The Economic League Labour Research (April 1988) have produced a written version of the essential content of the two World in Action programmes on it, with current personnel and the names of some 350 British companies which have funded the EL since 1972. In line with the thesis suggested by White in his essay (see … Read more
The American boomerang In America, Mayor Bloomberg has banned smoking in public places, especially in restaurants, inadvertently turning New York into an unlikely but almost spook-free zone. (1) American intelligence officers may not smoke, but some of their overseas contacts will. If meeting in the West, they will prefer to do so in London; or, … Read more
In footnote 6 in his essay on the Bilderberg group in Lobster 32, Mike Peters noted that the US Left had lost interest in the study of the power elite because the subject had become ‘contaminated’ by the interest in it taken by the US Right.(1) I had never thought of it as that, but … Read more
Of the many questions left unanswered from this summer’s so-called Lobbygate furore, one stands out: why did Prime Minister Tony Blair expend so much energy and political capital saving Roger Liddle, the Downing Street adviser who was caught by The Observer offering access through his former lobbyist business partner, Derek Draper? Loyalty cannot be an … Read more
Colin Thompson was in his sixties, with bottle-bottomed glasses. He was carrying a laundry basket when we met, so he offered me his forefinger to shake instead of his hand. When I asked who he had voted for, Colin became visibly confused. It was just after 9 pm on 5 May 2005 and polling stations … Read more
Here are a few more web sites that may be of interest. Thanks for contributions to David Guyatt, Terry Hanstock, Daniel Brandt, Chris Atton and Tony Hollick. Further contributions and comments are welcome: my e-mail is Politics and government USA DoE Office of Human Radiation Experiments http://www.ohre.doe.gov/ ‘OHRE, established in March 1994, leads the … Read more
See Note (1) Introduction In The Wealth of Nations, a book supposed to underpin modern free-market philosophies, Adam Smith thought that the separation of management from ownership would inevitably gave rise to negligence and corruption. The owners of Enron were the shareholders, represented by pension funds, banks and trust funds. The chief managers of Enron … Read more
One of the aims of this column is to open up new lines of enquiry for parapolitical specialists. It might seem very odd to start with the name of Reinhard Gehlen, long-since dead founder of the BND, the German Security Service. Reinhard Gehlen, to over-simplify a very complex tale, bought his way into the Western … Read more
This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis’s book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995) reviewed below. In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran’s nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture … Read more
‘A Most Extraordinary Case’ Malcolm Kennedy says his telephones, post and e-mail are being interfered with. His attempts to seek answers have left him in a bureaucratic maze. Background ‘A most extraordinary case’ said Michael Mansfield QC, describing the events at Hammersmith Police Station on the night of December 23/24 1990. Two men – Patrick … Read more
