One of my most popular tweets.

Two weeks ago, Bridget Phillipson announced ‘I'm delivering the most radical and consequential agenda for education in living memory.‘. I guess, in one sense, she is: gutting arts, humanities & social sciences, bankrupting universities, & reducing access is extremely consequential.

'Offering home tuition fee status to European Union (EU) students would “make a very difficult financial situation worse”, the chief executive of Universities UK has warned, with domestic students likely to lose places as a result.' 1/2

As in 1066 England will prevail against the Norwegians before tragically losing to the French a couple of weeks later.

Lisa Nandy currently engaged in the greatest last-minute attempt to feign interest in culture since I tried to read the second half of Sons And Lovers the night before my English A-Level.

Made a little bot to try and surface archive stuff (10+ years) showing up on iPlayer.

Most people experienced the fall of the Roman Empire as “one day the bridge fell down and no-one came to fix it”. anyway www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Extraordinary credit to Sadiq Khan for pushing through this deeply controversial policy. This is what can happen when politicians are prepared to stick to their principles.

Guess what? I’m at risk of redundancy. My job - and those of my colleagues in my department and across our wider faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - is one of those currently targeted for cuts. I received a personal letter today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One lesson that we can learn from Sir Keir is that “you know what the fascist do have a point” is not a good way to govern or lead a center left party.

So how did we get here, with Starmer on the way out after two years? To some extent, it does go back to the beginning. It was not an enthusiastic victory for Labour. Getting rid of the Tories was the top reason people voted for them in 2024, though with their message of 'Change' also resonating.

voters in ex-manufacturing areas became swing voters, basically

That’s the problem with recognising climate change is a scientific reality and then trying to ensure the only biosphere in the known universe remains habitable, it’s just such a downer.

If people are wrong about something that's easy to look up then we should infer that they're not very interested in it and politicians should talk about other things, right

Accurate.

Yes, it’s true. Money Box Live has been the standout and most beloved part of my entire career. We have served so many communities, told so many stories and explained so many issues. I am heartbroken.

I once tried accidentally gave a Word document a left hand margin of 5 metres. Got a call from my next door neighbour saying it had appeared on his monitor.

Keir Starmer speed-running the usual cycle of a prime minister from first victory to deluded occupant of the bunker, but without the intervening period of 'develop a serious governing philosophy or have any personal achievements':

Let's talk about mass trespass.

I don’t have strong views on the u16 social media ban but if these platforms are so harmful, why does the govt still use them for comms? Likewise, while kids (and everyone else!) should be encouraged to socialise in-person, they now have far fewer options following brutal cuts to youth services

Time for me to repeat one of my ‘sayings’. If you try to solve a problem by passing a law, but people don’t obey the law, you now have two problems where you used to have one.

If Keir Starmer leads Labour into the next general election*, a seventeen year old will not be able to use YouTube to watch party political broadcasts and their screen would cut out half an hour into the debates, but they can vote in the election afterwards. *He won't but bear with me

...while giving them the vote...

Dying as he lived

This man was the chair of Ofcom until literally weeks ago!

College should be hard www.slowboring.com/p/hard-work-...

NEW on Wonkhe: The Treasury Committee gets nowhere near the real issues with student loans buff.ly/x4A3WSc

A bit of Søren Kierkegaard for you all this fine morning. Kind of bleak, maybe, if only superficially; but he's got a point! (Source: www.themarginalian.org)

Have said before, will say again: Africa barely recognizes western universities' chief worries about AI. There is a serious divergence here re: the purpose of scholarship.

Jim Dickinson has an excellent response to this new Policy Exchange report on universities wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

so, are we doing this thing again where university apparently has a role in post-university wage setting.

Leader of Opposition Kemi Badenoch proposes the repeal of the public sector equality duty, which requires public bodies to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equal opportunity & to foster good relations. She argues it promotes a 'dangerous & divisive' agenda. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's pretty gracious of him to show up at all, given that his side lost.

Everything we know about the history of technology tells us that it takes a long time for productivity gains to show up. What makes AI different from electricity or the microcomputer is not the timetable but the ludicrous set of corporate expectations/hype of massive immediate gains.

Trying to solve the mystery of why my political enemies never make any good art. Is it because they are such losers? Or so stupid? Or simply lazy? Or because currently they have aligned themselves with an ideology which, unlike that of their more reasonable predecessors, is antithetical to

I have seen a few academics offering their takes on English HE in the last week. I don't think the issue of insolvency is really being grasped in these. Basically, it is worse than people think ... The Education Committee gives a good account of the issue: committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

The real Turing test is the essays we marked

A modest proposal. Allow students to use AI but they FAIL if there’s a fake citation, false attribution, or glaringly inaccurate paraphrase.

(Taxes on work are, though few believe it, historically *low* for most UK workers at the moment. Overall tax is at an all-time high, but most of that increase is indirect taxes because no one will touch the big three. But politically we just keep pretending that's not the case.)

So were all these so-called polymaths also good at sports

Just a reminder that when we say something should be done, or something not be allowed, very often no one is actually in charge of things.

'The court case scrutinised the regulator’s approach to the investigation. In her judgment, Mrs Justice Lieven found that the OfS “was vitiated by bias” and “approached the decision with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision”.' 3/3

Right - you all thought that quiz was too US-centric. So I've vibe-coded something far more British. Specifically British, because I am *not* making a Northern Irish Political Compass. From taxes to the monarchy, answer the questions and see where you sit. quiz.jmoxley.co.uk

Six years of 'What if we cut spending but our guiding approach was "what's the most politically easy way to do this?" rather than "what do we want the state to do?" - huh, surprise surprise, nothing works and everything is expensive!

'None of which answers the salient questions of what OfS, or indeed the government, intend to do as a result of this intervention. Ministers watching universities gradually losing capacity and abilities as a result of financial pressures doesn’t solve the underlying problems.' 5/5

What's your favourite Sociology joke?

The real, damning indictment of this government, the true evidence of failure of leadership, is that the Treasury is still making decisions and projections using forecasts that assume the Home Office changes will not happen for them to work. That is why Starmer must go.

"Clearly, we’re not missing the right *regulations.* We’re missing the right *motivations.*" @experimentalhistory.skystack.xyz

Every single member of the History Department at Uni of Nottingham is at risk of redundancy. Every single one of us.