[…] Margaret Thatcher, and later with John Major. This material is extremely interesting, providing, among other things, an insider’s account of Murdoch’s embrace of Tony Blair and New Labour. In a country with a more robust democratic tradition what Wyatt reveals would be a scandal, in Britain we have become so used to governments courting […]
[…] the spook Since the last issue I have skimmed Paddy Ashdown’s two volumes of diaries. While dominated by his attempt to do a deal with the Blair-led Labour Party, there are some other interesting snippets; and, through Ashdown’s eyes, there is a detailed portrait of Tony Blair which suggests that Rory Bremner’s impersonation of […]
[…] output.’ (emphasis added) This is the heart of it on this side of the Atlantic. Economic policy thinking between the years between 1979 and 1997, when New Labour took office, had been dominated by the fear of inflation getting out of control as it did between 1972 and 1976. How many times did Gordon […]
[…] post-war Head of Military Intelligence War Office, Overlord in Malaya, and had headed a similar, but secret inquiry initiated by Attlee. The Right Hon. Kenneth Younger. Former Labour M.P. for Grimsby, the constituency ‘handed on’ to Tony Crosland. His cousin William Younger worked for Maxwell Knight as did ‘Bill’s’ mother Joan (Mrs Dennis Wheatley) […]
[…] Big Swing to BAP’. This began: ‘No less than four British-American Project Fellows and one Advisory Board Member have been appointed to ministerial posts in the new Labour government.’ New names on the BAP roster include Geoff (from Militant via Red Wedge to the PM’s Office) Mulgan, Julia (not now, daddy, I’m busy) Hobsbawm, […]
[…] insufficiently remarked upon in the various Callaghan obituaries. This first came to attention in November 1960 during the election to chose a new deputy leader for the Labour Party. Brown was highly thought of. A bright man with impeccable working class credentials and good trade union connections, he had served as Minister for Works […]
[…] Washington by deposed Fijian Prime Minister, Dr Bavadra, for a Congressional investigation of American involvement. Published by Wellington Confidential, PO. Box 9034, Wellington, New Zealand The one-month-old Labour Coalition government of Fiji was terminated on May 14 1987 in a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, third-in-command of the 2,600-strong Royal Fiji Military […]
[…] history suggests that the island may have received some outside help in achieving its recent political impasse. The only real multiracial political grouping in Fiji was/is the Labour Party. In his Rogue State (p. 153) William Blum gives a brief account of an apparent CIA operation concerning Fiji in 1987. (1) In April of […]
David Craig and Richard Brooks London: Constable, 2006, £9.99, p/b When the Blair faction took office in 1997 as ‘New Labour’ we knew that they were going to be pro-American, pro-NATO, pro-business, anti-union and media conscious. What we did not know then was just how completely they had internalised the Thatcher ethos, how […]
2. Freedom and the Security Services – a Labour Party Discussion Document (£1.50 plus postage from The Labour Party, 150 Walworth Road, London, SE17 1JT) With this the Labour Party has taken a significant step towards the public recognition that, as far as the spook industry is concerned, the view of this society long […]
