"Trump is using the full power of his office to punish people and organisations who criticise him. There's a word for that - authoritarian." If you think this is just about Jimmy Kimmel, you are missing the point. @maitlis.bsky.social | @lewisgoodall.com www.thenewsagents.co.uk/article/if-y...

www.theguardian.com/education/20... Guardian today, very pleased at the work of philosophyinprison.com getting some coverage.

Who's following the philosophy in prison debate? Readings and essays - or a levelling conversation?

Our Chair @mmmccabe.bsky.social writes on @theguardian.com about the equalising power of philosophy in prisons when done in conversation www.theguardian.com/education/20...

A Labour government that does not fight back against the far right, racism and extremism fundamentally misunderstands the nature of its electoral support.

Our democracy is too precious to be a plaything for foreign tech barons. Elon Musk doesn’t care about the British people or our rights. He only cares about himself and his ego.

But why is the Home Secretary posting on X, as the Guardian reports????

Esp given assassination of Kirk in US i find Musk's intervention here, calling for dissolution of parliament and a new govt, really scary . Also UK govt bodies should get the fuck off X.

FFS! In the midst of the dog-whistling howls, Thought For The Day today was a welcome relief. Calling out Jenrick for his brazen xenophobia and urging people to hold on to their empathy and not to let fear become cruelty. It’s intolerable that the BBC apologised for that rare moment of decency.

Surely the Today programme is better than this? The conflation of ‘xenophobia’ ( fear of strangers) with racism was made by @robertjenrickmp.bsky.social — giving his own game away. @krishk.com simply described what Jenrick (shockingly) said in the first place. BBC should apologise for apologising.

My copies have just arrived! I hope you enjoy it: you can preorder here: linktr.ee/whyplatomatt...

“President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly,” Jarndyce and Jarndyce,with luck. Bring it on! edition.cnn.com/2025/07/17/p...

Our Chair @mmmccabe.bsky.social speaking about Philosophy in Prison and #whyphilosophymatters at Warwick's Department of Philosophy's 60th Anniversary.

Department of Philosophy at Warwick celebrates its 60th anniversary in Senate House @uolpress.bsky.social with speeches on why #philosophymatters by Qassim Cassam, Heather Widdows, @guylongworth.bsky.social and @mmmccabe.bsky.social

Glorious peony Sarah Bernhardt just in full and complicated bloom. Brief moment of joy in a world gone mad.

Listening to Private Passions where Professor @hilarycottam.bsky.social is talking about many social issues, including design of prisons, adult loneliness, finding meaning and purpose in life, and caring for elderly. Fascinating, and available online: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The Telegraph is now having to publish so many corrections to articles where it attempts to find *any angle whatsoever* to attack net-zero polices that it makes sense to start tracking them here. These are the ones published since Labour won the election. "We are happy to correct the record."

We're just days away from the local leg of the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival, with two fab concerts at St James the Less, Pangbourne - Mozart and Beethoven from the BCMF ensemble on 4 June, and Champagne and Candlelight with award-winning harpist Oliver Wass on 6 June! buff.ly/ZQ0BmSS

I hoped so. But not much is changing. E.g. an easy win would be to scrap the ‘six-year-rule’ denying support for degree work until prisoners are within six years of release. This wastes talent AND the good effect of HE work among larger group on the wing. Labour talk is still about super prisons.

Without ambitious policy change, child poverty is projected to increase dramatically over the next decade. In fact, should the Government continue with existing policy, our projections suggest child poverty will hit 33 per cent in 2029-30, a level not seen since 1998-99.

Great interview on Times Radio this morning @hugorifkind.bsky.social talking to James Chamberlain about Philosophy in Prison. @philosophyinprison.bsky.social

Great piece by James Chamberlain on the work of Philosophy in Prison @philosophyinprison.bsky.social

Harvard correctly understands that it’s in a fight for its life and there is no appeasement that will save it. I wish a lot more institutions understood this.

Tuesday: the wonderful Isobel Armstrong ran a poetry workshop at a women’s prison in London: brilliant event. ‘Your words are your own and no one can take them from you’; thence stunning collaboration between the women. Not philosophy, but extraordinary all the same! @philosophyinprison.bsky.social

Hale once again showing how the law needs careful interpretation of what it actually says, word by word. This includes advice for EHRC: ‘may exclude’ does not imply ‘must exclude’. What is more, the law cannot mandate just attitudes of respect and kindness towards *everyone*

Israel allowing “a few trucks of food to enter Gaza” isn’t a U-turn. It’s a tactic to get people to stop saying you’ve completely shut down aid from coming in. Aid groups have said Gaza needs at least 500 trucks a day.

The problem with insisting that someone is strong enough to fight or defeat cancer is that it implies that others who aren’t strong enough are just not trying hard enough. Cancer doesn’t care if you have a strong will. And this attitude just makes things harder for the sick.

The U.K. police have had guidance on how to search you after a miscarriage incase someone wants to accuse you of an illegal abortion. I can’t say it enough, we need this abortion decriminalisation amendment to pass this time observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Bright purple Tansy field in Cambridgeshire — beautiful but inedible. It appears to be cultivated— what is it used for?

Felt intimidated this morning in the car park of a local nature reserve by group of men with many flags preparing for some kind of march into Cambridge. Slight problem for them that they started the march by walking into the bushes and having to backtrack… they lowered the flags then….

Stephen Miller says they are “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which is only allowed when the US has been invaded or during an insurrection, which would not allow people to challenge their incarceration in court if they are arrested and detained.

HAPPENING NOW: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was just taken into custody while protesting outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention center

In Madrid for great Plato conference. Today visited @museodelprado.es which apparently holds just six paintings by women — four by amazing Clara Peeters, still-lifes that reflect herself in the shiny surfaces. But they are hung all crammed together and in two cases too high to see the detail. WHY?

Are you a qualified lawyer and want to help us legally support the trans community? We are looking for you 👀

This is one of the best ads I have ever seen and I can’t believe I missed it

Real risk now is that rather than looking at these results, including losing Runcorn a previously "safe seat", Labour will shift even further to the right with attacks on marginalised groups, thereby embedding Reform's narrative and giving them free publicity to dictate policy and grow more #r4today

Could the UK-EU Summit reset post-Brexit politics? New post on my Brexit & Beyond Blog. If framed as a major strategic announcement, the Summit could challenge the Farage insurgency far more effectively than Labour's 'make Brexit boring' approach: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2025/05/coul...

'Sometimes history does die. Sometimes the past is very much past.' With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers: on.ft.com/4361gaC

100% this. If Labour wants to beat Reform, it must improve the economy & public services; it won't do so by culture war BS. This, of course, requires it to think & to take on vested interests.

Ah, England. The nation that looks round, sees the global shift against paranoiac, incompetent, bitter old man politics and decides to double down.

Reform is a protest party (that isn't entirely sure what its protesting against any more) that is run on the whims and hot air of a man who wanted to leave the EU to get cardboard passports back. We should not be in this situation, but we are, and Labour needs to confront not copy.

“He and his party have never run anything – a local council, a parish council. He’s spent a lifetime doing what he accuses others of doing, which is riding the political gravy train” Farage will take your votes and then take the piss. Don’t give him that chance. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The closest we get to this sort of thing is "It was bluebell time in Kent." bsky.app/profile/john...

I've written for @politlcsuk.bsky.social outlining my opposition to the government's devastating disability benefit cuts. Cutting the social safety net will only make our society sicker and poorer. It's not too late to change course.

I'm not impressed. I bought an electric food mixer, but I'm buggered if I can find any electric food. And don't talk to me about small blokes with hammers and chisels purporting to be monumental masons.

Cambridge Station today….

Over 200 institutions including Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and Yale have signed a statement calling for leaders in higher education to rise to the moment and commit to protecting the field, their staff and their students against the administration’s sweeping crackdown.