[…] Mosley’s biographer, he claimed there was no truth in them. As an MP, 1929-31, Lady Cynthia’s political position appears to have approximated to those of the present Labour left, say Wedgie Benn. Besides have a good line on environmental matters that would endear her to our contemporary Greens, she took an interest in welfare […]
[…] in Dalston Road, Hackney by ‘booking’ it through overnight vigils….the communists (CP variety) were nowhere to be seen, let alone members of the Hackney or Stoke Newington Labour parties…that Common Wealth was no more than a debating society was a slur by the Marxists who never forgave us for our rejection of ‘scientific’ socialism […]
[…] Dettmer. Having worked for Tribune for a while, Dettmer migrated to the Sunday Telegraph (for whom his first article was an ‘expose’ of the lefties in the Labour Party) where he has produced ‘anarchist threat’ material. Last year a pamphlet called Written in Flames was published by Hooligan Press from a box-number address, ‘BM […]
[…] still appears on toilets) – but as an adjective for any sort of ‘capitalism’ it is an oxymoron (just like the obverse notion of an ‘aristocracy of labour’, which at least was deliberately ironic). The cult of the ‘gentleman’ in the 19th century was part of a cultural strategy for assimilating manufacturers (presumably with […]
[…] for the Bush way of doing things. Harken Energy was formed in 1973 by two oilmen who would benefit from a successful covert effort to destabilise Australia’s Labour government (which had attempted to shut out foreign oil exploration). A decade later, Harken was sold to a new investment group headed by New York attorney […]
[…] This would be followed by incidents of sabotage “complicated by a revival of the IRA.” ‘ According to Burns, the paper presented a scenario ‘in which a Labour government, acceding to trade union and other militant demands, radicalised its policies against the private sector and the UK’s NATO commitments.’ Burns commented that, The paper] […]
Who was who? The newly published Oxford Dictionary of National Biography not only surveys the lives of the great and the good, but also includes accounts of individuals in the murkier fields of human endeavour. Over fifty spies are listed, for example, including historical figures such as ‘Parliament Joan’ (c1600-1655?) and ‘Pickle the Spy’ (c1725-1761). … Read more
[PDF file]: Reformatted and slightly updated late 2023. The Clandestine Caucus Anti-socialist campaigns and operations in the British Labour movement since 1945 Robin Ramsay Introduction Some of this material has appeared before. Part of the section on Common Cause and IRIS appeared in Lobster 19; much of the discussion of the ‘communist threat’ in Lobster 24; […]
[…] the book is not terribly interesting. Part of it is Mayhew’s memories of his struggle with the CP front groups – the friendship societies – in the 1950s, and the rest is fragmented memories of his increasing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party and his eventual defection to the Liberal Party and thence into the SDP.
[…] leadership which will have to tell people some pretty unpalatable truths.” Owen as the Oswald Moseley of the 1990s? The parallels are quite interesting. Both quit the Labour Party with a ‘solution’ the party as a whole wouldn’t accept; both formed a new party; both talked of ‘leadership’ and ‘unpalatable truths’. Maybe the British […]
