Book Reviews Gerry Healey: A Revolutionary Life Corinna Lotz and Paul Feldman Lupus Books, PO Box 942, London, SW1V 2AR, £15.00 Ken Livingstone MP was given a large chunk of a page of the Guardian (tabloid section p. 13, September 6, 1994) to write a review of this book. The bit that caught my eye … Read more
On 1 January 2005 several new laws and regulations governing access to information come into force: the Freedom of Information Act 2000, covering England, Wales and N. Ireland; the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002; new Environmental Information Regulations 2004/5; Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004; and an extension of the Data Protection Act 1998 to … Read more
Crime fighting? There must many candidates for the title ‘The most damaging thing I have read about this government’. My current candidate is a piece by Simon Jenkins, ‘A Keep Police off the Streets Strategy Unit’ (The Times 2 February 2002). After reminding the reader that in the UK the police are a local service, … Read more
The first of three essays in this issue are about New Labour and its origins. I put mine first because of its general, context-setting nature. The subsequent essays, on the Successor Generation and the operations in the British Unions, deepen and thicken the section towards the end of the opening essay which discusses New Labour’s … Read more
Yesterday’s loony tunes become today’s reality. Here are some recent examples. Gulf war syndrome, whose existence has been denied by the Ministry of Defence for over a decade, is now being admitted. As the Telegraph’s version of the story put it: ‘Soldiers sent to the 1991 Gulf war were given a combination of vaccines that … Read more
Gecas and Special Branch A wonderful example of the reach and power of intelligence connections was provided in January. Why did the British state refuse to extradite Anton Gecas, the WW2 Lithuanian war criminal, to the Soviet Union in 1976? Turns out not only had Gecas worked for SIS at the end of WW2, he’d … Read more
Saul Landau Counterpunch (US) and AK Press (UK), 2007, p/b, $15.00 (US) and £10 (UK) Saul Landau is one of those names on the American Left that I recognise but whose work, apart from his Assassination on Embassy Row, about the murder of Letelier 25 years ago, I don’t think I have ever read … Read more
This conversation with Peter Dale Scott was recorded in London at the end of August 1984. For the most part it is verbatim Scott: my contributions have been tidied up a good deal. As anyone who has met me knows, I am not as concise and articulate as the ‘RR’ presented here. This text is … Read more
Brothers: The hidden history of the Kennedy years David Talbot London: Simon and Schuster, 2007, h/b, £20 Another Kennedy book? Yes, but a good one. Talbot may not have anything new of substance to tell us about the assassination per se but has much new material about events before and after it. Talbot’s JFK … Read more
