It's still not wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, but it is payment in respect of people accessing one's books/chapters/articles, etc, so, academics, sign up with the Authors Licensing and Copyright Society www.alcs.co.uk

British Academy President's statement on the UK's higher education crisis, July 2026.

"What was once a worrying trend across a small number of disciplines is now an emergency, threatening all subjects. Courses are closing, provision is contracting, and geographical inequalities in access are becoming entrenched. Important skills and capabilities ... are being lost." #Skystorians

It's World Marine Aids to Navigation Day on the 1st July, so here's a quick thread on some aids to navigation. Now the first and most obvious aid to navigation is dry land. Dry land - pay attention at the back - is strongly suggestive that you can't go sailing here.

"You have two choices..." "No. I have two options and one choice to make".

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

To all the dads out there today

Trump's war on Iran appears the greatest failure of a major Western state after World War II: 1. No good reason to begin. 2. No possibility to succeed. 3. Enormusly wasteful. 4. Alienating all allies. 5. Enormous costs. 6. No achievement. Stupid does as stupid is...

Brutal community note

📔 NEW | British strategic defence reviews: The jellyfish model of policymaking 🪼 Read this new @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social journal article by @jamiegaskarth.bsky.social, Dr Maeve Ryan & @anglo-japan45.bsky.social below 👇

This is the most imperialist one yet. 😤

Just a reminder an air war alone cannot result in victory if your enemy refuses to admit defeat. If your adversary refuses to give up, air power cannot compel a victory. Can we learn that lesson please? Please? (And no this is not an endorsement of a ground invasion either).

None of this makes any sense, except as desperate rationalizations from a man who cannot face facts and admit defeat. On the most important questions of war and peace, the president of the United States seems to be losing his grip on reality itself. www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Just make the Master and Commander Cinematic Universe.

Great thread...

Breaking News: the algae has agreed to accept $300 billion to consider vacating the reflecting pool

📚 Book talk alert! 📚 Join us next Tuesday for the launch of @wdjames.bsky.social's new co-edited book: 'Transatlantic Storms in Anglo-American Relations: How the Alliance Weathers Crises'. 📅 Tue, 23 Jun, 12:00-13:15 📍 King's College London

OTD 1940 USSR invaded Estonia & Latvia to prevent them "forming an anti-Soviet alliance". This had absolutely nothing to do with a secret clause in our first treaty with Nazis. Imagine us today invading smaller neighbours for completely made up reasons…

So Trump signed a deal with the Iranians but is refusing to release its terms for days. Best bet is that he knows they are a massive defeat and is trying to set a completely false narrative by flooding the airwaves with misinformation for as long as possible.

Someone who didn’t know any better might almost think that the American presidents who decided not to try using force on Iran over the last 46 years were onto something.

I have to say it - fair play to Healey. If this helps bring down the lamentably bad Starmer and Reeves... good riddance.

'The number of university students who view their course as “value for money” has risen to the highest level in a decade, reflecting widespread positivity among current undergraduates despite public concern around graduate debt and jobs.' 1/3

Metaphors! Hot metaphors for sale!

This is exactly it. The work is the point.

I've signed... if you are an author, you should too.

Anniversary of "Tommy Robinson" celebrating the D Day soldiers who needlessly gave up their lives by running into the sea.

Right about now (BDST) W/C L.E. Healy, the AAEAF armaments officer, received a call from the Air Ministry reminding him that the 1000 lb bomb had not been cleared for use on the Hawker Typhoon. Healy replied with one of the finest memos of WW2. RCAF Typhoons had dropped 48 of them that morning.

There is a technical term historians use to describe interpretations like this. It’s: ‘Bollocks’. Factually incorrect, deeply wrong-minded, and actually just plain silly

📃 The NRS published rare and original documents on naval history. Each month, explore examples like this letter in our online magazine ... 🔗 Read it here: www.navyrecords.org.uk/magazine_pos... #navalhistory #Nelson #trafalgar #navalrecords #historicletters #loveletters

'The amount of money the government directly spends on teaching at universities is about to be cut for the second year in a row, Universities UK (UUK) has warned.' Shrinking the knowledge economy to grow the economy, anyone? 1/2

We have a rare and exciting opportunity to join our team as Director of Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College. Application deadline is 9am on 29th June 2026. Please share this with people you think would be interested.

How are America's core allies in Europe & the Indo-Pacific responding to the oscillations in its foreign policy at a time of rising great power competition? I offer an answer in a new article for @iajournal.bsky.social, focusing on Australia, Japan, Poland & the UK. doi.org/10.1093/ia/i...

How it changed USA 1990 -today: We did not & cannot promise Russia 1990 -We did not get a promise Putin 1990 -2007 We did not get a promise & Ukraine is allowed to join Putin - 2007 -2014 - Ukraine can join but we have to allow it cos anti imperialism Putin 2014 - we have decided we got a promise

Ok so don't borrow from them then, that's fine. Do it all with taxes, knock yerself out

You know, I was critical of the JCPOA - I thought it overpaid for the concessions it got (the concessions were good, though) - but, yeah. Yeah. Turns out we're going to pay a lot more not to have the JCPOA than we ever paid to have the JCPOA.

Being a Jew in modern Britain latest British Museum intimidated into cancelling an event about Jews, because Jews. It's not 'regrettable'. If this happened with any other community, it would lead to outrage. But it's just the Jews www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/pre...

I went to the service of the Order of St Michael and St George and accidentally discovered a bit of espionage history. Now The Telegraph has written about what Oleg Gordievsky, CMG was doing in Godalming. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05...

The 'stinging rebuke' is open access here. You don't need to be an historian to applaud it. #Skystorians 2/2

I don’t know how scared I should be that @questingvole so often captures precisely what I’m thinking. Sometimes before I even realise I’m thinking it. I do know that he always expresses it much better than I ever could.

Fabulous clarification in today's Observer. Stonehenge!

He…doesn’t know who was president on January 6th. I feel like this is an issue!

So, if this is the deal, this is losing: Iran gets a bunch of money to stabilize the regime and recapitalize proxies, maintains deterrence on the strait and the USA gets nothing.

Fun fact. It also recognized *all 4 states* as legal successors to USSR. Thus, Kremlin concedes in law that Ukraine won WW2 just as much as we claim we did. Checkmate, tankies.

OTD in 1948 operation Vesna began in Lithuania. 40,000 people were deported to Siberia and replaced by Russians. Imagine that kind of thing happening today. Imagine selectively opposing it.

Interested in joining the FASI team? We currently looking for a Research Associate to focus on the topic of Air Power. 📅Deadline to apply - 31 May 💡Full-time post 📍Fixed term contract until 31 March 2031 Apply now👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/146107-...

The LLM Prime Minister in action: saying what he thinks people want to hear in the moment, only to backtrack when it becomes politically inconvenient in the short term to follow through. This isn't nobility tempered with pragmatism: it's valueless, reactionary people-pleasing that pleases nobody

Trump didn’t just pardon his followers who stormed the U.S. Capitol. He’s now set them up for payments through a slush fund he created to reward his allies—out of your tax dollars. You could not make this up.