'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.

It's high time I updated my Playlist for the Global Greenhouse - If anyone is looking for a soundtrack for the heatwave, here it is: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

I don’t really know what to say to this.

Pesticides affect both human & environmental health, yet the Commission neither conducted an Impact Assessment nor asked citizens or scientists what they think about loosening pesticide control. Dimitry Wintermantel summarized key concerns raised by scientists in an open letter here:

BREAKING: Parliament votes for the UK's seventh carbon budget, targeting an 87% cut in emissions by 2040 332 in favour 94 against

📣 People are understandably up in the arms about this (it is horrible). But just want to wave a hand out there 👋 as we're going through the same thing in Humanities at Northumbria (1 out of 5 staff need to go by end of July). 1/?

the current heatwave shows how those costs crystallise - schools closed; working days lost; train travel disrupted; threat to life as temperatures soar. These were weather patterns we thought we would be seeing in a decade or more.

Here's the thing. From a business perspective, rejoining would be much better than the gradual alignment/ next stage. Why? Because every change (rules/regulations) is expensive and a waste of the company's time/money. Even if it's a positive change. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I really hope Burnham does this and not just because I’ll be personally affected if this proposal goes through. This proposal was just downright cruel and does nothing to fix the problems the UK is facing.

So 'limited' it reputedly entails making 25% of the History Department (which took how many additional students last autumn...?) redundant.... Is the targeting specifically directed toward top-performing departments, in a 'specific' effort to degrade the UK research base? Asking for some friends.

When reality surpasses fiction! Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming. Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.

I am BEGGING people - think tanks, governments, random organisations - to DATE YOUR REPORTS WHEN YOU DO THE PDFS. It should not be THIS HARD to find a BLOODY PUBLICATION DATE. You might think everyone will remember the magical day you published it years later. But you are delusional.

For anyone interested in how the 🇪🇺 managed to avert the disaster that Brexit could have turned out to be for the Union, I have covered this in a piece for @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social Political Insight magazine published this month. Some points 🧵 1/5 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Glad to have contributed to this piece on the decline of Labour under Starmer. We have plenty of evidence on why Starmer's strategy failed. Yet, social democrats still remain convinced that they can only win elections when they moderate and when they appeal to workers with social conservatism.

Ten years since the #EUref and like many old #Brexit hands I'm (not so?) fondly reminiscing. Yes as @davidheniguk.bsky.social says, the debate still appears very very similar. But one thing I think is missing from those accounts. The sheer craziness of Brexit Twitter and of the Slide Wars.

This is so funny

I've had 2 journalists today asking if Miliband as Chancellor would be a "Liz Truss moment" and find it difficult not to just respond "are you on crack?".

Reminder - There are ZERO trans people in prison in Northern Ireland. "TUV pushes ‘common sense’ Justice Bill change to house trans prisoners by biological sex" TUV by far the most trans-obsessed party in NI www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/tuv-pus...

Imagine an outcome where the Conservatives barely make any gains but Badenoch gets first dibs at leading a coalition because everyone else does even worse

Can you see the anomaly 👇 ? On temperature forecasts for Tuesday France has same colour than the belt of deserts in Africa and Arabia. Not normal. We are in a #climate emergency. And our politics are denying or minimising the problem because "it's the economy, stupid", to enrich the rich ☠️

I wrote this a year and a half ago. Unsurprisingly, Labour has experienced the same electoral decline as other European social democratic parties because of this strategy. Yet, pundits still make the same lazy claims. Politicians live in their phantasm of the “doorstep.” As if research did not exist

If anti-Ref votes coalesce behind strongest anti-Ref candidate as happened in Makerfield, Gorton, Caerphilly that Reform number comes down very fast. Reform 27% could mean 300 seats or 50. All depends on how the other 73% behave locally, which these projections can’t tell you.

What a surprise ….. “Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in — and they’re not good Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers, studies show.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The actual point here is that unless you live in coastal San Diego, you are going to need to use some kind of temperature control technology to stay alive and safe, especially in the climate change era, and AC is not less necessary than heat.

