People shouldn’t ride bikes on pavements & over red lights. What’s so wrong with this article then? It categorises & scapegoats. The problem is individuals who disregard others, not “cyclists”. But yeah, let’s just hate em’all because that’s more satisfying. www.thetimes.com/magazines/th...

This is critically important for our future. The struggle over ethical parameters for AI use will determine whether authoritarian states can enact mass surveillance of their populations at granular level and allow machines to decide to kill people. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I sadly believe this

Matthew Goodwin is very adept at euphemism. The “coalition of Islamist and woke progressives” = people from all backgrounds who oppose fascism, seeing it, like many during WWII, as anti-British.

The ignorance & hatred that’s fuelling, and being fuelled by, Reform needs to be challenged far more robustly. It is blocking our right to peaceful, democratic expression. sussexbylines.co.uk/news/home-af...

Disgusting (though not surprising) to see Biggar and the Spectator publishing these completely unjustified smears of colleagues at the Uni of Sussex. Sending solidarity @alanlester.bsky.social

Nigel Biggar attacking Alan Lester and colleagues through a proxy student ‘whistle blower’ in the national media, with no right of reply. Disgraceful MAGA tactics.

Fantastic blog by my former colleague @alanlester.bsky.social forensically refuting the disgraceful attacks on the University of Sussex by the disgracefully ignorant Nigel Biggar. If you’re interested in protecting academic freedom please do read and share

The Spectator published this attack on me & colleagues just as the High Court is considering Sussex’s request for review of the Office for Students fine. It accuses us of ‘repressing’ our students. The magazine ignored my request for to reply. Please disseminate. alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

Last week, contributors to the 'Teaching Slavery' volume and to the new 'Teaching Slavery in Scotland' platform wrote about the content / applications of these resources for the Society's blog: bit.ly/3MRdcJ4 #Skystorians

This article included a personal attack on me and seeks to undermine my professional reputation. Since you have ignored my request for a right to reply, readers genuinely interested in a ‘liberal’ and fair exchange of ideas can consider reading this response: alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

I cannot recommend highly enough this free, open access resource for anyone teaching about slavery in the UK uclpress.co.uk/book/teachin...

My goodness what an absolutely superb article this is from @rafaelbehr.bsky.social It articulates what I’ve been fumbling to say for the last few years about why control of public history is so central to today’s transnational far right authoritarianism. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Coming in November from @brisunipress.bsky.social, In the Aftermath of Empire explores the impact of British imperialism on gender and sexuality law in four jurisdictions. Please tell your libraries to pre-order! bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/in-the-after...

The predicament facing ‘plan two’ student loan payees mirrors that facing most former colonies, left indebted from loans their people didn’t ask for & with repayments at similar rates that exceed health & education expenditure. alanlester.co.uk/blog/britain...

These Reform chaps seem lovely. Made for each other. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Latest additions to the Studies in Imperialism series: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/studi...

The lesson of Trump’s address? As far right governments run out of steam punishing the declared ‘enemy within’, be it Jews or ‘illegal’ immigrants, the only outlet for the rage they need to fuel them is outward. They must find new enemies & make perpetual war. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The Telegraph, Mail, GB News & Musk will be all over this development too:

When it looks like Nazism, talks like Nazism and … well they’re not quite goose-stepping yet I grant you. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

What’s more important is that no government acts again in the way the last Tory one did, to plant divisive, anti-migrant, anti-‘woke’ culture war propaganda in the heart of the BBC. Has Robbie Gibb’s influence been neutralised yet? www.thetimes.com/uk/media/art...

Anne Applebaum has been pointing out the contradiction in US policy on Europe. What I fear is that the support for pro-Russia far right movements destabilising our democracies is more meaningful than the call to defend themselves. Neo-fascism aligns far better with MAGA ideology.

Really important article. It won’t be long before Musk, Reform & other far right movements can afford to be less coy about Nazi inspiration. (Remember Farage hissing at Jews?) But the outrage that should induce still won’t be enough to stop them. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Weren’t Palestine Action declared a terrorist organisation for breaking in to a secure military site to protest against the government? I guess it’s OK if you’re Nigel Farage with your own private jet. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Just another day in US policy making. Danish personnel help a US sailor. Toddler in Chief sees this as a slight. Americans are supposed to be invulnerable. How dare they. Restores equanimity by sending hospital ship. Greenland says 'no thanks' to Trump US hospital boat www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wonder where Reform’s Zia Yusuf gets his ideas?

