[PDF file]: […] indeed they have. The concentrated nature of the material yields some marvellous anecdotes and demolishes a few myths along the way. Thus those to whom the pre- Thatcher Tories were suave internationalist moderates may be surprised to learn that Selwyn Lloyd, Foreign Secretary at the time of Suez, ‘spoke no foreign languages, had never […]
[PDF file]: […] consultancies rocketed: At the time of the 1979 general election in the United Kingdom, the government was spending about £6 million on consulting services annually; when Margaret Thatcher stepped down as prime minister eleven years later, the amount was more than 40 times greater at £246 million.8 Where the Iron Lady failed, Reeves’ ‘Iron […]
[PDF file]: […] the online condolence book for Smith1 show that Harold was held in high regard by Nigerians. Revolutionary defeatism A piece in the Guardian (19 March 2011), ‘ Thatcher papers reveal how she stoked rightwing rebellion in war against “wets”’, notes that Thatcher’s private secretary, Ian Gow MP, met with Labour MP Neville Sandelson, six […]
[…] certainly did not think MI5 was on the ball where the perceived menace from the Soviets and the left was concerned; and they got access to Mrs Thatcher when she was leader of the Opposition after 1975. On p. 670 Andrew tells us that when William Whitelaw became Home Secretary in the first Thatcher […]
[PDF file]: […] secret contact with the chair of the disciplinary appeal panel, in order to subvert the fair hearing to which I was entitled. The findings led to Mrs Thatcher being forced to admit in Parliament that, as Prime Minister, she and her Ministers had ‘inadvertently’ misled Parliament about my role in Northern Ireland. As a […]
[…] consultancies rocketed: At the time of the 1979 general election in the United Kingdom, the government was spending about £6 million on consulting services annually; when Margaret Thatcher stepped down as prime minister eleven years later, the amount was more than 40 times greater at £246 million.8 Where the Iron Lady failed, Reeves’ ‘Iron […]
[PDF file]: […] British exports of educational and financial services; but they also pay for military hardware, building on the relationship which started in the 1960s. British governments since the Thatcher era have actively supported arms exports to the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region which now accounts for 50 per cent of ‘all defence sales […]
[PDF file]: […] credible industrial strategy to get the UK back on its feet’.18 Well, well, well: ‘Industrial strategy’ and ‘the establishment’ is the language (and thought) of the pre- Thatcher era. Curious that he’s a City commentator because few in the City give a dull fuck about an industrial strategy – or the nation, for that […]
[PDF file]: Disrupt and Deny Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy Rory Cormac Oxford University Press: 2018, £20.00, h/b Robin Ramsay First things first: this is very good and anyone interested in our secret services, post-WW2 British history, or British colonial history, let alone the actual subject matter implied by the title, […]
[PDF file]: […] Outsourced state terrorism and the contras The link between British Special Forces and military privatisation partly entered the public domain in the IranContra Affair. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher was returned to office with an increased majority only because of the Falklands’ War. But victory in that war carried a price. Britain won the Falklands […]
