[…] in part in the analysis in Lobster 11 and Smear!, Larkin correctly identifies the anti-communist, anti-subversion alliance formed by elements within Whitehall and a section of the Tory Party but oversimplifies it and makes many errors of detail. For example, on p.182 he writes of the ‘right wing of the British establishment (Airey Neave, […]
[…] Routledge. ‘This is not the same thing.’ Of course I asked the wrong question. What I should have asked was: does Gordon Brown understand British economic his tory? Or: does he understand economic politics? In any case, I would have been asking a question to which I knew the answer. Brown knows little of […]
[…] sharp pen-pictures of the politicians who have dominated the period. The author is one of the first historians to acknowledge the parapolitical dimension in modern British his tory, from the formation of the Special Branch to the construction of the new MI6 headquarters over a century later. This is allied to a perception that […]
[…] that respect’ (May 5th, 1993). It seems reasonable, ten years on, to add a footnote for the historians and, for others, a bit of analysis. The s tory is that Simon Haskel (later Lord Haskel), then Chair of the Labour Finance & Industry Group (LFIG), asked me to help out Geoff Mulgan. I had […]
[…] them and press reports of the speeches Neave made with Wallace’s material were shown on Channel 4 News. Despite being unable to find holes in his s tory some journalists remain suspicious of him. They accuse him of being ‘too professional’, or ‘too pat’, ‘too well rehearsed’ and so on. What they seem to […]
Edward Pearce London: Little, Brown, 2002, £25, h/b. Compared to the present crop of media-trained, PR-conscious, line-following, careerist pigmies who comprise the current Labour Cabinet, Denis Healey looks like a giant from a golden age. Before his well known roles as Minister of Defence and Chancellor of the Exchequer (during the Tory-induced inflation of […]
[…] and was about to join the World Bank before he joined Brown. Sue Nye, Gordon Brown’s personal assistant, lives with Gavyn Davies, chief economist with the preda tory American bankers, Goldman Sachs. And then there’s Peter Mandelson. Via the United Nations Association, of all obscure vehicles, by the end of his final year at […]
[…] has, apparently, marched on. So far there have been few reviews, and one of these (by M.R.D. Foot in The Times) snootily accuses Griffiths of revisionist his tory writing. Evidence now shows that a bigger than usually imagined section of MPs and Peers were willing to strike a deal with the Nazis in 1939/1940.(1) […]
[…] Tories have always declined to say where the money came from, it is extraordinary that their opponents never adopted some variant of LBJ’s pig-fucker strategy. The s tory goes that LBJ was discussing how to attack an opponent in an election early in his career. The opponent was a farmer, and LBJ said, ‘Let’s […]
[…] who was caught by The Observer offering access through his former lobbyist business partner, Derek Draper? Loyalty cannot be an adequate explanation. Within days of the s tory tailing away Blair had sacked several members of his Cabinet, including Harriet Harman, one of his most devoted supporters. And as Blair’s team were battling to […]