It’s true that of kids on free school meals (an indicator of class), white kids tend to get to university less. But I’d have thought two other things worth mentioning in an article in race & class: www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Important article www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Let’s make this clear: what Johnson & Truss (two PMs who’ve already damaged Britain incalculably) propose is that the UK incur the opprobrium of the international community by retaining the Chagos isles purely for the USA’s benefit. Grovelling & pitiful. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Encouraging to see another sign of fightback against Trump’s Orwellian vision of the USA: www.cnn.com/2026/02/16/p...

1/5 Chagos Options: Any British government would find it difficult at the moment to maintain its relationship with the USA and respect international law at the same time. This tension is what the Chagos deal is all about, www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This will be all over the Telegraph, Mail and GB News. Brace yourself for Musk’s algorithms to amplify too.

This what so frustrates me about centre right commentators in the UK who have been banging on incessantly for the last few years about the dangers of “woke”. Only now are they realising they’ve been the pawns of far right extremists, whose nihilism is their nightmare.

In Munich Marco Rubio praised the ‘Western’ tradition of rule of law. Two lessons that he & Trump’s administration could learn about that today. From S. Korea: imprison presidents who flout the constitution. From UK: no one is above the law.

Last day for 25% discount on paperback pre-order tomorrow www.waterstones.com/book/the-tru...

At first I thought Farage or one of the hypocritical Tories who laid the foundations for the Chagos deal must have bent Trump’s ear again. However it looks like Starmer’s unwillingness to cave in to Trump’s flouting of international law is the issue. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

I'll be talking about the disingenuous right wing campaign of historical manipulation against the Church of England's Project Spire social justice scheme at this event in Brighton on Sunday 1st March. Do come along: www.chichester.anglican.org/events/2026/...

This is how you deal with presidents who usurp democratic states for themselves. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cq...

Some good points here but it’s still worth noting the difference in outcomes for those implicated with Epstein here & in the USA, where Trump’s corruption shields himself & allies. Things could get that bad here too under a Reform government. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Absolutely. But Yusuf still got away with repeating the premise of Reform’s white grievance-led propaganda. He repeated that white working class men are faring worse than any other group in employment. It’s not true: researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN...

A Reform council is scrapping a scheme that costs it nothing & helps refugees integrate, while Reform scapegoats refugees for failing to integrate. This is the nature of Reform and the viciously racist ideologies that feed it from overseas. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

1/2 Two things that Americans should know about this new US imperialism: 1. Empire is one big forever war. It costs the lives not only of those who have to be beaten into submission but of imperial troops. In the 2nd half of the C19 alone British & colonial … www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We most often tend to think of British treaties providing a veneer of negotiated sovereignty transfer in a late C19 African context. @garethknapman.bsky.social shows here how they provided domestic cover for seizure by force in SE Asia early in the C19 too: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The Truth About Empire paperback can now be pre-ordered from Waterstones online at 25% off. Leading specialist historians correct misinformation and write truthfully about British colonialism. Enter FEB26 at the checkout. #WPreorder www.waterstones.com/book/the-tru...

Latest arrivals from Studies in Imperialism

CFP: Race, Law and Empire

This is the first I’ve read of the Trump administration’s order to stop commemorating the Black American soldiers in a US military cemetery in the Netherlands. My God, how sick, petty & vindictive, how all-consumed with racist hatred do you have to be to order that?

"Almost paradoxically, Sequoyah’s numerals could not succeed because they had not yet succeeded, and came into existence in a social context where a prestigious, common notation had been adopted almost universally."

1/3 What Musk is really referring to here is, of course “race” - that construct that served to define the hierarchies of wealth & power structured by modern colonialism. Like other far right racists though, he uses the word “culture” as a seemingly less pernicious synonym.

1/5 Yesterday a Stand Up to Racism stall in Crowborough which was trying to promote a message of solidarity with refugees and put out a message of compassion over hostility on Valentine's day with leaflets, cakes and music was shut down by the far right.