THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD AS A WHOLE, AND GOVERNMENT and Opposition most particularly, mourn the loss of Ernest Gellner, a major figure who died in Prague on 5 November 1995.

DURING AUTUMN 1995 JUDICIAL REVIEW BECAME NEWS IN THE United Kingdom. Tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, radio, television and Parliament provided fora for ministers, Conservative backbench MPs and journalists to debate the apparent growing willingness of the judiciary to intervene in politically contentious government decisions. The tone of the debate was often hostile; sometimes vitriolic. We were told that there was a crisis. According to an editorial in The Times, ‘it is tempting to observe a pattern emerging, a potentially alarming hostility between an overmighty executive and an ambitious judiciary’. Radio and television journalists described a situation of ‘mutual resentment and suspicion’ and ‘unprecedented conflict between a Conservative government and the judiciary’. The Daily Express denounced ‘the sickness sweeping through the senior judiciary – galloping arrogance’ and the Daily Mail accused judges of giving ‘the impression – perhaps a false impression, but nevertheless a real one – of acting on a political agenda of their own’.

THERE ARE CERTAIN PREDICTABLE HIGH POINTS IN THE political calendar. Local elections, the Queen's speech and the Budget are pencilled in at each party's headquarters and the media devote acres of newsprint and hours of broadcasting time to each. Yet none of these compare in duration to the season of party conferences, which last for the best part of a month. For political commentators and activists they are the political equivalent of an Olympic games for sports fans and competitors.

‘IT LOOKS TO ME DISTINCTLY LIKE CANADIAN FEDERALISM'S referendum to lose’, I wrote late last winter, anticipating the call from Jacques Parizeau's provincial Parti Québécois for the second referendum on Quebec ‘sovereignty’ in fifteen years, expected sometime in 1995. Thank goodness I took the precaution to add: ‘bearing in mind, of course, that from the sovereignists’ angle of vision, it appears to be their referendum to lose, too.’ But I confess I meant the qualification to be taken as tongue-in-cheek rather than as a serious guess about what then seemed likely to lie ahead. Certainly the auguries, had the PQ decided to go ahead with its referendum in early 1995, suggested that the federalists in Quebec would probably have carried the day as decisively as they had in 1980, when almost 60 per cent of Quebeckers rejected René Lévesque's first PQ referendum on ‘sovereignty-association’.

THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT AND THE MAASTRICHT TREATY attempted to balance two principles of representation in their redesign of the institutional structures of the European Union: the one, based on the indirect representation of publics through nationally elected governments in the European Council and Council of Ministers; the other, based on the direct representation of publics through a more powerful European Parliament. There is much to be said for this balance, for neither of the two principles can, on its own, be an adequate solution at this stage in the development of the EU. The Council suffers from a non-transparent style of decision-making and is, in the view of many, closer to oligarchic than to democratic politics. On the other hand, the claims of the European Parliament to represent public sentiments on European integration are limited by low voter participation, the second-order nature of European elections and the still Protean nature of what we might call a transnational European demos. The EU lacks a single public arena of political debate, communications and shared meanings; of partisan aggregation and political entrepreneurship; and of high and even acceptance, across issues and member states, that it is European and not national majority views which should count in collective rule-making.

THERE ARE COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION: it is inefficient and expensive, its outdated curricula and methods of teaching do not adequately prepare the brighter students for life in a post-industrial economy, while the less gifted or privileged ones often leave school without having acquired basic skills of reading, writing and calculating. Educational reform, of both institutions and curricula, is on the agenda.

The good news is that the Queen Mother, at the age of 95, has undergone a successful hip replacement operation. The great lady is indeed a phenomenon of vitality. We can only wish that it will continue for many years to come, for she is, and recent events have proved it, an example of a monarchy which is popular without being populist. She is adored by the crowds, but she has never gone and never goes beyond the limits of her position. Incidentally, it was learnt recently that she has not given an interview to the Press since 1923. This is, to my mind, a sign of monarchical discretion. The populist style of monarchy, on the contrary, affects great familiarity with the media and finds itself, afterwards, the worse for it. But the Queen Mother is not only needed as a symbol of pure monarchy. Her presence is still very badly needed by the Queen who does need now as much help as she can get.