Nathan Gill is no fringe politician. He was the leader of the Reform Party and before that UKIP in Wales. A Brexit Party MEP. A friend and ally of Nigel Farage, who in 2016 called him: "terrific," and "as honest as the day is long." This is a MASSIVE story www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

After the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to making favourable statements about Russia in exchange for money, worth reupping the FIVE QUESTIONS Nigel Farage is never asked about his fondness for Putin @bylinetimes.bsky.social

Nathan Gill, Reform's leader in Wales at the last Welsh parliament election, has pled guilty to 8 bribery charges, taking Russian cash while he was one of Nigel Farage’s MEPs to speak in favour of Putin's Russia in that parliament www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Extremely happy that my first single-authored paper is now published (open access) at @EJPRjournal: “Asymmetric backlash against structural economic change: the electoral consequences of the coal phase-out in Germany” Here's a summary thread... 1/n

"The question you have to ask Farage is, why is he deliberately lying about the facts?" x.com/GBNEWS/statu...

After Berlusconi’s statement (“editto bulgaro”) the then new RAI management cancelled these three shows, officially because "they were no longer competitive" (the figures were actually very good). Italy‘s ranking for freedom of the press has been really bad since then: ipi.media/italy-public...

Explore “Who Owns Britain?”, including an interactive data dashboard and visual essay at the link below. www.common-wealth.org/interactive/...

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

I am thrilled that my article "The nation-state, non-Western empires, and the politics of cultural difference" is now out in the American Journal of Political Science. doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

‪New Banksy mural appears at Royal Courts of Justice in London It depicts a judge in a traditional wig and black robe hitting a protester lying on the ground, with blood splattering their placard.

Happy to share our new research on UK climate politics 🚨 We found Members of Parliament (MPs) use the language of climate "pragmatism" to avoid rapid change. It risks becoming a new discourse of delay. More detail below and in 🧵 1/ theconversation.com/politicians-...

Second, politicians often underestimate the true level of public support for climate policies. Closing this gap is essential for making faster climate mitigation the pragmatic choice. @climatebarometer.bsky.social does excellent work on this. climatebarometer.org/new-public-p... 10/

It’s official - “Nigel Farage is right, don’t vote for him” is a demonstrably awful strategy for Labour. Boosts salience of immigration, costs votes on the left, doesn’t persuade any voters on right (why would they accept a crap knock-off when they can have the original?)

V. interesting. The "island of strangers" speech happened serendipitously (in one sense) during a panel survey. Paper uses this natural experiment to see the effect of such migrant-sceptic interventions on individual perceptions and voter intentions. Upshot: it harmed Labour for no obvious benefit.

Out now! Important new book on 'The BBC: After the Licence Fee?' edited by John Mair, Andrew Beck and Janine Chandler - with contributions by Lord (Tony) Hall, Prof John Curtice, me & 20+ others www.amazon.co.uk/BBC-AFTER-LI...

In a recent article, @jfmorin.bsky.social and I argued that the rise of private space organizations like SpaceX was not primarily driven by ingenious tech entrepreneurs. At its heart, their rise was made possible by the support of public organizations like NASA 👩‍🚀 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

Everyone who has written a long read about Britain being at boiling point should be required to write a follow-up in October about what actually materialised.

Call for expressions of interest from applicants who wish to apply for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship with King’s College London as their host organisation. Areas include social sciences, law, and business.

I've written a short blog post about the process of switching my personal website from Hugo to Quarto, some of the tricky things, and advice for those thinking about doing the same! Link: nrennie.rbind.io/blog/hugo-qu... #RStats #QuartoPub

In his post today Matt Goodwin is worrying that Reform may be taken over by careerists whose only interest in personal advancement and financial benefit. Surely not.

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨 We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community. 🔗 epssnet.org Here’s a thread with everything you need to know. 🧵

Yesterday's #NoKings protests seem to have matched, if not beaten, the record numbers of the 2017 Women's March. Let's hope it can be repeated and will have electoral impact.

