Yesterday 142 academic staff at the University of Lincoln were put at risk of redundancy including the entire Politics and International Relations team. This follows cuts since 2024 which have already seen over 500 people leave the university. This is the 'University of No Regrets'.

We are now moving from the chronic to the acute phase of the university crisis. The next few months will be vital in seeing what can be saved and what is too far gone. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...

‘We urge the Government to prioritise this issue. Should this situation continue unchecked, the damage to the health of higher education, research and innovation will be profound and have long-lasting consequences.’ www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...

This is an excellent thread summarising the state of UKHE and why we should be angry. These intellectual losses have very real effects for UK society as a whole, making us less creative, less intelligent, less healthy, and altogether poorer.

First they came for the languages. In the hope that no one would have the words to say what was happening. 1/9🧵

Such a lovely evening with the RHS last night. Thrilled to have won the First Book Prize! Thanks to my publishers @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social ; to @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofleicester.bsky.social and @mpilhlt.bsky.social for support as I finalized the manuscript (1/2)

The apology was made today by Keir Starmer. I am sorry that both my birth and adoptive grandparents are no longer with us to hear it, and it certainly shouldn’t have taken this long. Forced adoptions 'a stain on our history' says Starmer as he gives formal apology www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Many of us have pointed out for years now that the structural awfulness of all this was only being delayed by the expansionist behaviour of large Russells. The wolf was long at the door.

I say this very gently, but no one should think they are 'safe' if they work in UK HE today. There might be 10-15 people working at a university who are safe by dint of the fact their job involves seeing redundancies through. Everyone else must understand the fundamentals here, and then organise.

Any gathering of historians that ends in someone keeping their chip shop open in order to serve our every whim is a good gathering of historians. Particular shout out for finally meeting @hagenilda.bsky.social after all these years.

Absolutely!! 100% the best!

📣 We're looking for new members to join our International Advisory Board! 📣 🌍 We're particularly interested in recruiting board members with expertise in the following areas: urban history of Africa (any region); South Asia; China; Latin America & the Caribbean; Central and Eastern Europe

"The variety of historical evidence is nearly infinite. Everything that man says or writes ... can and ought to teach us about him. It is curious to note how many people, unacquainted with our work, underestimate the true extent of its possibilities." 'The Historian's Craft' (1949, trans 1954).

Please consider signing and sharing. So very many of us in the Humanities and Social Sciences are affected. c.org/RQYq55rPmk

Looking forward to our last @ihrbritainseminar.bsky.social of the academic year. Ren Pepitone will be speaking about amateur actors and local radio in the 1960s-1970s. All welcome. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Petition against redundancies at Exeter. Humanities and Social Sciences staff are hardest hit, with 25% of posts in subjects including History, English, Modern Languages and Politics slated to be cut.

Many congratulations to Charlotte Gauthier, @faraiunvers.bsky.social winner of the @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org and @chalkefestival.bsky.social ‘Pitch My Project’ competition for an outstanding talk at Chalke last night! @lucynoakes1.bsky.social

The met office want to know why I describe their forecast as ‘not at all accurate’

📣 New UWP series! 📣 Studies in Crime Narratives (eds. Kirsten Saxton & Emily G.T. Corrêa) welcomes scholarship on crime & criminality across cultures, periods, genres & theories. For info, email: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] #womenswriting2026

This is frustrating. Well explained in this thread. But symptomatic of how governments mis/use evidence (and understand it) when developing policy. Policy based evidence making not evidence based policy making. Core, important issues that DO need addressing by, with and for CYP are routinely missed

I think a lot of things about the U16 social media ban. I‘m just going to list a few of them and go have some lunch. 1. It belongs in part to groups of parents who read (parts of) Jonathan Haidt’s questionable book and then yelled a lot on WhatsApp.

Our society has spent the entirety of teenagers' lives systematically destroying every alternative to online interaction, from youth-clubs to broadcast TV, and now wants to cut off their access to the one thing that was sold as replacing it all.

This apology is too late for my birth grandmother, who deserved far much more than the pain and trauma she experienced. And it barely scratches the surface of the inter-generational trauma. But I appreciate the move. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

It seems a good day to remind people that in the UK 3 times as many people work in Indian restaurants or for McDonalds as in the whole coal and steel industry. 5 times as many are academic staff at universities. If Labour does not understand its electorate, there is no way to appeal to it.

