Lobster […]
[…] Hook mentions Rousset’s suggestion in Out of Step, op. cit. p. 432. The God that Failed (Hamish Hamilton/London, 1950) was a collection of six essays edited by Labour MP Richard Crossman, three by ‘the initiates’ (Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, and Richard Wright) and three by ‘worshippers from afar’ (Andre Gide, Louis Fischer, and Stephen […]
[…] have been a strictly humanitarian gesture was given a political dimension by the fact that John Major’s rapidly-deflating Conservative government had stalled repeatedly on banning landmines, whereas Labour was promising a foreign policy with ‘an ethical dimension’. Declassified US diplomatic cables record that ‘Government officials immediately scrambled to repair the public relations damage, and […]
In February this year, unnoticed by the press, a funeral took place in a quiet Sussex village. In attendance were some famous names from London society of the fifties and sixties, and two men in regulation dark suits from an undisclosed department of the Security Services. They had been contacts for the deceased, Maria Novotny, […]
[…] the banality and irrelevance,’ describing them as ‘uniformly nineteenth century minds pretending to relate to the twentieth century’. Another of those who have attended, Christopher Price, then Labour MP for Lewisham West, found it ‘all very fatuous……icing on the cake with nothing to do with the cake.’ (Eringer 1980, p. 26). Denis Healey, on […]
