From April to late June 1992, I spent some three months in a Dutch refugee camp, OC Zeewolde. I had applied for political asylum. The Dutch authorities had agreed immediately, to fully process the application. I gave them no reason for my application. The Bosnian war was beginning and the Dutch reception centres for refugees … Read more
Unfree press A recent release of previously undisclosed documents reveals that J. Edgar Hoover ordered the FBI to carry out the illegal surveillance of newspaper labour activists during the 1940s. Also revealed is the fact that informants included journalists who wanted Communists removing from the leadership of the Newspaper Guild.(1) Only following orders Psychologist Stanley … Read more
See also: Part 1 in Lobster 36 ‘Certainly I do not think that the answer to communism is a counter-faith, equally fervent, militant, etc; to begin with, nothing is less likely to create a faith, than perpetual reiteration of the fact that we are looking for one, must find one, are lost without one, etc … Read more
Alwyn W. Turner London: Arum, 2008, h/b, £20 Punk monetarism The 15 years from 1969 to 1984 convulsed British society and pulverised its economy. By the end of this period, the post-war settlement, which had been assumed to last more or less indefinitely, was in ruins and the economic and social order we inhabit today … Read more
This conversation with Peter Dale Scott was recorded in London at the end of August 1984. For the most part it is verbatim Scott: my contributions have been tidied up a good deal. As anyone who has met me knows, I am not as concise and articulate as the ‘RR’ presented here. This text is … Read more
Dr. David Kelly The death of Dr David Kelly refuses to go away. Two groups of medical experts have expressed doubts about the suicide verdict. The International Toxicology Advisory Group have queried the conclusion that Kelly swallowed at least 20 co-proxamol tablets, which contributed to his death; (1) and a group of surgeons wrote to … Read more
Searchlight At the beginning of the essay on the Blairites above, I discuss the concept of political contamination, the denigration of people on the left by association – real or fictitious – with ideas or people on the right. The most enthusiastic users of the contamination device in Britain today are found in Searchlight magazine. … Read more
Introduction While researching the Rhodesia chapters of our book, I came across the Anglo-Rhodesian Society, and discovered that, as usual with the British right, there was no substantial account of it. Here is the result of an initial trawl. Future historians of the Conservative Party may discover that upon its heart in the 1960s “Rhodesia” … Read more
The story in The Guardian of 12 November, ‘Diplomat’s “slave” can stay in UK’, was the tip of an iceberg. The story concerned the allegations made that a Sudanese diplomat had kept a ‘slave’ in London. Allegations of slavery in the Sudan have been made – and denied – for years. (A summary of the … Read more
The Stalker Affair Frank Doherty (Mercier Press, Cork, Ireland, 1986) The Genesis of Revolution James Kelly (Kelly-Kane, Dublin,1976) Frank Doherty, whose reports in the Dublin Phoenix and the Belfast Sunday News have frequently featured in Lobster, has uncovered a fascinating mass of information relating to covert cross-border operations by the Ulster security forces, and the … Read more