Evan's 'Introduction' to the new edition is free to read to 15 September via the CUP website bit.ly/3Sew1bo, with the full text available to those with library access to the Camden Series. The online and print editions are also available to RHS Fellows and Members as a benefit bit.ly/4ouSa1l 2/2

Published this week: 'The Correspondence of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, 1640–1691', edited by Evan Bourke: bit.ly/4ouSa1l This is the latest volume in @royalhistsoc.org's Camden Series of primary source editions, published online and in print from CUP: bit.ly/4oxm5Ga #Skystorians 1/2

at an event today at the Institute of Historical Research: a genuine reminder of how much amazing work is being done on history AND how fortunate we are to have institutions like this+ people whose work sustains them. just in case anyone wanted something to feel good about amidst the general gloom

Under 16s to be banned from social media, and a white supremacist who fuels riots on our streets, still allowed to run a whole platform.

Two pieces from me this week you may have missed: (2) what it's like to live inside the unceasing retreat of British Higher Education and its rapid unscheduled disassembly. It's, well, bad. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

I love the idea of the PayphoneGo game in Australia… but how it might translate to the UK outside of larger urban areas is an issue. 20K boxes left here but they are often at least a mile apart (why, yes, I have been purposefully mapping this in my area) 1/2 www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

This is great news: though it’s a one-off and the question of adding Men B as a regular vaccine to this group remains. Meningitis B vaccine to be offered to a million young people www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Once again resetting the Days Since I Last Thought About The SS Richard Montgomery counter to zero… 63 days this time. 183 days last time. US backs plans for SS Monty masts to remain in UK www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is no more about the details of immigration policy than the progroms my great great grandparents fled were about Jews committing crimes. It's straightforward racist violence and it needs the strongest possible response.

I'd still love more responses from men and folks based outside Russell Group institutions, but at this stage ten more complete responses from everyone and anyone who is eligible will make me very happy.

You lovely people have got me up to 190 responses, so I'm going to keep going to 200! If you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last 5 years under any title, please take 10 mins to share your thoughts about that work. Please do share to widen the pool.

Also now available: the 2026 call for applications for the Society's annual Funded Book Workshops - for historians writing a 2nd or 3rd monograph bit.ly/4uwep8C. Grants enable authors to hold a day workshop with specialist readers to discuss a manuscript in detail before submission #Skystorians

Ten years on from the Brexit vote: a new @yougov.co.uk poll finds that 77% of the British public have trust in the expertise of historians bit.ly/49I9NV7 It's heartening to hear that so many value, and certainly haven't had enough of, the historian as expert. #Skystorians 1/4

If you ever wondered why I write about historical injustice, it's to try and remind us WHY a framework around deprivation of liberty was instituted in the first place.

My latest article has just been published in The Historical Journal. It looks at the ways in which HIV/AIDS was positioned as not just an urban problem, but one that was antithetical to rural spaces. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is very sad. One of the great champions of online academia, back in the early days of social media, and a font of knowledge on both methods and his own research too. A global loss.

📣 Applications open for @historylabplus.bsky.social & HistoryUK ECR Survey Fellow 2026-7, to action UK-wide survey of support & access to resources available to historical researchers post-PhD 📍 Remote 💰 Honorarium of £800 🕰️ 23:59, 14 June #Skystorians #ECRs @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org

This is such lazy reporting and manufactured outrage. This is bog-standard museum practice designed to prepare and safeguard front-of-house staff and provide more context for discussion, should it arise. It's not even in the written interpretation! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

We are stronger, and better historians, together. Historical societies abound in the UK, and we've listed 150 with BlueSky accounts in this updated Starter Pack. go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Other societies appear on a new listing of subject societies on the RHS website bit.ly/4ebwP9r #Skystorians

If we're doing state pension discourse again, the two things to remember are: * pensions are benefits - people who take the state pension are on benefits * you cannot have this discussion without the context of the massive expansion (and contraction) of private pensions since the 1970s

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

“Westminster needs to wake up to this need for joined-up thinking if we are to limit the number of...Essexes, Hertfordshires & Nottinghams...UK universities are a precious commodity. Ten years of dropping this commodity to see where the pieces land is not an education policy worthy of the name.” 1/2

Samaritans Report a 40% increase in calls from the Trans Community since April 2025. I telephoned the Samaritans n 1969, in 1971, in 1974, and in 1978 I am still here because of those calls. Call the Samaritans, anytime for free any, from any phone, on 116 123 www.samaritans.org/news/samarit...

My Pimlott lecture is available to read open access! It argues two things: that everyday understandings of old age are profoundly shaped by family relationships; and that how we narrate those intimate ties has changed in important ways over the past fifty years. academic.oup.com/tcbh/article...

The Society's President and Council have released the following statement on the proposed closure of undergraduate degrees at the University of Hertfordshire, in #History and the wider humanities bit.ly/4dmV5oO This comes at a time of further bad news from Essex and Nottingham #Skystorians

Reading this as one of my many tasks today. Very downcast to see all those universities founded in the 1960s to foster the whole person, communities of hope and the conditions of freedom... ripped apart and trashed just a couple of generations later. For no good reason.