[…] family in particular: its immense industrial power and suspect financial dealings and the undermining of the German people by its industrial policy of employing Slavs as cheap labour. The Wittgensteins were also Hitler’s enemies in the world of music, for they had adopted the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, whom Wagner abhorred. Hitler followed Wagner […]
[…] ‘fringe patriots’ in World War One and thereafter; relations with the Tories; and the twin tensions between social reform and nationalism and the interests of capital and labour. The chapter on Oswald Mosley is a fine distillation of what remains pertinent in his political traject-ory, surpassed only by the exemplary consideration of Social Credit […]
[…] already taken all this on board. The people who ought to read this – in this country the naive enthusiasts for the ‘American way’ in the Parliamentary Labour Party, in the media (for example the idiotic Jonathan Freedland) and among the junior policy wonks feeding Tony Blair’s illusions – will not do so. There […]
[…] within the Conservative Party, the security and intelligence services, the City of London and the Bank of England and large-scale industry. Together with a handful of renegade Labour M.Ps like Richard Stokes, they might have formed a National Government committed to a non-aggression pact with Germany and the pursuit of a managed capitalism at […]
[…] 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.
[…] to the Birmingham bombings. It is a devastating expose of an intelligence system out of control and outside the state system. Talk of democratic accountability from the Labour Party is a sick joke when one reads what took place when they were in power. Both of the above have good appendices (including a long […]
[…] class finds itself in, not least when it comes to religion and the threat of a US-led invasion. Despite Islam being the ideological underpinning of the repressive labour (and other laws), most Iranians remain Muslims and would want any political changes to respect that. This accounts for the comparative lack of success of more […]
[…] delivery is spook-proof. Does disinformation work? It does with some journalists. Take Andrew Rawnsley and his lavishly praised Servants of the People: the Inside Story of New Labour (London: Penguin, 2001). On pp. 256 and 7 he gives us a thumbnail sketch of the events leading to the NATO attack on Serbia over Kosovo. […]
[…] system. The rights groups say that the RIP act fails to provide adequate safeguards to protect individual privacy, a right established by the HRA and ECHR. The Labour peer, Lord Ahmed, also complained that transcripts of his phone conversations were given to ministers. Unusually, in this case the government said that Lord Ahmed was […]
[…] means anything that damages ‘reputation’: for example, if there is a suggestion that a product is faulty, or if a subsidiary is found to have supported child labour or spoiled the environment. This damages overall business activity and can undermine licence to operate. Resulting action, sometimes including regulatory and legislative action, can cost millions. […]
