Clockwork Orange (plot) Clockwork Orange (plot) Clockwork Orange is the name of the secret British security services project which was alleged to have involved a right-wing smear campaign against British politicians from 1974 to 1975. The black propaganda led Prime Minister Harold Wilson to fear that the security services were preparing a "coup d'état". The operation takes its name from "A Clockwork Orange", a 1971 Stanley Kubrick film based on an Anthony Burgess novel of the same name. The project was undertaken by members of the British intelligence services and the British Army press office in Northern Ireland, whose job also included routine
A Clockwork Orange (novel) Kubrick's opinion—as in the opinion of other readers, including the original American editor—the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book. "A Clockwork Orange" was written in Hove, then a senescent seaside town. Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had grown, including coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs. England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency. Burgess claimed that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried.