View from Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] politicians to get real. But politicians can’t ‘get real’ just yet. No mainstream British politician is willing to say that Britain is run down because (a) the Thatcher and New Labour administrations abandoned the manufacturing sector of the economy, and (b) the prosperous haven’t paid enough taxes for 40 years. For a while longer […]

View from Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] the 1980s which were released in late December, was one concerning the Peter Wright book Spycatcher. The Guardian reported that on one of these documents prime minister Thatcher wrote in October 1986: ‘I am utterly shattered by the revelations in the book. The consequences of publication would be enormous.’ 1 Obviously she didn’t have […]

Off Message, and, Standing for Something

Lobster Issue 63 (Summer 2012)

[PDF file]: […] Commons in 1997, looking forward to a long period of Labour government that would ‘buttress parliamentary power, entrench historic civil liberties which had been threatened by the Thatcher administration and address the twin problems of poverty and inequality’. He was, in his own words, a ‘poor innocent fool’. What went wrong? He fixes most […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 92 (2026)

[PDF file]: […] CIA role. He fuelled the Labour-is-run-by-theSoviets theme which led to the Wilson plots, the creation of Civil Contingencies Cadre in the late 1970s and, ultimately, to Mrs Thatcher and the disastrous adoption of the free market nonsense in the country. This perspective on Angleton is missing from the discussion. The only Brit present is […]

Climbing the Bookshelves by Shirley Williams

Lobster Issue 58 (Winter 2009/2010)

[PDF file]: […] well positioned will be disappointed, as they will be in seeking any sharp observations on British politics. Those who remember the Callaghan government and the rise of Thatcher may recall Williams and other Labour right-wing ministers vociferously rushing to the defence of one of their number, Reg Prentice, faced with deselection. Prentice subsequently switched […]

L0b 92 Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] CIA role. He fuelled the Labour-is-run-by-theSoviets theme which led to the Wilson plots, the creation of Civil Contingencies Cadre in the late 1970s and, ultimately, to Mrs Thatcher and the disastrous adoption of the free market nonsense in the country. This perspective on Angleton is missing from the discussion. The only Brit present is […]

Spookaroonie!

Lobster Issue 58 (Winter 2009/2010)

[PDF file]: […] in his Eye column’. (p. 264) ‘told that he wished to be sufficiently well briefed to be able to counter “some of the rather extreme advice” Mrs Thatcher had received.’ That advice had been coming from Crozier and his colleagues.7 A cautious, tiresomely bureaucratic MI5 is how David Shayler saw the organisation in the […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 65 (Summer 2013)

[PDF file]: […] read Gerald James’ 1995 In The Public Interest, and James is quoted on the site. Andrew Rosthorn has pointed out that some of it appeared in ‘ Thatcher, Astra, Iraq & murder of Gerald Bull’ in Intelligence 81, 8 June 1998, p. 1. Bilderberg comes to Watford Watford? Strange choice of venue: close enough […]

L0b 92 Bridge copy

Lobster Issue

[…] in explaining Soviet policy and thinking just at the point when the Soviet Union was cracking up, thus smoothing to way for the Gorbachev relationship first with Thatcher and then with the Americans. ‘Decisive’ – maybe not; but not insignificant. Angus Hanton in his Vassal State, writes that 56% of British shares are now […]

Code of Conduct: Why We Need to Fix Parliament – and How to Do It by Chris Bryant

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] And, thus, the generation of profit from state or public sector activities became a priority of the private sector. This was as important as anything accomplished by Thatcher and produced billions of pounds a year in consultancy fees. Brown recognised that in a world dominated by big business and the banks, public expenditure was […]

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