Articles by Sam Thomas
Sam has written 12 articles for Nouse
Terrorism, tolerance and the freedom of fiction
By Sam Thomas — November 22, 2007
Following Caryl Phillips’s speech on toleration, Sam Thomas reflects on the things
literature can say about exclusion and avoiding the trap of British fundamentalism.
From Jim’ll Fix-it to Brown’s bench: but can students trust him?
By Sam Thomas — October 10, 2007
James Alexander, the ex-YUSU heavyweight will need every day that Gordon sends to achieve his objective of becoming the first Union alumnus to make the House of Commons.
Don’t fudge this one up
By Sam Thomas — May 31, 2007
As momentous announcements go, the news that the University’s expansion plans are going ahead can be filed firmly under foregone conclusions. All the indications were that the path had been cleared for a new campus and that the bureaucratic hurdles in the way were largely formalities.
Pick a side, any side will do
By Sam Thomas — May 8, 2007
And now for something completely indifferent
Two battlegrounds have loomed large in the run-up to this edition. In one corner of campus, the local elections determined once and for all which political animals would seize control of York’s awesome can recycling and road-widening powers.
Getting it wrong
By Sam Thomas — March 13, 2007
In the absence of our fine editor, who is taking a well-deserved break from having to deal with newspaper issues, myself and Emma the web editor have been dealing with the huge amount of feedback we’ve had on the last edition. I suppose it’s a little disappointing in a way that most of it has [...]
Distribution of Nouse sabotaged
By Sam Thomas — March 7, 2007
Nearly a thousand copies of Nouse were destroyed within an hour of its distribution by people intent on preventing its publication. Stacks of copies were found wedged in bins around campus. The newspaper is investigating all possible means of holding those responsible to account.
YUSU accused of bias over hustings
By Sam Thomas — March 6, 2007
A CANDIDATE in the SU elections has expressed anger over what she felt was biased questioning from current sabbatical officers at an official hustings event. At the ‘Question Time’ session held last Thursday in Derwent bar, YUSU President Rich Croker joined students in levelling questions at the candidates.
Prêt à Porter
By Sam Thomas — February 13, 2007
Students have had enough of towing the bottom line
As you’ve probably tired of hearing during your time here, it takes an awful lot to get a York student out of bed in the morning. You’re an apathetic, complacent lot, or so your reputation would have it, and quite happy to laze in bed while the rest of the country’s student activists are out fighting the powers that be tooth and nail.
Nice and sleazy does it
By Sam Thomas — November 28, 2006
A joke is just a joke, but students won’t take their Union seriously as long as it keeps managing to turn itself into one
As any seasoned campus observer will be aware, the Students’ Union can work in mysterious ways. Rarely, however, have its limbs managed to pull so violently in opposite directions. As one metaphorical hand snatches risqué magazines from the shelves of Your:Shop, another is making jokes about pulling students.
Leaked memo urges university staff to spy on “Asian-looking” students
By Sam Thomas — November 7, 2006
A leaked goverment memo from the DFES has led to worries that students could be under surveillance from professors, based on their ethnicity.
Clinic, Visitations
By Sam Thomas — October 11, 2006
For their latest outing, Clinic promise us “surreal ballads next to subhuman riffs,” and dutifully cram as many of both as possible into this thirty-three minute waif of an album, without ever seriously threatening to reconcile the two. Instead, the songs seem to tolerate rather than exploit any such tensions, and this goes some way to explaining the mystery of how a record that so obviously yearns to burst with ideas can sound and feel so very thin.
Taking a stand against human rights abuses
By Sam Thomas — March 7, 2005
For two years, Craig Murray served as Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, the highest point of a career in the diplomatic service that spanned twenty years. Mr. Murray describes himself as having been a “model civil servant”. His dispatch to a country of such geopolitical importance – lying as it does at the heart of central Asia, with a militarily significant border with Afghanistan – suggested that his superiors at the Foreign Office recognised his calibre.


