The French ‘Non’ – sense, or nonsense?
by Stephen Tall on May 30, 2005
And so it came to pass: France, one of the six founding signatories of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, has rejected the constitutional treaty drafted by its former president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing. The Netherlands – another founder member – we (…)
Smarter and Smarterer: the pop culture Sleeper Curve
by Stephen Tall on May 29, 2005
Big Brother VI began this week, and six million of us breathed a sigh of relief that, once again, our lives had some meaning: 11 weeks in which to learn to love, to hate or to shrug our shoulders with (…)
Overcast and gloomy, with occasional outbreaks of perspective
by Stephen Tall on May 21, 2005
I have two rules, to which I have stuck pretty hard and pretty fast, for the 40 opinion pieces I’ve written this year. First, to write about topical issues of urgency and import, attempting to draw out general philosophical truths. (…)
General Election 2005 Post Mortem, Pt III: The strange death of political journalism
by Stephen Tall on May 18, 2005
This should have been a fascinating election campaign. The last four years has scarcely witnessed a dearth of Big Issues to get the public fired up. In February 2003, up to two million British citizens marched to demonstrate their opposition (…)
General Election 2005 Post Mortem, Pt II: Oops, we did it again
by Stephen Tall on May 14, 2005
This may qualify as the shortest political honeymoon in history. Eight days after Labour’s third successive victory, and the media – and seemingly much of the public – is determined to ensure Mr Blair’s nose remains bloodied. Is this fair? (…)
2005 General Election Post Mortem, Pt I: the Tories’ rigor mortis
by Stephen Tall on May 9, 2005
“I mean, how hard can it be to win an election?” Perhaps the best part of Thursday night for those of us who gain some sadistic pleasure from watching the Tory Party in pain is that they did just well (…)