The Cecil King coup plot as precursor to Gordon Brown’s ‘government of all the talents’ Students of parapolitics are divided as to the seriousness of the Cecil King coup plot of 1968 to establish what he called a ‘businessman’s government’, a permanent coalition government dominated by the right of the Labour Party but with unelected … Read more
This began as a review of Deacon’s Truth Twisters by David Teacher, and grew as we both saw bits and pieces we could add to it. Richard Deacon’s The Truth Twisters (McDonald, London 1987: Futura, London 1988) is a classic of Western disinformation purporting to describe Soviet disinformation. Deacon lines up all our favourite state … Read more
Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World Mark Curtis London: Vintage, 2003; p/b, £7.99 This latest analysis of British foreign policy by Mark Curtis could not be better timed. With more than a million Britons on the streets of London protesting against the Iraq war earlier this year there is a potentially large … Read more
Secret Nazi Technology which could have changed the course of WWII Gary Hyland and Anton Gill, Headline Books, 1998, £18.99 Thirty years ago schoolboys built model aeroplanes. The most common and popular were, for the Airfix generation, the main combat types of the last great war – Spitfires, Me109s, Mustangs, Zeros, Lancasters, Flying Fortresses etc … Read more
A new royalty? A few weeks before former BBC political editor Andrew Marr received two Broadcasting Press Guild awards – one as ‘best TV performer in a non-acting role’ – his journalistic colleagues were quietly made aware of a little drama in his own life. Typical of the message from editorial lawyers circulated among Britain’s … Read more
The final testimony of George Kennedy Young Introduction When this was published we believed that it had been written by a close friend of his. Subsequently we learned that it had been written by Young himself. As far as we were able to judge, it is accurate. But this is by no means the whole … Read more
Advertising In 1960s Iraq, the children of the poor carried their most treasured possessions to school in much coveted, branded soap-powder packets. When these eventually disintegrated, what remained was stuck up on the classroom wall. As a result, children could pick out the words ‘Tide’ or ‘Omo’. Praised by their teacher for doing so, a … Read more
One of the benefits of living in the West is the freedom to criticize our politicians. The fact that the electoral system rarely reflects considered criticism is not the point. We have always known that it is centred on political parties that are run by small groups more intent on newspaper opinion, and on that … Read more
Kevin Danaher (ed.) Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, U.S., 2001, $15.95 www.commoncouragepress.com This volume contains 27 short essays by everyone from Fidel Castro (rather impressive, if he wrote it himself) through Chomsky, and Naomi Klein to Margot Smith, whose essay is titled ‘Granny Goes to Washington and Goes to Jail’. So: this runs from … Read more
9/11: The new evidence Ian Henshall London: Robinson, 2007, p/b, £9.99 This is a sequel to, an updating of, Henshall’s book (co-written with Rowland Morgan) 9:11 Revealed, reviewed in Lobster 50 (p. 29). Some new bits and pieces are chewed over, some new evidence is presented, some familiar material is reworked. It is done … Read more