They’re calling it the quote on British politics that ended the need for all other quotes

This is probably my favorite thread in all of bluesky, ever.

How unsurprising. Orbàn was never the problem. The system is. Abolish all vetoes and let EUCO stick to its Treaty tasks. Problem solved.

It seems a good day to remind people that in the UK 3 times as many people work in Indian restaurants or for McDonalds as in the whole coal and steel industry. 5 times as many are academic staff at universities. If Labour does not understand its electorate, there is no way to appeal to it.

Our book The Brussels Bubble: Inside the European Union in the Digital Age with @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org is out now OPEN ACCESS! We take you on an ethnographic journey behind the scenes of multilateralism, from Brexit to COVID-19 to Russia's war on Ukraine 👉 Find it here: tinyurl.com/m237ry4b

'We are clamping down on the harm caused by social media. 'Read all about it on the Nazi pogrom deepfake abuse website'

The Children's Commissioner wants the social media ban extended to 18. Even though people will be able to vote at 16. The Beatles first went to Hamburg when George Harrison was 17. You can also decide to take on £50k of tuition fee debt at 17.

A fully funded 2-year postdoc for my ERC project on climate politics, comparative politics and political economy. Deadline: 29 July 2026, 10am CET Starting date: Jan 2027 (flexible) Feel free to reach out next week at EPSS if you’d like to discuss the position www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude...

Banning Facebook for over 40s would be a much better move.

The New Statesman asked me to put down a few thoughts about Belfast. On the politics and media that have failed everyone, and how much, and how little, has really changed. www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

It was hardly surprising but as always heartening to see such a good turnout for the rally earlier - Belfast standing strong against racism.

Had a lovely chat with former @iddri.bsky.social colleagues this morning about current EU #greenlash and how this round of deregulation compares to previous ones... In fond memory of Paris days, I baked a silly amount of croissants beforehand 🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

Per most recent figures, net migration to NI *over the past 22 years* has been ~62,000 people. Only 3% of Northern Ireland’s population currently belong to an ethnic minority. Pogroms in Belfast (as with Ballymena last year) are just gutter-level "One Is One Too Many" racism, and nothing else.

I hope that one day, if we can reach a sufficient standard, NATO will be approved to join Ukraine.

People are organising in Belfast to support those effected by last night’s racist violence. Whether you are near or far, please consider donating! chuffed.org/project/1854...

*Statement in regard to recent racist protests in Northern Ireland* We are shocked and appalled at the racist carnage that took place in pockets of Belfast last night, as well as in other towns and cities across Northern Ireland.

Anaka do amazing work - support if you can. Support people and groups impacted by racist attacks chuffed.org/project/1854...

To put these numbers into perspective: In 2024, the University of Dundee had a bit over 3,000 staff.

Habituellement je suis assez critique de l'UE parce que bon l'Europe à Macron et Van Der Leyen quoi. Mais là je vois passer tous les articles US qui sont MEGA jaloux du fait que l'Europe va avoir une Switch 2 avec batterie remplaçable et pas les U.S et je suis en mode :

Lovely to see work on NI environmental governance recognised...even if colour choice looks like a poster for an action movie in the 2010s #orangeandteal

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Classicist here to inform you all that this is ancient Greek for summoning a cat

In the latest play from Project 2025, the Trump Administration has announced plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $368 million network of more than 900 instruments that continuously monitor the ocean. This is a deliberate destruction of critical scientific infrastructure.

'In a preliminary MIT Media Lab study, 83% of participants who wrote essays using ChatGPT couldn’t quote a single sentence from what they’d submitted moments earlier.'

Labour seems to have internalised the Supreme Court judgment as though it was a damning referendum loss that saw the public reject its position, rather than a plainly incorrect reading of a single point of law

We're hiring a Lecturer in Irish politics. Deadline 8th June. Come and join us in Belfast! hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...