Let’s start with the easiest question: what do George Robertson, Chris Smith and Marjorie ‘Mo’ Mowlam have in common? They are, of course, all strong Tony Blair supporters in the new Labour Cabinet. And what about Peter Mandelson and Elizabeth Symons? Not yet quite Cabinet members, but both are key figures in the ‘modernising project’ … 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
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
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
Parliamentary Question for Priority Written Answer on Thursday 27th November 1986 Question 160W MR. KEVIN McNAMARA: To ask Mr. Attorney General, if he will prosecute Mr. Colin Wallace, former senior information officer, Psychops, Army Headquarters, Norther Ireland for revealing details of secret service operations against Her Majesty’s Government in the period 1974 to 1979 in … Read more
Wishing and hoping I met Tony Benn only once, while researching Smear! He’s a lovely man with a big blind spot about the politics of the early 1980s in general and the Militant Tendency in particular. Here’s Benn in the course of an appreciation of Arthur Scargill on his standing down as President of … Read more
Colin Wallace and ‘Clockwork Orange 2’ In 1974, while working for the British Army’s Northern Ireland psy-ops unit, Information Policy, Wallace was asked (told) by an MI5 officer to work on a psy-ops project, ‘Clockwork Orange 2’. Wallace’s job spec. for CO2 was to produce a document, a first-hand narrative, apparently written by a supporter … Read more
A. J. Davies Little Brown and Co London, 1995, £20 Davies provides in equal measure a perceptive and comprehensive account of the modern Conservative Party which, hopefully, will lead to further reappraisals of Conservative history. In contrast to, for example, Lord Blake’s standard history of the Party over much the same period, We, The Nation … Read more
Blair Anthony Seldon London: Free Press (Simon & Shuster), 2004, h/b, £20 What a tome! At 755 pages, with 40 chapters and 3000 plus footnotes, the book is neatly divided into chapters on either specific historical periods or significant individuals. The picture that emerges of Blair is striking in its variance from much of … Read more
Publications The Kennedys: An American Drama Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Pan Books, London 1985) JFK:The Presidency of John F. Kennedy Herbert S. Parmet (Penguin Books, London 1984) Kennedy assassination buffs – and I confess to being one in a very small way – can’t resist books about the Kennedys even when they suspect there … Read more
