That looks more like it. As defence spending has fallen, non-pensioner welfare has grown slightly from around 4.8 per cent of GDP in the mid-80s to 5.1 per cent now. Non-pensioner welfare is now about the same level it was in the mid-1990s. Thank you for clarifying this @ruthcurtice.bsky.social

Not long to go now until the @cjres.bsky.social 2026 Conference, 16-17 July. The 2 main conference themes are: - Urban Agglomeration: Who Gains and Who Loses from Density-Driven Development? - Revisiting the Economic Geographies of the Defence Industry Info here: www.cpes.org.uk/events/cjres2026

‪Privatisation is not a “one-way street” - it is reversible. Remunicipalisation is a type of privatisation reversal where previously privatised services are brought back under local municipal control. free to access academic.oup.com/cjres/advanc... @judithclifton.bsky.social @weownit.org.uk

Celebrating anti-optimal living. "Things fall apart; the metrics cannot hold."

Austerity, centralised control, and the local elections. Taking it to the street -- "it's the potholes, Stupid" Very good piece from Simon Jenkins. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A really important topic for academics - having children - and one that still doesn't get much airtime.

Private equity and the high street - asset stripping, debt, closure Modella owns chains TGJones, Claire’s and The Original Factory Shop, which have now closed all stores with the loss of about 2,500 jobs. And, Hobbycraft , which also closed numerous stores. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

A really important topic for academics - having children - and one that still doesn't get much airtime.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Clearly, time to post this link again ... we argue electricity should be a basic human right and should be considered part of a social minimum. (free access) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Very good paper on the links between the rise of the right, austerity and running down public services (free to access) Public services are "important anchors of people's electoral choices" Study is on Italy but I think we see this in the UK as well onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/CUDU5R...

We need to rejoin the EU to stop the risk of these kinds of threats transpiring. Medium countries like the UK have no bargaining power in global trade on their own. We need to raise tax on US big tech + then replace it with open source + public option tech. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Excellent paper by @palmapolyak.bsky.social showing distinct models of "clean tech" with very different outcomes for place. Shows some of the complicated relationships between decarbonisation efforts, industrial policy, & geopolitics.

Over 56,000 people demand water is put into public ownership, want a referendum if government won’t budge, and have signed this petition in under 2 weeks. If it gets to 100,000 it has to be debated in Parliament. 82% of people want publicly owned water. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Anyone working in history of comedy/satire, television, modern British politics - there's a fully funded PhD to research the Spitting Image archive @theul.bsky.social, with supervision at Exeter Uni. All disciplines considered, pls do share widely. www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

The distribution of unearned income (capital investment) - even more concentrated than earned income (wages)

For too long, economic policy has rested on assumptions treated as facts: that markets self-correct, that governments should stand back, that growth will trickle down. Today in Barcelona w/ Dep PM Carlos Cuerpo and the Gov of Spain we are launching the Global Council for a Common Good Economy.

My review of David Harvey’s ‘Story of Capital’ ..for the LSE Review of Books... blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

📢How do we eradicate poverty without relying on economic growth? Join us online on 22 April for the launch of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights ‘Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth’: www.neep-poverty.org/ #BeyondGrowthRoadmap / @deschuttero.bsky.social

📢 2026 USF International Fellowships - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS This fully-funded program offers 3-9 month sabbatical research visits for urban scholars from the Global South. Deadline: 6 July 2026 Read more & apply : https://ow.ly/ezMb50YILbw

Listening to Jonathan Gray set the scene with a pretty clear argument:

"Decisions that look neutral rarely are. The framing matters. The data that gets centred matters. Who gets consulted, and how, matters. Human geography provides a way of understanding those dynamics" www.vaeresocial.au/blog/why-hum...

🚨We are delighted to announce our 5th CEE conference is taking place 🌍 Poznan University of Economics And Business, Poland 🗓️ 14-16 September 2026 🚨 ➡️ Resilience, Realignment, and Renaissance: Regional Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe For detailed information: 🔗 bit.ly/4c3RyuY 😁 🔁

Ministers are exploring triggering the break clause in Palantir's NHS contract. I've signed the open letter to Wes Streeting calling on him to get Palantir out of the NHS. www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/we...

Hot off the press - Viral Debt: The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability This book shows how debt – like a contagion – works systematically across economic and social structures and geographies This is a free, Open Access, book: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

BBC News - Conservatives vow to outlaw councils working four-day week - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I think its particularly telling that the Tories are so vexed by the (very successful) public sector experiment with the 4 day work week 1/2

May I interest you in £10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June. We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

Excellent piece on the spread of the private equity model into public services by @hettieobrien.bluesky Where private extravagance is the flipside of public austerity. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Increased immigration enforcement harms everyone in the labour market -- EPI's dive into US unemployment data. www.epi.org/blog/unemplo...

