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Mike Hughes, the compiler and editor of the site has been researching and writing about the Economic League since the1980’s when evidence of the blacklist first became public as a result of revelations first made public by the League’s North West Region’s director.
At the start of this period he was a performance poet, and alternative journalist with the 1 in 12 publications collective late joined the team on the weekly Leeds Other Paper where he was the TV critic as well as a news journalist. From 1986 he stopped ranting and reviewing TV got a proper job in the NHS field of health promotion where he also became a NUPE, then Unison, lay official as well as a specialist in work place health and safety . However he was also founder member of LeagueWatch, and continued working as what would now be called a citizen journalist.
In 1993, following the collapse of the Economic League, the 1 in 12 Publications Collective published Spies at Work, his and the first complete history of the Economic League. After retiring from working in the NHS full time. He updated Spies ate Work, taking into account the Story revealed by Phil Chamberlin in the Guardian of the Consulting Associations continuation of the Economic League’s blacklist up to 2010.
Mike was to be a witness in the massive group action brought against the construction companies and he contributed thousands of pages of documentary evidence to the complainants cases, which were settled at the courthouse door with and least £70m of compensation, and in addition to this legal cost in excess of £100m , being paid out by the construction firms.
The Economic League is once again in the public spotlight as the Mitting Inquiry begins its investigation of undercover policing and revelations will be covered here. “I don’t think I was thirty when I started looking into the league. When 1 in 12 first published something substantial on the League it was in 1987, a booklet called “ Against Democracy”, and it was dedicated to my new born, eldest son who was 33 in 2020.
The original Spies at Work was one of the first e books ever distributed, on 3.5’’ disks. And it was put online not long and new-fangled “Hyperlinks” were added. It is still there to read at:
If you’d prefer and old fashioned paper back of the newer version that is available to buy at
These days there is a substantial entry originally compiled by Mike on Powerbase:
For even more up to date information read Phil Chamberlain and Dave Smiths “Blacklisted”
… And Rob Evans and Paul Lewis’s "Undercover"
