W. D. Rubinstein (Second edition, revised and updated) London: Social Affairs Unit, 2006, pp., £20 Did you know that, on his death in 2001, former Beatle, George Harrison, left the second largest fortune in the UK (£98,916,000)? If you like facts like this, you will enjoy this book, and you will be in good … Read more
For almost two generations, researchers in the UFO field have suspected that there is a cover-up by US government agencies which prevents any meaningful progress in discovering the facts behind the UFO myth. The single most important factor supporting this view has been the alleged crash of a UFO at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. … Read more
Given a WTO-driven free trade regime in a world without enforceable international law and with large accumulations of capital emerging from the supply of consumer wants (including guns, sex, labour, drugs, untaxed goods and unregulated financial services), the lifting of capital controls by the Reagan-Thatcher generation also meant the globalisation of criminality in all its … Read more
Where’s Ware? John Ware is one of the leading British TV journalists of our age. He has worked for World in Action and Panorama and is held in very high regard by his colleagues. Having produced a number of documentaries on the war in Northern Ireland he is now seen as an expert on the … Read more
Introduction The British press is pretty feeble, and much of the problem begins with its cosy relationship with the British state. At the heart of that relationship is the ‘lobby system’, that peculiar British institution formed to allow the state and its political mouthpieces to lie to the media off the record. The document reproduced … Read more
Ronald Gray, founder and owner of The Hammersmith Bookshop (1948-1963) and Hammersmith Books (1963-2000) died on 30 May at the age of 87. He was a most remarkable person, with a passionate interest in everything relating to politics and to recent history. He developed the vast stock of out-of-print books in Hammersmith Books to reflect … 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
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices Credit where credit is due Like many other small magazines, Lobster would probably not exist were it not for Central Books, who have been distributing Lobster since issue 16, generating that bit of extra sales revenue to help keep this curious enterprise afloat. To … Read more
From Mark Hollingsworth As the journalist, along with Nick Fielding, who first reported David Shayler’s revelations about MI5 in the Mail on Sunday in 1997, I would like to set the record straight on your piece in Lobster 36 (‘Peter’s Friends’?) I have remained close to David Shayler and Annie Machon, his girlfriend and also … Read more
All four of Tony Blair’s new political appointees at the Ministry of Defence are part of Labour’s Atlanticist network. Three of them, George Robertson, Lord John Gilbert and John Speller, are members of two interrelated bodies, the Atlantic Council and its labour movement wing, the Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding (TUCETU). The … Read more
