Through The Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy In An Age Of Illusions Anthony Verrier (Cape, London 1983) This will probably turn out to be an important book, maybe even a little landmark in the (scanty) literature on British foreign policy since the war. So far it has been largely ignored by the literary/political establishment, receiving … Read more
What our pols read on their hols This summer it was hard to avoid laudatory pieces about or extracts from the Drew Weston’s book The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.(1) Here, it was said, was the explanation of how George Bush beat the Democrats and – by … Read more
This continues where Lobster 14‘s reprint of the piece from Tribune stopped. It was unfortunate that the debate over the status of Colin Wallace and his allegations really got going just as Lobster 14 went to the printer. Below is what followed. 27th August 1987. Colin Wallace letter in response to the John Ware article … Read more
Blob of the month Hear the one about the supposedly spook-watching magazine whose editor misspelt the name of the head of MI5? Yep: Rimmington, I had in the last issue: Rimington it should have been. Searchlight News Their campaign against Larry O’Hara has reached new depths. In the March issue they published his picture and … Read more
The former deputy Labour leader of Preston has been given legal aid to sue the Inland Revenue, two chief constables, two former Tory government ministers, two millionaires and a former fish and chip shop owner, for conspiring to steal his tax records. Frank McGrath was swept out of power in a Labour Party purge after … Read more
Most, if not all police forces already have, or are in the process of acquiring, information handling computers of some kind. The background to the present situation is best described in the pamphlet The Police Use Of Computers, parts of which were reproduced in State Research No 29, and were used by the National Computer … Read more
Hugo Young Macmillan, 1998, £20 I cannot stand Hugo Young. He is a long-winded, pompous arsehole whose columns in the Guardian are mostly a waste of paper and ink. But he has his uses, notably as a mouthpiece for the Foreign Office. In this book he has revealed in infinitely greater detail than before the … Read more
Morris Riley, writer on espionage and occasional Lobster contributor, died around 16 June 2001. I never entirely trusted Morris: he gossiped to me about things he should have kept to himself and for the most part I blanked his questions about Lobster and the people I was talking to. Under a pseudonym Morris wrote a … Read more
Books The Great Betrayal Nicholas Bethel (London 1984) This is either a ‘snow job’, designed to discourage further research in this area (British intelligence attempts to destabilise Soviet and communist influenced regimes), or is just a poor effort on Bethel’s part. One can’t deny that it is useful – after all, it is the first … Read more