Come and shape the future of the Nuffield Foundation. A new & key leadership role at the UK’s leading independent funder of social & economic research. We fund evidence, back innovation & support pioneering practice. Join a great team at an exciting moment. roles.saxbam.com/advert-detai...

During the pandemic, eviction moratoria helped avert at least 2.9 million eviction cases nationwide. But rent obligations didn’t disappear. New research shows what happened to those arrears.

Hot off the press - Viral Debt: The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability This book shows how debt – like a contagion – works systematically across economic and social structures and geographies This is a free, Open Access, book: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

Good to see this -- clear and jargon-free.

University Challenge! Wishing the best of luck to Darwin Team @darwincollegecam.bsky.social in the final quarter-final this Monday at 8.30pm on BBC2! Shout-out to Geography PhD student Jon White, supervised by @mia-gray.bsky.social. The team takes on Merton College, Oxford for a spot in the semis.

Fantastic to see the end of the two child limit. This really is an important step in efforts to drive down poverty rates in the UK. See press release below: www.gov.uk/government/n...

The piece I wrote on foreign investment screening mechanisms now has a journal issue "Foreign investment screening mechanisms and emergent geographies of (post)globalization" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🌟 Early Bird rate ends soon for #RSA26 🌟 Join the RSA community in Gothenburg in June. 🔶 Regions as Arenas in a Changing World 📆 15-18 June 2026 Normal fees apply from 1st April. For more info & to register: 🔗 bit.ly/4atPUlH 😊 🔁

Great to be co-hosting this 👇

Some good news here -- on the reduction of pollution (both PM2.5 and NO2) in major cities from 2010 to 2024. The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements. Great to see.

📢 Call for Papers: PKES–IIPPE PhD Student Conference 2026 🗓 3 June 2026 📍 University of Hertfordshire (UK) ⏰ Deadline: 27 March 2026 🔗 Application form: shorturl.at/oI6az 📄Full details: shorturl.at/tmXfs PhD students working in Post-Keynesian, Marxist, and pluralist economics invited to apply. 🧵

Me too. Liverpool's wonderful library

Powerful piece from @AdityaChakrabortty on falling life expectancies in the UK. An important reminder that the legacy of austerity and inequality will be with us for a long time. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🌟 Registration is now open for #RSA26 🌟 Join the RSA community in Gothenburg in June. 🔶 Regions as Arenas in a Changing World: Rethinking Spatial Theories 📆 15-18 June 2026 To benefit from the early bird rate, register by 31st March 🔗 bit.ly/4atPUlH 😊 🔁

⏰ FINAL REMINDER: Urban Urgencies Call There is still time to apply for our new grant supporting rapid-response, collaborative research on the most pressing urban challenges—from the climate crisis to AI and housing. 🗓️ Deadline: 23 March 2026 (23:59 UTC) Don't miss out! 🔗 ow.ly/FUIn50XGtgz

I absolutely agree. Also see the upcoming special issue on remunicipalisation (taking public services back into public control at the municipal scale) in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. Already a number of advanced articles out: academic.oup.com/cjres/advanc...

Wonderful to see our PhD student, Chloe King, win this early career researcher prize for research impact and Engagement As a discipline, geography's research is often engaged and full of impact

Year 12s at UK state schools: Apply for the FREE @suttontrust.bsky.social UK Summer School at Cambridge! Experience life at Cambridge & dive into Geography—all for free. Deadline: 12 Feb (Midday) Apply: summerschools.suttontrust.com/course/university-of-cambridge/geography-4/

Is the UK’s industrial strategy really place based? New @rsablog.bsky.social blog on our recent @regionalstudies.bsky.social paper. Blog here: regions.regionalstudies.org/ezine/articl... paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @regstud.bsky.social @rsaibis.bsky.social

Check out our advance access content for our new issue on How Places are Contesting the Privatisation of Local Public Services Edited by @judithclifton.bsky.social @mia-gray.bsky.social, David MacDonald and Ron Martin academic.oup.com/cjres/advanc...

This looks interesting -- exploring regional cultures amps-research.com/livable-citi... Examining societies and cultures from varied regional perspectives. Regional Cultures Strand: Livable Cities 2026. University of Salford, MANCHESTER Dates: 17-19 June, 2026 Abstracts: 01 April, 2026