Clint Eastwood Movies Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and to be released in Britain in December 2006, is an example of post-9-11 PR. It tells the story of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima and has been described as the first film in which the balance of combat and public relations has … Read more
Some reflections on the life, times and politics of Sir James Goldsmith The Clermont Set The Clermont Club was opened in 1962 by John Aspinall after the gaming laws had been liberalised by the MacMillan government.(1)During the 1950s Aspinall built up a personal fortune providing premises for exclusive gambling sessions in London, much of which … Read more
There is an unmistakable thread running through America’s move eastward since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using their vast economic clout – in the form of loans, grants and sanctions – and backed by threatening military supremacy (to say nothing of the devious use of ‘unattributable’ mercenary groups such as the MPRI), … Read more
‘Modernism is political’. Okay, it’s not the snappiest start to an article I know, but it gets to the bottom of the phenomenon that is LM, formerly Living Marxism, currently Last Magazine. Confused? Yes they are, but not as confused as the liberal intelligentsia who have been trying to decode what LM means for the … Read more
Flat Earth News: An award-winning reporter exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media Nick Davies London: Chatto & Windus, 2008, £17.99, For many taking a dissenting view of our national life, The Guardian and The Observer have long been part of our diet – the morning fix that sustains us in our daily … Read more
More, please In an account of his career as a writer of spy fiction (Guardian 16 November ’89) John Le Carré referred to the hostile reaction received by his (unnamed) second book, presumably The Looking Glass War: ‘Critics and public alike rejected the novel, but this time the spies were cross. And since the British … Read more
Publications The Andropov Deception John Rossiter (Sherwood Press, London 1984) ‘John Rossiter’ is Brian Crozier, long-time asset of British and American intelligence agencies. (see Times 29 October 1984), and this is quite the worst – and worst written – thriller I’ve read (even worse than The Spike). Rather like The Spike, The Andropov Deception is … Read more
Introduction I began writing this in the early 1980s. If you were then reading the Guardian or the Observer, and knew a little, simple economics, it didn’t take genius to notice that while the UK’s manufacturing economy was being decimated by Conservative Party economic policy, the City of London was booming. More interestingly, and less … Read more
See note (1) David Phillips, the former CIA officer considered by the Select Committee on Assassinations as a possible candidate for the true identity behind the cover name ‘”Maurice Bishop” -(2)- reacted strongly when this book was published in the summer of 1980. He contacted top executives in newspapers and television, making himself available to … Read more
Paul Bruce Blake Publishing, London 1995, £15.99 The pseudonymous author claims to have been a member of a clandestine 4-man SAS squad which assassinated a couple of dozen alleged IRA members in the 1971-3 period in Northern Ireland. The author’s taped and transcribed memories are intercut with sections from an uncredited ghost writer – apparently … Read more
