Let’s ban ‘violent pornography’… and then what?
by Stephen Tall on August 30, 2005
To campaign for freedom of expression is an uneasy trade. Despite the parental exhortation to teased children everywhere that ‘Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can never harm you’, we all know it just ain’t so. Verbal (…)
Snow White and the Seven Tory Dwarves
by Stephen Tall on August 16, 2005
The tale of the current Tory Party’s woes makes for grim reading. So what could be more fun than to give it a Grimm reading? (We’ll leave that question hanging.) Although there are currently 89 Tory MPs vying for the (…)
Big Brother: 78 days re-nationalising our privatised culture
by Stephen Tall on August 11, 2005
I’m going to make no bones about it; I’m not going to attempt to hide it; it’s no more than the truth. I am a Big Brother addict, and Friday represents, for me, the climax of 11 weeks’ gloriously, excruciatingly (…)
LTP v S106: WTF…?
by Stephen Tall on August 9, 2005
The lexicon of local government is fine-tuned to baffle all but the most diligent cognoscenti. There is just so much unnecessary wrapping. Cynics often assume the idea of this must be to keep ordinary mortals amused by peeling away the (…)
Robin Cook R.I.P.
by Stephen Tall on August 7, 2005
The encomia which studded news coverage of Robin Cook’s sudden death were wholly apt. I have tried, and failed, to think of a single other Labour politician for whom I have such utter respect. Respect cuts two ways: one cannot (…)
Lawless Britain: enough already with the law-making
by Stephen Tall on August 3, 2005
Treating The Sun seriously is always a mistake, of course. One should just swat aside its casually xenophobic, sexist, homophobic utterings with as little thought or effort as one would spare for flicking away a fly, or as the Australians (…)
