In 1997 Robert Henderson, a retired civil servant, wrote to the then leader of the Opposition Tony Blair to ask for his help. Eventually he wrote a dozen or so letters to Blair and Cherie Booth. Blair then tried to have him prosecuted but the legal authorities refused to act. Blair or someone close to … Read more
Parish Notices Thanks to Robin Whittaker (in particular), Peter Watson, Solomon Hughes, Phil Chamberlain, Terry Hanstock, Jane Affleck, Sukarai Haruhiko, Peter Watson, David Lee, John Burnes and Harry Irwin for information, material and advice. Correction In footnote 1 on page 28 of Lobster 35 I referred to Labour MP Tony Lloyd as a ‘moderniser’. My … Read more
Brian Crozier HarperCollins, London, 1993 This is a very interesting book which greatly adds to our knowledge of the clandestine shaping of British politics in the 1970s and 80s. It is also a book which, like Chapman Pincher’s Inside Story, will repay repeated re-reading. But amidst all the new material a surprising amount of these … Read more
Dave Renton Pluto, London, 1999, £9.99 This book has been touted in some areas as a radical, new contribution to the study of fascism; and it is certainly well-packaged and cheap. To start with the good points which, although few, are important: if you want to know who the current academic theorists on modern … Read more
The other Bilderberg Between 1964 and 1966 there was a little-known attempt to establish a new Commonwealth conference modelled on the Bilderberg Group, with Prince Philip lined up to take a leading role. Nothing ever came of it, mainly because of the impact that Rhodesia’s UDI had on Commonwealth affairs. Newly released documents from The … Read more
Nicholas Bethell’s memoir Spies and Other Secrets (Viking, London, 1994) includes a curious section in which Bethell describes how in 1970, after he had been involved in the first publication of Solzhenitzen’s Cancer Ward in the West, he was attacked by a curious alliance of the left, Private Eye, and various people in and close … Read more
Ian Cameron 17pp + 11pp documents £2.50 incl. p&p from 10 Knox Court, Studley Road, London SW4 6SA. I’ve got fucking A levels in fucking whacking fucking people…. Your fucking ceasefire’s going….I’ll be in touch with you fucking soon….You watch your fucking car. On 9 February 1996 the IRA ended its cease fire by bombing … Read more
Lobster’s writers say farewell (in approximately 250 words or less) In alphabetical order: Richard Alexander: Good riddance. Dan Atkinson: Prediction is a mug’s game, but here is one forecast for the early, troubled years of the next decade: Tony Blair’s ten years in power will be widely seen as a golden age of cheap consumer … Read more
Colin Crawford. London: Pluto Press, 2003, £14.99, p/back When World-in-Action and Tribune journalist David Boulton published his excellent book, The UVF, 1966-73, (Torc Books, 1974) he bemoaned a near absence of valuable books and journal articles on Loyalism. In contrast to their Republican counterparts, Loyalists do not have a substantive support base overseas; nor … Read more
In the course of my research into the U.S. Army LSD tests (see Lobster 23) among the U.S. Army records, I encountered a few vague references to similar experiments conducted in the U.K.. On February 28, 1993 I faxed a letter to Dr. Graham S. Pearson, the Director of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment … Read more
