Putting lives in danger? Tinker, tailor, journalist, spy: the use of journalistic cover

The Anglo-American intelligence agencies’ use of journalists as spies or propagandists and the practice of providing intelligence agents in the field with journalistic cover have been a source of controversy for many decades. This paper examines the extent to which these covert practices have taken place and whether they have put journalists’ lives in danger. This paper, drawing on various methodologies, examines a number of cases where the arrest, murder or kidnap of journalists was justified on the grounds that the journalist was a ‘spy’. This has been followed through with research using a range of sources that shows there have been many occasions when the distinction between spies and journalists has been opaque. The paper concludes that widespread use of journalistic cover by spies has put lives in danger but the extent is unquantifiable

The rise of neo-liberal revolution in Britain: Thatcherism in the British conservative party

Recent theories of party change have emphasized interaction between political parties and their environment Employing this notion of interaction, this article has attempted to provide a more systematic analysis of the rise of Thatcherism in the British Conservative Party. It has demonstrated that while socio-economic changes provided a primary source of the ideological change, there were internal processes within the party that perceived environmental pressure from the socio-economic changes and actually pursued the task of the ideological change. First, environmental change in the socio-economic arena provided an initial cause of the rise of Thatcherism in the British Conservative Party. Second, electoral defeats also played a significant influence in the rise of Thatcherism. Third, a replacement of party leadership was another significant intervening impetus of the ideological change.