Spinning the Spies: Intelligence, open government and the Hutton Inquiry

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Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

Anthony Glees and Philip H. J. Davies London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2004, £30, h/b   This is a curious little book (112 pp.) in which two conservative intelligence academics wrestle with the realities of the events leading up to the attack on Iraq. But what manner of beast is a conservative intelligence academic? The … Read more

A Century of War: Anglo-American oil politics and the new world order

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Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

William Engdahl London: Pluto, 2004, £15.99, p/b   Google the author and you will find him listed as a senior member of the Lyndon LaRouche org in 1998, European Economic Editor of Executive Intelligence Review.([16]) Although I have been told by his publisher that he is no longer with LaRouche, the book’s first edition was … Read more

Lobster Issue 40: Contents

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

Parish Notices Thanks to Robin Whittaker, Rom, Tom Easton, Ian Tresman, Jane Affleck, Dr. David Turner, and Terry Hanstock for information since the last issue. The big event in this neck of the woods is the arrival of the Lobster CD-Rom. Credit for this goes chiefly to Ian Tresman, Lobster Website manager and creator, who … Read more

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

  Wishing and hoping I met Tony Benn only once, while researching Smear! He’s a lovely man with a big blind spot about the politics of the early 1980s in general and the Militant Tendency in particular. Here’s Benn in the course of an appreciation of Arthur Scargill on his standing down as President of … Read more

The Open Side of Secrecy: Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Anthony Glees, Philip J. Davies, and John N. L. Morrison London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2006, £20, h/b   The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is a recent addition to the roster of Whitehall bodies; the motives of those who created it, as the authors show, are obscure and its role to some extent remains … Read more

Demos – fashionable ideas and the rule of the few

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

Two pieces here by Tim Pendry. The major piece is followed by an addendum, which began as the text of a letter from Pendry to Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in response to an article of Gabb’s. Pendry copied me his letter and I saw that it would go nicely with the longer … Read more

UDA: Inside the heart of Loyalist terror

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Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack London: Penguin, 2004, £12.99, p/b   Henry McDonald’s highly readable recent book with Jim Cusack on the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is everything that other recent offerings on the subject were not. On the one hand, it avoids the kind of borderline homo-erotic sensationalism, in which the atrocities of self-serving … Read more

Parish Notices

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008) £££

Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices Errors in Issue 53 In the review The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism, Richard Cummings appeared as John Cummings. On the front cover and on pp. 2 and 31 Corinne Souza was given as Corinne de Souza. Considering that both have written for this … Read more

Storming teacups! Or: Steve Dorril, Lobster and me

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££

On the jacket of his new book, reviewed in this issue, Steve Dorril writes there that he ‘is founder-editor of the widely respected journal’ Lobster. I invite you to look on the rear cover of this magazine and see who the editor is. That’s right: it’s not Steve Dorril. I have resisted going into detail … Read more

Lobster Issue 42: Contents

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2) £££

Pieces without an author are by the editor. Parish Notices Thanks to Robin Whittaker, Rom, Jane Affleck, Richard Alexander, Terry Hanstock, Chris Tame, David Turner and Peter Watson for information. Thanks in particular to the mysterious and anonymous visitor, ‘Luca’, who knocked on my door one day, stayed about ten minutes and gave me £1000. … Read more

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