[…] about Spanish history and just skipped those sections.) The book as a whole is an interesting account of the post-war British left, albeit from one particular viewpoint; and, despite odd flashes of score-settling, Meltzer is an amusing raconteur. But a memoir without a name index…..? A metaphor involving tits and a bull comes to mind.
Election time! Ah, the roar of the hustings; the pulse of democracy is about to be taken. The enduring worthiness of our political system is about to be proven yet again. But what’s that you say? Something’s not quite right with the result? You smell a rat? Be quiet. Such things only happen in tin-pot … Read more
[…] Parliament. As to the charges against Fiore, having no Italian contacts and distrusting greatly the scant British press reports of the matter, I still have an open mind, and would be grateful for any information readers of Lobster can supply on this important matter. Times 19 February 1983 and Sunday Times 20 February 1983. […]
We know that torture is going on in secret and not so secret prisons. We know thanks to the excellent research done by <www.cageprisoners.com> that elements of the British government, be they MI5, MI6 or diplomats from the FCO, have been involved. Yet we seem unable to stop it. Civic society raises its voices in … Read more
[…] had graduated from writing for Lobster (see number 24) to one of Canada’s leading daily papers, the Globe and Mail; and had done so by changing his mind and accepting that the Warren Commission was correct. In the Globe and Mail of January 21 this year there is another large piece by Mr Van […]
Reflections on the ‘cult of the offensive’: pre-emptive war, the Israel lobby and US military Doctrine In our book, Spies, Lies and the War on Terror,(1) a central theme is the ascendancy of pre-emptive war doctrine in US military strategy and its impact on public perceptions and the construction of political narrative. A parallel and […]
[…] believe he ingeniously plays fast and loose with facts but because my memory of such exchanges that we had suggested to me that you had a closed mind on this issue. Baa Baa White Sheep! Simon Matthews Local government — and local politicians — generally get a bad press, some of it deserved, some […]
Inside Intelligence Anthony Cavendish Palu Publishing Ltd. 1987 Although many hundreds of books have been written on British Intelligence, very few have tackled post-war intelligence in any kind of depth or with any degree of reliability. By contrast, we tend to believe that we know quite a lot about the workings of the CIA. But … Read more
A. J. Davies Little Brown and Co London, 1995, £20 Davies provides in equal measure a perceptive and comprehensive account of the modern Conservative Party which, hopefully, will lead to further reappraisals of Conservative history. In contrast to, for example, Lord Blake’s standard history of the Party over much the same period, We, The Nation … Read more
‘Everything is going to change’ JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he died and why it matters James W. Douglass Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2008, h/b, $30.00 I am writing this immediately after Barack Obama’s victory in the US Presidential election, almost half a century after John Kennedy became the first, and thus far … Read more
