I was born in a working class area of Leeds in September 1919. My parents were Quaker-ILPers and it was natural for me to gravitate to the labour movement. In 1934 I left school and joined the South Leeds Labour Party. The Labour League of Youth of the pre-war period had been heavily infiltrated by … Read more
Pieces without an author are by the editor Parish Notices Thanks to Phil Chamberlain, Alex Cox, Richard Alexander, Robin Whittaker, Rom, Jane Affleck, Peter Watson, Chris Tame, Terry Hanstock and Phil Edwards for information, cuttings or sources. Somebody commented recently that Lobster had changed from its early days. Yes it has. This is inevitable. The … Read more
by Peter Padfield Papermac, London, 1993, £12.99 There are now several versions of the Hess affair. One is the official story – a politician whose star is one the wane, attempts a spectacular comeback, fails, is locked up for forty years and finally commits suicide in despair. Another is the double theory, first outlined in … Read more
Ed. Greg Bishop Adventures Unlimited, Kempton, Illinois 60946 $24.99 from Flatland This has an introduction by Kenn Thomas of Steamshovel and shares much of its subject matter with Thomas’ magazine. That subject matter being UFOs; what I would call consciousness politics – drugs, mysticism, the paranormal, mind control, remote viewing; secrecy and conspiracy theories; … Read more
Srebrenica In Lobster 46 I noted that the publisher of Cees Wiebes’ Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995 had declined to supply a review copy. Mr Wiebes subsequently informed me that the full report on Srebrenica, commissioned by the Dutch government, including the material which made up his book, is on-line, in English, at … Read more
Wellington Pacific Review Owen Wilkes has ceased production of Wellington Pacific Review (ISSN 0135-5619), the New Zealand newsletter on events in that part of the Pacific, but it continues under the control of Iain MacDougall. At £10/ US 14 for 10 issues, WPR should be on the list of anyone with even a passing interest … Read more
Editorially Writing in mid-January… good news is the arrival of The Digger, apparently set fair to replace Private Eye as the major outlet – major above ground outlet – for British parapolitics. (Lobster, as one British academic said to me, is ‘underground’…). The new Kincora-Blunt trail, opened up by Ken Livingstone in the House of … 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
There have been several notable assaults on the good ship Lobster since number 24. On Thursday, 19 November 1992 a journalist researching a piece on MI6 rang me. He said had been to talk to the KGB defector, Oleg Gordiefsky, who told him that the KGB were big fans of Lobster. Since Gordiefky defected in … Read more
Cyberculture: Counterconspiracy – A Steamshovel Web Reader Ed. Kenn Thomas Vol 1. The Book Tree, California, 1999 ISBN 1-58509-125-1 $16.95 from Flatland Vol 2. The Book Tree, California, 1999 ISBN 1-58509-126-X $13.95 from Flatland Two volumes of material which originally appeared on the Steamshovel Web site: a splendid jumble of conspiracy theories, research, debate … Read more
