It should be a shock to nobody to watch a man who is a well documented conspiracy theorist (just look at his claims about migration) succumb to anti-vax narratives when he thinks it is political expedient. The only value he holds is his own advancement, no matter the cost in human lives.

Local elections are less than four months away. The Labour government has proposed cancelling them. Of course Labour want to avoid going to the polls, but that's no reason to cancel Oxford elections. We had this uncertainty last year too. It's tiring.

Oxford City Council is run by a minority administration. Unitarisation processes often take significantly longer than anticipated. To continue to make fundamental decisions on citizens lives without an election for potentially years would be a gross affront to democracy.

Important announcement for my fellow itinerant academics: thetrainline has a massive sale on and my eye-watering January train expenditure has been made slightly less eye-watering. Run don’t walk to book before the prices go back up to ‘I need another mortgage’ from merely ‘taking the piss’

This argument is absurd. Why is the UK government conflating presence on X with free speech? By this logic, the government is affronting free speech by not being active on any number of other websites. Can we read into the lack of government Reddit activity that they don't support free speech?

On Saturday Starmer equivocated on Trump's US kidnapping Maduro, today he is forced to respond to Trump threatening to annex Greenland. The two are not separate, Trump was testing the strength of the rules based order with Maduro and leaders like Starmer entirely failed to rise to the moment.

Maduro was a horrendous dictator and the US undertook an illegal act of imperial aggression and is threatening the right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination. These are both true and acrobatics are not needed. The US has made the world a less safe place through their actions. Period.

Well, the last sunset of the year decided to be pretty stunning.

2025 has been a tumultuous year but I wanted to end it by remembering some of the highlights: 📢 speaking up for trans rights in Oxford 📚 launching my book at the University of Oxford 💚 introducing the 1st and 1000th members of Oxford City Green Party 📸 twerking hard for the residents of East Oxford

It speaks to the janus faced nature of contemporary right-wing politics that the same people who decry cancel culture and summon the phantoms of a left attack on free speech see no contradiction in calling for someone to be deprived of citizenship over tweets.

It shouldn't shock me to see a political leader speaking with moral clarity and from an evidential foundation in migration. Yet, with such an ahistorical and evidence free consensus persisting on migration, it does. Excellent as always from @zackpolanski.bsky.social and so needed.

Happy Xmas! 👑🎄🎁🎉🥂 @apowelllaw.bsky.social

Let's choose kindness in 2026. youtu.be/lopMMkz0law

The message this ended on is an important one to remember: "Christmas is a story about migration."

Warwick Law School is looking for a new Assistant Professor in Law the post is permanent and starting from 1st September 2026. I have only been in the school for a few months, but can already say that it is a supportive and welcoming space, particularly for early career colleagues.

It is amazing to see the UK rejoin Erasmus plus. Once again, students will be able to benefit from extensive European exchange opportunities. However, one wonders whether advocates of Brexit and its ideological fantasies will apologize to the generation of students that were robbed of this chance.

It was an absolute pleasure to present my book, Queering UK Refugee Law: Sexual Diversity and Asylum Administration, at the University of Exeter last night. Thanks so much to Ben Hudson and The Routes Network for hosting and to Raawiyah Rifath for acting as discussant.

It was an absolute pleasure to present my book, Queering UK Refugee Law: Sexual Diversity and Asylum Administration, at the University of Exeter last night. Thanks so much to Ben Hudson and The Routes Network for hosting and to Raawiyah Rifath for acting as discussant.

Fantastic book launch by @apowelllaw.bsky.social in the Law School at the University of Exeter this evening. 🎉📖🥂 Queering UK Refugee Law: Sexual Diversity and Asylum Administration was published by Bristol University Press. Further details available here: bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/queering-uk-...

Tomorrow's the day! I will be doing the first public launch event for my book at the University of Exeter. If you are free, please come along or join online! 📚 www.exeter.ac.uk/events/detai...

Tomorrow's the day! I will be doing the first public launch event for my book at the University of Exeter. If you are free, please come along or join online! 📚 www.exeter.ac.uk/events/detai...

On Wednesday 17th December, I will be speaking at this event for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, alongside other fantastic feminist researchers! Come along to show your solidarity in Soho. 🌈☂️

This is the mind of optimism I need for the last teaching day of the year!

