Glad to see my analysis on Greater Manchester's productivity growth being the highest in the country cited in this OECD blog. The authors say devolution is likely part of the answer - and we need to go further so places have the revenue to get on with delivering. oecdcogito.blog/2025/11/06/i...

What you’re witnessing is a populist assault on the BBC. This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting. iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...

Do we need humanities graduates to deliver the industrial strategy? Yes we do. www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/do-we-n...

Indeed, election perversion operations are being pushed right now. Though the palpable air of panic is at least something to behold

The poll only counts those who think they can escape the UK, not those who would go if they could, but are too poor, too old and so on. The proportion that wants to leave is much higher.

Agency scientists speak out about the irreplaceable facilities, institutional knowledge and training opportunities that the USA is losing go.nature.com/3WB8bFS

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

Hi Lisa Nandy! I’m a BAFTA winner from a small town. Instead of asinine questions like this, why not tell us how we can continue to make a living in the eviscerated creative sector over which you notionally preside?

The far-right in the Netherlands leveraged a housing crisis and scapegoating asylum-seekers to gain power, with accusations of a political class normalising populist agendas and a “hostage” media. But the Dutch “experiment with far-right rule was, objectively, a total flop”. Far-right = failure.

"Others still report the rationing of sanitary products and toilet paper – a single roll was supposed to last four people a week – or spending entire days in their underwear while they waited for their only outfit to be washed." My latest, in the I.

Farage: epic grifter

I have a very bad feeling about this...

Caerphilly, Senedd constituency by-election result: PC: 47.4% (+19.0) REF: 36.0% (+34.2) LAB: 11.0% (-34.9) CON: 2.0% (-15.3) GRN: 1.5% (+1.5) LDEM: 1.5% (-1.2) GWL: 0.3% (+0.3) UKIP: 0.2% (+0.2) Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour.

Nigel Farage was everywhere in Caerphilly today. He now appears to have vanished.

The Caerphilly narrative is already skewed. If Reform win it's because they got "their" voters out. If Plaid win it's because of borrowed votes not really earned.

By-election results live blog from the Caerphilly Observer, who are at the count caerphilly.observer/news/1054392...

#Caerphilly #NathanGill #ReformUK #Farage

The UK state hands subsidies to corporations, doesn't invest directly in new industries, infrastructure'. Corporate profits, dividends boom. UK is left behind UK invested 18.2% of GDP in productive assets OECD countries' average 23% China 40.4% India 30.5%. Neoliberalism is destroying the UK

I've spent *weeks* working on this special report for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social on GB News co-owner Paul Marshall – and the astonishing, unprecedented influence network he's built on the UK's right. There's never been anything like it before. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-p...

I have a meeting with a curator coming up, who just sent me an invitation with the title "Schrauben und anderes" (screws and other things) and this just perfectly captures my life right now 🔩 #HistTech #HistSci #EarlyModern 🗃️

Something grimly predictable about the way that the conversation about 'ripoff degrees' in the UK is always about degrees that aren't rip-offs, but are instead fairly obvious 'this student has chosen something unlikely to pay off economically' rather than the short tail of crap business degrees:

Well, I guess deciding to declare war on your areas of comparative advantage, like universities, or holding a referendum on your membership of a free trade area right after a brutal post-election budget are ways to be “complacent” about globalisation.

the booker prize judges make a lot of fuss about having to read 153 books. but assuming an average weight of 750g per book, that comes in at 115kg of literature - or just under the weight of a single adult male ostrich

Dutch late night TV has its take

🟢 @zackpolanski.bsky.social answers our questions on NATO... 🇪🇺 "What does it look like where we don't rely on Donald Trump and America for peace and defence, but have closer relationships with our European neighbours as part of rejoining the European Union when the conditions are right"

My 11 poetry workshops here have had 280k views. They're free to use in any way you want, with children, for yourselves, in classroom, at home, however you want. www.youtube.com/c/MichaelRos...

Extremist murders by ideology, 2013 to 2022. www.pbump.net/o/reassessin...

New, w/ @mulchy.bsky.social & @djbyrnes1.bsky.social: ICE shot & killed an immigrant in the Chicago suburbs yesterday. Then they immediately gave a misleading account of events. Chicago erupted in chaos and a father who lived here for decades is dead. This is what really happened:

Patriots speak …

He’s saying that the far-right get a free pass by the Dutch press, just as they do in England

The Union Survey: tracking English political attitudes for 15 years (long hard work excavating these issues from sedimented assumptions about ‘British’ politics). Here’s hoping folk pay attention now English grievance is ubiquitous on the surface of the political news. @theunionsurvey.bsky.social

Great article in @nation.cymru quoting our research and offering analysis from @ailsahenderson.bsky.social and @richardwynjones.bsky.social on how a current protests in England derive from a "longstanding discontent among large numbers of the English electorate". nation.cymru/news/for-mar...

The cat which was at the hotel is no longer there.

I routinely thank ATMs. www.ft.com/content/4dea...

Fascinating dialogue about Washington DC and crime in England. In both crime is down but populist right exploits popular fears. Most liberals seem to thing it is enough to say ‘they’ve got their facts wrong.’ I wonder if that works….

What she is actually quoted as saying, within the article, is “I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary”. Wise woman. Shitty framing by a whole host of outlets. Including you, The Herald. #NicolaSturgeon

No one sums up the utter shamelessness of the British press and the ugly politics of Farage quite like Private Eye.

Sydney Harbour Bridge, Australia.

Brief outbreak of sanity and decency on the opinion pages of @heraldscotland.bsky.social with a really excellent piece by @rebeccadonkennedy.bsky.social. No doubt, the depressing awfulness of the paper's usual coverage will resume shortly. www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...

Does anyone else find it crazy that you can walk into a bookshop and be charged £9.99 for a paperback novel that took the author a year to complete, but £17.99 for a completely blank notebook?

László Moholy-Nagy, EM 1 (Telephone Picture), 1923 #artbots #moma https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1137358

My annual reminder to people thinking about applying for these or @leverhulme.ac.uk ECFs: you do NOT have to go to Oxbridge or Russell Gp unis to make a successful application. I went to Edge Hill with my Leverhulme and moved it to Staffordshire when I was offered a permanent job. 1/?

If you take heroin your GP will help you with blood tests. But if you follow international healthcare protocols and take eg puberty blockers NHS England has told your GP not to help you monitor hormone levels with blood tests. Gender affirming care is, apparently, worse than heroin.

Universities and international students play a crucial role in national, regional and local economies. The British Academy has this week responded to the Immigration White Paper. Read our recommendations to the Government here: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/58...

📌 We have a new feed aimed at professional astronomers! 📌 The AstroSci feed is just for science posts, and you can post your smoking hot research there with the comet emoji ☄️ AstroSci crossposts back to the main Astronomy feed, and all subtopic feeds post into it too. 🔭