[…] and 139). Of that group, only Benn mattered at all, and in the period Crozier is writing of, post 1974, he was completely marginalised by Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan. Yes, there were Labour MPs — a handful — who were still friendly with the Soviet bloc. Mr Crozier will not be shocked to […]
[…] For more seasoned campaigners however, the book has less to offer. In many of the topics, such as those covering the Calvi murder, the plots against Harold Wilson, the CIA drugs connection etc, anyone who has been following the topics will feel that some of the more obvious and important texts have not been […]
[…] in 1974. And then? Well – not very much, publicly: 18 years on the back-benches during which he called for an enquiry into the plots to destabilise Wilson and voted against the Poll Tax. But privately, it was a different matter. Harding, Leigh and Pallister dive into News of the World territory with a […]
[…] of which he was Secretary. Published in 1968, an A2 format pamphlet, Biafra included some acute insights into the politics of oil, the feeble response of the Wilson Government, and the role of the tame British Africa correspondents recycling the Foreign Office line — almost everything, in fact, except the Harold Smith material. Non-lethal […]
[…] assertion that ‘at sea drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a favourable wind’. Elwell’s energetic attempts to drown figures as varied as Harold Wilson and Chris Mullin continued after his formal retirement from countering ‘domestic subversion’ as head of F section in 1979. Working with Margaret Thatcher’s aide during the […]
[…] the Ottoman perpetrators at least kept the Russians out of the Balkans) and worked for Irish Home Rule. He has been seen as a forerunner of Woodrow Wilson, whose crusade for national self-determination inspired millions at the end of World War One, and as one of the founders of liberalism. So how can he […]
[…] as an apparently reliable source – indeed, McKittrick (quoting an unidentified Wallace) was one of the first journalists to break the stories of MI5 operations against the Wilson government. Some of the McKittrick material (and the piece by Ware which accompanied it) is very bad journalism, and by a long way the worst thing […]
[…] the radical right-wing think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, became an MEP in 1994 and ran the Referendum Party 1996/1997. He received a knighthood from Harold Wilson in 1976 for ‘services to ecology’. This is thought to have been a Wilsonian joke. The real reason for the honour is thought to be Goldsmith’s […]
[…] and Liberal politicians to assess the interest in a coalition dominated by The Focus. (12) Focus friends in the media In the media The Focus eventually recruited Wilson Harris (The Spectator), Kingsley Martin (New Statesman), Lady Rhonda (Time and Tide) and Harcourt Johnstone (The Economist). Using a publishing company it had set up, Union […]
[…] UK equivalent would be the underground press of the late sixties and early seventies. Thomas’s heroes are the likes of Timothy Leary, Wilhem Reich and Robert Anton- Wilson, and you might find a copy of Oz or IT which had pieces about two of those three. (Anton-Wilson appeared a little later.) This is probably […]