Qualifying, limiting, or amending human rights-- or even pretending to contemplate doing so-- will both embolden and legitimise the far-right. Once again, Labour are useful idiots doing the bidding of literal fascists and then being narcissistic enough to claim they are fighting them.

The central inherence of the Second World War and the Holocaust was the idea of universality as a fundamental pillar in philosophical systems and legal frameworks. There are reasons to be critical of universality conceptually and philosophically. But all evidence says this approach won't work 1/2

Really interesting release of new sexual orientation data today: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... Particularly starling how significant age is in identification as LGB - 8% of 16-24; 6.4% 25-34; but just 1.2% of 65 and over.

I’ve become convinced that the most tedious psuedo-clever argument is that something is kind of like religion

Next Monday, I will be doing the first launch event for my new Book, Queering UK Refugee Law: Sexual Diversity and Asylum Administration. This event will be taking place at the University of Exeter and there is also a link for anyone wanting to join online. www.exeter.ac.uk/events/detai...

This weekend's wet and windy winter walk took us all the way to Farmoor Reservoir. 🌊 @apowelllaw.bsky.social

As for the comment at the end : they talk about immigration every week as well but they’re still doing an immigration special.

More needs to be said about Fiona Bruce saying 'we talk about the cost of living every week' in response to @zackpolanski.bsky.social. As if immigration is also not mentioned every single week on #bbcqt. The BBC is itself playing a part in creating public connections of immigration as a key divide.

Zia Yusuf truly is an odious and nasty individual. To show such disdain for a member of the public who has given their life to working in the NHS says everything about his character. A thoroughly repulsive member of an utterly vile party. #bbcqt

There are just two weeks left to submit your abstract for SLSA2026. As a reminder, myself @maxmorris.bsky.social l and @sandraduffy.bsky.social are running a special topic on "Law in the Culture Wars". Submission guidance here: www.sussex.ac.uk/collaborate/...

Update: Apologies I was due to be on Have I got News for You this week. We've now postponed until 2026. To go on Question Time and speak up for migrants right now feels vital.

I have recently received a PhD application that refers to multiple articles by me that I did not write. I really do struggle to comprehend how you click send without checking that the articles attributed to the proposed supervisor are ones that they actually wrote...

I am not saying Crosscountry are crap, but I would estimate I have lost already around 9 hours to train delays in this (currently in week 8/10) term...

Climbing ladders on the roadside like this poses danger not just to those erecting flags, but also other road users. It risks distracting drivers and the County Council should be taking action to discourage this by removing flags and pursuing for associated cost www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2566132...

Climbing ladders on the roadside like this poses danger not just to those erecting flags, but also other road users. It risks distracting drivers and the County Council should be taking action to discourage this by removing flags and pursuing for associated cost www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2566132...

The whole Your party episode is doing very little to dispel public conceptions of left-wing parties as factional and disorganized.

This was such a good lecture! And now it is freely available on You Tube. Happy viewing!

These expenses are *caused* by hostile by policy. They are entirely the result of accomodation policy. This framing is absurd. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Import joint statement on @10dowingstreet.bsky.social #asylum proposals ilpa.org.uk/statement-of...

This was such a good lecture! And now it is freely available on You Tube. Happy viewing!

Received the physical copies of my book last night and wow, still feels unreal to actually be able to hold it in my hand! I am particularly pleased with how the cover art turned out. (Promise this is the last book related post for a while).

This is *exactly* the right level of cringe for cut through. Can you imagine any other party leader pulling this off?

Between freezing the income tax threshold and freezing the student loan repayment threshold for "plan 2" i.e those going to the university between 2012-2022, the government has again chosen to levy the pain on young graduates. The warped priorities of this government are clear for all.

It is particularly absurd to talk with one hand about the (much needed) restoration of maintenance grants while with the other you enact policy that will directly reduce the options for UK students seeking to access higher education.

Glad to see that the government has partially u-turned on the international student levy, significantly reducing the scale of the charge. The decision to press ahead with even some of the levy is, however, a reckless and irresponsible act of vandalism against UK Universities.

Putting this into a first past the post system would be utter chaos. The UK has become a de-facto multi-party democracy and failing to have an electoral system capable of handling that is an act of sabotage by the government.

Under the current University funding model international students are one of the few aspects of HE that actually makes money (most home tuition and research is loss making- yes it's more complicated than that). It's simply false to pretend international students take places from home students. 1/2