**'As British official records are still "going missing", the significance of Cobain's work only increases' David Olusoga'In an astonishing book, the writer Ian Cobain reveals the mass destruction of records and archives, and the false memory it has left us with' Andrew Marr**In 1889, the first Official Secrets Act was passed. Since then a culture of secrecy has flourished. As successive governments have been selective about what they choose to share with the public, we hav...

The official line is clear: the UK does not 'participate in, solicit, encourage or condone' torture. And yet, the evidence is irrefutable: when faced with potential threats to our national security, the gloves always come off. Drawing on previously unseen official documents, and the accounts of witnesses, victims and experts, prize-winning investigative journalist Ian Cobain looks beyond the cover-ups and the equivocations, to get to the truth. From WWII to the War on Terror, via Kenya and...

On the morning of Saturday 22nd April 1978, members of an Active Service Unit of the IRA hijacked a car and crossed the countryside to the town of Lisburn. Within an hour, they had killed an off-duty policeman in front of his young son.In Anatomy of a Killing, award-winning journalist Ian Cobain documents the hours leading up to the killing, and the months and years of violence, attrition and rebellion surrounding it. Drawing on interviews with those most closely involved, ...

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. This edition also includes an extra chapter charting the course from Blair to Brexit.It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders think they know what the...

To mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has opened its archives for the first time to an independent historian. In The Defence of the Realm, Christopher Andrew reveals the precise role of the Security Service in 20th-century British history, from its founding by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909 through two world wars and up to and including its present roles in counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. Full of dry humour, this fas...

As we become ever-more aware of how our governments “eavesdrop” on our conversations, here is a gripping exploration of this unknown realm of the British secret service: Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ).GCHQ is the successor to the famous Bletchley Park wartime code-breaking organisation and is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the country. During the war, it commanded more staff than MI5 and MI6 combined and has produced a number of intelligen...

The SAS describes its attitude to the use of lethal force as 'Big boys' games, big boys' rules'. Anyone caught with a gun or bomb can expect to be shot. In Big Boys' Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA Mark Urban meticulously explores the security forces' covert operations in Northern Ireland: from the mid-1970s, when they were stepped up, to the Loughall ambush in 1987, in which eight IRA Provisionals were killed. While charting the successes and failures of sp...

A candid and brutal account of murder, abduction, and violence during the Troubles in Northern Ireland-from two men on opposite sides of the conflict.After 'the long war' in Ireland came to an end, very few paramilitary leaders on either side spoke openly about their role in that bloody conflict, but in Voices from the Grave, two leading figures from opposing sides reveal their involvement in bombings, shootings and killings on one condition: that their stories wer...

The Irish National Liberation Army was one of the most ruthless terrorist organisations during the troubles in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1974 as a splinter group of the Official IRA, the INLA's campaign of murder throughout the 1970s and 1980s included such notorious acts as the bombing of the Droppin' Well in Derry in 1982 and, perhaps most infamously, the kidnapping and mutilation of Dublin dentist by former member, the "Border Fox".Many of their leading members found death at ...

The political thriller of the year - UPDATED WITH A DEVASTATING NEW CHAPTER ON THE CHILCOT INQUIRY'Excellent' Sunday Times'Devastating' Daily MailWhen Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, he was, at forty-three, the youngest to hold that office since 1812. With a landslide majority, his approval rating was 93 per cent and he went on to become Labour's longest-serving premier....

PO Box 500, London W2; the nondescript address from behind which one of the worlds most famous Secret Services hid: MI5. This book, based on previously secret sources, lifts the lid on Britains Security Service.The authors look in detail at MI5s role in the post-Cold War world; in particular, they consider its changing role as it took on the main responsibility in countering terrorist threats to Britain. Controversy has never been far away during MI5s battle against the IRA, which ...

'. . . a well-written piece of investigative journalism that asks some deeply troubling questions . . .' - NY Journal of Books 'Cadwallader has written a brave, powerful and forensically detailed book about a shameful and denied aspect of our conflict's history.' - The Irish Times. 'Anne Cadwallader's remarkable book focusses on collusion in the British security forces (the RUC, the British Army, and the UDR) in the mid-Ulster "Murder Triangle". Over 120 people were killed by a loyalist ga...