It excludes anyone who could lend a modicum of diversity to these debates; who might challenge the status quo on the environment, on devolution, on constitutional change, on free-market economics, on gender politics.
He sits me down and pulls across a thin curtain to give us a modicum of privacy from the handful of waiting patients.
While a modicum of reassurance is provided by the fact that retailers have signed up to the pledge and to cottoncampaign.org – boycott if not – inevitably Uzbek cotton finds its way into the nation's knicker drawers and linen cupboards.
But waste in procurement coming only in average dribbles of, say, a trivial £1bn a time (a third of the total income from the licence fee) seems to induce only a modicum of interest among news editors and correspondents.
He appointed new envoys for the task at the State and Defense Departments, and won a modicum of congressional support in a defense authorization bill he signed last week that removed a restriction on transfers from Guantánamo to overseas destinations.
If nothing else, it is proof that a modicum of democracy remains.
A modicum of anxiety about its ambitions is more than just cold-war paranoia.
At least if an enterprise is led by a party member, the party might retain a modicum of influence.
Engagement was supposed to bring economic benefits to the benighted North; a modicum of mutual trust was meant to lessen its threat.
Societies that try to resist this trend most notably the Arab countries, but also Japan and some southern European countries will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens.This revolution has been achieved with only a modicum of friction (see article).
The absence of enough foreign troops to provide more than a modicum of security in its stead is another: before 8,000 NATO troops took charge of securing the four southern provinces on July 31st, America had one infantry battalion there.