We’re hiring 3 permanent (tenured) lecturers in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. These are ‘education pathway’ posts (in Economics, Research Methods, & Comparative Politics) 1/4 www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117268-... www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117209-... www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/117245-...

Happy Bicycle Day! Switching urban mobility to cycling means healthier people, huge savings for the health budget, and fewer road deaths and injuries, but we need good cycling infrastructure. We need uninterrupted cycle paths separate from traffic.

Italians abroad voting on June 8-9: reminder that you’ve got to send your ballots to your relevant consular office no later than *today* as they need to arrive by the p.m. of June 5 to be counted. Sent mine last week. Join us ❤️

The majority of Italians thinks that citizenship accelerates the integration process as well. Eurobarometer data show that 87% of Italians believe that acquiring Italian citizenship is an important factor for the successful integration of immigrants in Italy. europa.eu/eurobaromete...

Musk’s official position I that he has stepped down as leader of DOGE, a position that he also denies ever holding. But DOGE is a network and Musk is still the central node www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

My colleague @mgerver.bsky.social has created this open letter to Keir Starmer opposing the measures announced in last week's Immigration White Paper, on economic, political and moral grounds. Open to all academics/researchers to sign. molliegerver.weebly.com/petition.html

Zack Elkins (@zachelkins.bsky.social) compiled a wonderful collection of perspectives on academic writing (esp. as a political scientists). I use it often. His page: sites.google.com/site/zachelk... I made a backup here as well, so nothing is lost: github.com/carlislerain...

The cost of Grok: "I can't breathe at home, it smells like gas outside. How come I can't breathe at home and y'all get to breathe at home?"

We need more of this sort of thing. "Change is good, say local residents as absence of anxiety grips local area."

New (first! 🥳) Publication 🚨 High-street retail vacancies, capturing economic decline, are linked to increased support of UK's populist party, UKIP (now Reform).

I see America has entered the ‘Therese Coffey extolling the joys of the humble turnip’ era of Brexit.

The written piece gets the glory, but really editing does the heavy lifting. Today I talk about the invisible craft behind strong (academic) writing. Spoiler: It’s not the idea or insight, but it’s the revision. 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/catherin...

“Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe, with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes”.

Fruth: “I’m still puzzled why, of all animals, bonobos were the ones to form female alliances. We might never know, but it gives me a glimmer of hope that females of our closest living relatives, in our evolutionary line, teamed up to take the reins of power alongside males.”

My book Democracy Under Strain is finally out, and I couldn’t be happier. 🥳 It’s been a long, challenging journey—but one that’s shaped me deeply as an academic. Here’s what it’s about 🧵 #DemocracyUnderStrain (1/11)

Oh oh ... The US has the power to switch off the UK's nuclear subs, posing a security issue phys.org/news/2025-03... via @physorg_com

The University of Manchester seeks to appoint a Lecturer in Environmental Politics. More info: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMM071/. Closing date: 8/5/2025. I am not involved in the search but would love to see more colleagues in environmental policy and governance. #PublicPolicy #Polisky #PolicyProcess

Europe's democratic recession and why the EU's rule of law monitoring exercise isn't stopping it. Report on annual @liberties.eu survey. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

In our latest Editorial we discuss the continuing damage being done to US science, and its impact on researchers and the environment 👇 Deep cuts: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share that my paper on citizen-to-citizen persuasion, co-authored with Carlos Rueda-Cañòn and @tjryan02.bsky.social, was just accepted at the Journal of Politics @thejop.bsky.social . Link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... 🧵

The top 20% of political science departments produced 75% of all tenure track research university faculty & the bottom 50% accounted for less than 5% www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🎤IN-PERSON SEMINAR: www.ucl.ac.uk/americas/eve... by @fpvantaggiato.bsky.social hosted by @malugatto.bsky.social

We need to consider what this means for our democracies at the most fundamental level. If governance is shaped by engagement-driven narratives over reality, how do institutions survive? If truth is irrelevant to power, what stops disordered discourse from capturing the state everywhere?

Americans voted for Trump, but don't support his agenda Our look at 300 polls asking support for Trump's policies: