Why do they do this? In the previous issue I referred to the fictitious comments attributed by Tony Blair to a doctor in Africa. They’ve done it again. In February Blair’s spin doctor in chief, Alastair Campbell, claimed to have saved a man from being beaten by muggers, The Mail on Sunday (23 February) traced … Read more
A secret service? In the Guardian of 12 June 2000 David Leigh had an important piece on the relationship between our secret servants and the media. At the core of this was his account of the revelation, via a libel suit in London, of an MI6 operation to plant disinformation in the Sunday Telegraph about … Read more
AMBUSH: the war between the SAS and the IRA James Adams, Robin Morgan and Anthony Bambridge (Pan, London 1988, 200 pp £3.99) Following the Gibralter shootings, the Sunday Times ‘Insight’ team lead the campaign to discredit eyewitness accounts of how the SAS killed the IRA unit.(1) Ambush is their account of the shootings and SAS … Read more
“The anomaly of going to war in your own country was not lost on Harry.” (Harry’s Game, Gerald Seymour, Fontana, London 1975) Airey Neave was killed in March 1979 by a bomb planted beneath his car just outside the Houses of Parliament. The then little known Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) soon claimed responsibility. The … Read more
Gone but not forgotten: a further update on Di Terry Hanstock This update follows on from my earlier articles in Lobster 38 and Lobster 39 Never was the old adage ‘She’s dead but she won’t lie down’ more apt than when applied to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Although she died almost nine years … Read more
Brice is right? An ‘immoral’ government has undermined human rights in Northern Ireland and is threatening to do the same across the rest of the United Kingdom, argued Professor Brice Dickson, the then Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission,([1]) in an interview with ePolitix.com to mark Human Rights Day last December.([2])He claimed … Read more
It is intended that this list should include all Parliamentary (Lords and Commons) personalities who are named as proposing an Anglo-German peace deal after the outbreak of war or as being in touch with the Nazi regime either directly or through neutrals in pursuit of such an accommodation. Sources: Unpublished: Home Office, (HO) Foreign Office … Read more
It is still possible to find an interesting Penguin Special that appeared in 1958. British Economic Policy Since the War, by Andrew Shonfield, then Economics Editor of The Observer, remains a striking piece of work. Among his conclusions were: that the maintenance of a separate Sterling Area, giving the comforting feeling and appearance of great … Read more
From Les Raphael A comment on Garrick Alder’s reference in Lobster 43 to the Zinoviev letter story. It’s a myth that the letter cost Labour the 1924 election, loaded with false implications, such as: that Labour had a majority to begin with (they only won 191 seats in 1923 – and only contested 427 out … Read more
Election time! Ah, the roar of the hustings; the pulse of democracy is about to be taken. The enduring worthiness of our political system is about to be proven yet again. But what’s that you say? Something’s not quite right with the result? You smell a rat? Be quiet. Such things only happen in tin-pot … Read more
