Many thanks to Georgia Mann for recounting my story of Stephen Hough talking about music and philosophy in a CatB prison. @philosophyinprison.bsky.social ❤️

Hugely impressive to watch four men — with variously deprived educational backgrounds — think together, enjoy developing an argument together and collaborate in the editorial process across a whole day. They entitle it ‘Deciphering the Narrative’. Brilliantly received by others when transmitted.

Excited to have launched a philosophy podcast on the content hub of one of our partner prisons. The podcast has been devised, recorded and edited by some of our longstanding participants in the prison, in collaboration with @mmmccabe.bsky.social. We’re grateful to all involved!

“Claire Short resigned on principle but that was in 2003 which was the last time principles were seen in British politics.” Paraphrase of comment on radio just now.

This is brilliant. And terrifying. @nesrinemalik.bsky.social

Fantastic to see the work of our philosophers being recognised @thebpa.bsky.social awards for their work with us in prisons! Well done to all the award winners and nominees, and thank you to the judging panel.

Last night’s brilliant award ceremony for @thebpa.bsky.social honoured Leonie Smith, @jonbebb.bsky.social and James Chamberlain, all for wonderful work with @philosophyinprison.bsky.social Congratulations all!!!!! #philosophymatters

This cruelty is being done in our name. Shame on this administration. Shame. 13,000 third country deportees so far. Many were ordered deported decades or even generations earlier, but no admin previously would have considered something as inhumane as this as a means of carrying out a removal.

Holy shit we might have a cure for sickle cell anemia

If this war shows *anything* it’s how badly needed the transition to renewables is That that conversation has been largely absent from UK media while nonsense like this is published shows just how much the media ownership tail is now waging the dog

torn between thinking it's objectively hilarious that literally nobody wants to help Trump open the straits (it is) & feelings of impending doom because evidently 1/Trump can't do it 2/if it's not open v soon we are screwed, cannot run an economy on schadenfreude alone. (although: sooo renewable!)

Hegseth: "We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies." No quarter is the refusal to take prisoners and instead just execute everyone. It's been considered a war crime for over a century.

Former political prisoner Nasrin Parvaz reads a letter to Keir Starmer signed by more than 100 pro-democracy, pro-justice and anti-war British-Iranians, including other former Evin detainees Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Aras Amiri. Full list of signatories is at togetherforiran.org

Watching members of the Trump administration try to ignore or absolve the Kremlin’s malign involvement in the Iran war is quite something. Russian military advisors are on the ground there providing targeting data against US forces and Russian components feature in both Iran’s missiles and drones.

I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public. I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are. 1/ Here's what I can share:

Achieving UK’s net zero target by 2050 will cost less than a single oil shock and bring health and economic benefits while insulating the country against future costs, says CCC: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Sheffield Hallam’s new plan to save cash: 🔸 All teaching-focused staff to be employed by a subsidiary firm 🔸 All non-REF staff to be moved to a pension scheme with a lower employer contributions #UKHE

What do you do when your media org is captured? You start your own. Introducing....The Nerve!!! @thenerve-news.bsky.social We're all-female, journalist-owned & launching next week. Please help us build a truly independent, progressive new media!👊👊👊

NEW: Is this the broligarchy’s first world war? AI, like war & rape, is a hyper-masculine fantasy of God-like power, a myth at the dark heart of what we’re seeing play out in the Gulf. This war hasn’t replaced the Epstein scandal. It is the Epstein scandal. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... This ia a good piece by Simon Tisdall.

Trump shouldn’t ease Russia sanctions – they are choking its economy

Seems likely that (a) the school was deliberately hit by a "precision" strike by the US or Israel relying on outdated intel and (b) US is more likely responsible than Israel. US didn't deliberately aim at a school, but it deliberately aimed at a building that is now a school and has been for years

Worth watching the whole clip, but purely in propaganda terms it seems to me, admittedly just an amateur observer when it comes to war fighting, that it may be useful to send the message to the 91+ million Iranian civilians that we are not trying to kill them.

The United States killed all these children last Saturday. 170 of them. Every. Single. One.

Newly released footage shows an ICE agent killing Rubin Ray Martinez, 23, in his car in Texas. "He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger." www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hard to concentrate on academic work when war rages and spreads, and all my thoughts are with the innocent people who die, are wounded, or are made homeless.

Adam Parsons: "In the eyes of many people this is an illegal attack" No, according to international law it is an illegal attack. Do your job, look out of the window and tell us if its raining.

Really looking forward to joining fellow speakers for the #WorldBipolarDay webinar.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled viruses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the bacteria, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Reports now that this has been revised up to 85 dead, with even more injured

“The home secretary will warn Labour MPs that the party will lose the next election unless they speed ahead with her hardline immigration reforms” Heaven help us www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Remember: Donald Trump created this crisis. He walked away from the Iran nuclear deal that was working, promising a "better deal." He didn't deliver. He escalated, abandoned real diplomacy, and has now led us into a conflict that puts us all at risk.

This is causing despair in academe. (1) We were forced to close during Covid. We had no choice! (2) We're not service providers like a restaurant, we are institutions of state. (3) We did everything we could. (4) This will cripple current students' education. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

UCL didn’t teach them about the greater good then. This amid what is happening in HE anyway is a terrible outcome especially for those universities who look after the least advantaged and are needed the most.

What links Jeffrey Epstein and Keir Starmer’s government? A thick seam of contempt | Nesrine Malik

“Female victims, the law, the public, are all remote and potentially treacherous things that need to be kept as far as possible from infringing on this vast, self-contained and sophisticated reciprocal system of power.” Brilliant. And the truth.

I've been singing this to myself all day

How do you legislate to make those with power respect those without it? The reporting of the Epstein scandal has given the women no voice. Try the small remedies. Listen to others (don’t just wait your turn). Censure those who interrupt. Call out the use of physical presence to establish power…

Will Starmer and McSweeney really survive this? And the 'one rotten apple/we didn't know much' is a rotten, empty defence in face of the extensive networks of so many in or with power selling their souls (if they had any) for girls, women, money, trips. So shallow www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Bigger things going on today i know but watching Bezos buy, wreck, and now basically gut a media institution at a time when America really needs a free press is just such a grotesque waste. If you don’t know how to run it, sell it to someone who can www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

This.

Don't think I've ever felt as sick reading a newspaper story as I have looking at this morning's Epstein coverage. Just the open amorality of all the powerful people involved for so long.

Lebedev is still a Lord...

"What a uniquely American obscenity to hear this woman employ the language of shared humanity, as the Trump administration kills Americans and systematically kidnaps immigrants and their kids." Read @inaeoh.bsky.social on "Melania."

Really weeping for the patriarchy….

Brilliant story about what can be done to improve the lives of the incarcerated, with huge credit to www.justice-defenders.org www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

GOP senators, governor call for full investigation into ICE murder www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

They murdered a nurse who cared for military veterans & then called him a terrorist.

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.