I hope you all celebrated Good Friday in the traditional manner youtu.be/AGm2dvRK7Uw?...

Academic year 2025-26 has been rather stressful so it was nice to be reminded why I started all this in the first place: research. Thanks to two great referees (peer review not broken) & anyone who sat through me trying to make sense of babayagas looming over cityscapes & tanks in fields.

Finally found a house that matches our Robin Day chairs 😆 themodernhouse.com/sales-list/f...

Every time I think things can't get worse ... the 51st state 🙄 www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/scho...

nominative determinism www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Who's been reading Alami and Dixon, then?

Extraordinary piece of social history from the BBC archive about Manchester. Plus ça change ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0SO...

Traumatised that this is 40 years old today. youtu.be/gFdxkb-MbJQ?...

a pretty fair piece on the VC as well as the wider struggles all UK HE is facing from the @manchestermill.bsky.social manchestermill.co.uk/why-the-hell...

we can but hope joelgouveia.substack.com/p/the-death-...

Manchester Political Economy Centre & Global Political Economy Research Cluster seminar 4th March 3:30-5pm: Simon 5.04 All welcome Heloise Weber (University of Queensland) Anti-colonial struggles and the politics of organizing structural injustice: Critique of the ‘Right to Development’

The next Global Policy North Workshop will be hosted by the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the University of St Andrews 24-25 June 2026. Call for papers in the attached but TL;DR version ... if you're working on global governance/policy you'll find it interesting!

"But student finance isn’t broken. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect inherited advantage while shifting risk onto those with the least" www.hepi.ac.uk/2026/02/24/s...

Labour are totally asleep at the wheel with regard to university funding, student loans, regional economies, and seem to have little sense of the electoral implications of that.

Bloody hell they were brilliant.

and I was having a difficult time getting a journal R&R to 10,000 from 11,479

This will cheer all my academic colleagues up no end ... the excellent @gsoh31.bsky.social on the equally excellent @ohgodwhatnow.bsky.social podcast open.spotify.com/episode/3uWt...

is it being racist that helps you become a billionaire, or does being a billionaire help turn you racist?

I guess the mistake is to assume they would somehow play by the rules (and laws) manchestermill.co.uk/exclusive-re...

These proposed changes are horrifying and this government needs to stop even considering them. If you have a moment (and live in the UK), please fill this out!

Can't wait until they find out why the original sunken gardens were redesigned in the first place 🙄 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I didn't think I could like the @manchestermill.bsky.social any more than I already do. Is it possible to be petty and important simultaneously? If you live or work in and around Manchester you should be reading the Mill manchestermill.co.uk/why-the-mill...

Stuart's 25 from 25 open.spotify.com/playlist/2y7...

Man believes own publicity 🤯

My local team at it again

I think he means the UK economy is no longer a passport to social mobility ... www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Ministers set to lay out details for ‘Northern Powerhouse’ rail scheme in new year www.ft.com/content/d62f...

Can't imagine what inspired them to change the name www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Given the state of the world, here’s a picture of the dog to cheer you all up

'Until now, research funding has been the story of nudges toward the things government wants through bodies it influences but does not control, and through setting the legal and reporting guardrails for...QR. This is now going to significantly change.'

StRaTeGiC pLaNnInG

Another day, another set of institutional refreshments …

Manchester are advertising a number of political economy (broadly conceived) fully funded 3 year Hallsworth & Simon post-docs www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/research/fun... closing date - Jan 16 2026

If you’re interested in a little schadenfreude this evening check out the btl comments at the FT: Higher property taxes for landlords and wealthy homeowners. Otherwise known as the bonfire of the rentiers. on.ft.com/3XEcfWt

and none of these indicators look to have bottomed out yet

Susan Lapworth, the chief executive of the OfS, sought to allay fears, reassuring MPs that it did not mean the regulator was expecting any of the institutions to exit “in a disorderly way”. well that's OK then www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"A system built on specialisation, efficiency", that right there is the death knell for the current university system in the UK, if (big if) government pushes it through. They actively don't want HE to grow, they will intervene, apparently, to help it shrink. per this morning's education committee.

the thing that scares me about Labour HE policy is that because I work in the sector I can see how absolutely insane it is, which makes me wonder just how terrible their policies are in all the other sectors I’m in less of a position to engage with critically out of lack of knowledge.

If anyone wants to know how I've been spending my Monday this describes it pretty well. Too right there's an issue, that O2 are totally bloody useless

LSE is hiring an Assistant Professor (Education track) in International Political Economy: Primary responsibility is education; we are looking for a track record in teaching, student mentoring, and pastoral care. Annual salary: £68,087+ Deadline: 30 November 2025. jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Wait till they discover ticketmaster et al 🙄 www.theguardian.com/money/2025/n...

Grim news from the University of Nottingham c.org/XBRJP4j4ZF

Joe Sheldon kicking off Methods North West workshop on Exploring Method(ologies) in Global Political Economy discussing walking interviews at the University of Liverpool

3 years on and I'm finally getting used to outlook email moving the mark as unread, flag, pin & delete buttons to the right of the inbox and what does Microsoft do? Moves them back to the left 🤯

🚨New PGR social media/digital culture methods network if you're in the north west 🚨

I'm a bit late to John Keatley's less commercial/celebrity based work but this collection somehow seems even more relevant and moving in 2025 hafny.org/blog/2017/2/...

Just discovered that I get access to the BFI player through @uomlibrary.bsky.social ... I may be gone for some time