AOC: "Extreme level of wealth inequality leads to social instability and drives authoritarianism, right-wing populism, and really dangerous domestic internal politics. That is a direct outcome of the failure of democracies over decades to deliver."

I regularly post updates on this story because it's an atrocity on an incomprehensible scale but people don't really talk about it www.reuters.com/business/hea...

How American politics were bought by the billionaire class.

Tired: The UK is a two party system (Lab & Con) Wired: This is the age of political fragmentation Inspired: The UK is a two party system (Green & Ref)

I deleted my Amazon account (including about 40 books I had "bought" for Kindle) about a year ago. It's easy! Loads of alternatives. Highly recommend ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is basically supply side economics. Billionaires obviously cant spend their money on food and services so they will instead buy elections and install corrupt abusive racists because billionaires love that stuff

@uofgussp.bsky.social has a fab community of participatory researchers. Now advertising for RA w participatory methods experience to join us and work across two of our large grants: @healthmod.bsky.social and @changingrealities.bsky.social

New SHERU webinar: 🔷Refreshing the National Performance Framework🔷 🕐️ Monday March 2nd, 1-2pm 🔗 Sign up here: www.eventbrite.com/e/refreshing...

Excellent piece this. Points to the narrowing of our thinking when we focus on "public health" - the medicalising effects of 'health' makes PH seem so inadequate in the face of vast political challenges like these.

An alt measure that looks at lack of access to 14 amenities (a warm house, three meals a day) found 2m children living in “deep material poverty”. Yet nearly half of them would not have been covered by the official poverty measure! More in my column www.thetimes.com/article/fb88...

Short thread on our new paper. We use face mask efficacy research as a “stress test” for systematic review methods. We analysed 66 systematic reviews of face mask efficacy; they reached widely different conclusions (~half said they work, half said that evidence of efficacy was lacking). 1/

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors. Great work everyone.

Useful graphs for when I teach the power of partisanship in a few weeks. Here is a force which can get 20% of the US public to see Canada (!) as an enemy overnight, based on nothing at all beyond the brain farts of a deranged party leader

Most of Westminster is still using a website that has been producing and distributing CSAM, maybe a bit of self-reflection is in order.

🎉 Free research support for third sector & community orgs! Launching the Centre for Health Policy's new Community Research Cafes! First cafe: Wed 25 Feb, 2-4pm at Townhead Village Hall, 60 St Mungo Ave, G4 0PL. Drop in for tea, cake & expert advice on your research & evaluation ideas ☕ 🍰

How can the other parties not beat this? I mean, seriously? These people should be shouted down in roars of laughter the minute they say this. Just toxic. www.bigissue.com/news/politic...

open.substack.com/pub/blanphea... fascinating post about misleading research on genetic heritability

Political science profs: American government is a complex interplay of institutions, competing elites, organized publics, and historical inertia. daily Epstein file drop: No. The absolute dumbest people you know are right about everything.

Humane and sensible step move by Spain in facilitating irregular migrants and asylum seekers to move to work with decent pay, social security and tax payments. Predictably the right is grumbling - unlike the UK, the govt isn’t allowing this to set their policies www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Blog from our intern, Sachin, who worked on our project last summer. We are engaging Sheffield residents on corporate influence and the commercial determinants of health. Read below 👇 sphr.nihr.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Looking for a good listen on the rainy and horrible #commute this morning? Give the first episode of Sick Society a try and learn why the #NHS almost didn't happen, what #GwenythPaltrow has done to health and why politics are a silent killer! #Tuesday #StormChandra #podcasting

3.8 million people in destitution. That's more people than the entire population of Wales, or every city that isn't London.

Last week, we heard so much about the need to respect territorial sovereignty in relation to Greenland, and such strong words from world leaders.

The government might as well be posting on Truth Social. There’s no reason to stay on X.

New @cphjournal.bsky.social special issue on decentring health systems out: journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jcph featuring articles exploring how competing narratives, agency & resistance shape health policy & practice. Includes papers examining economic restructuring... 1/4

YES THAT'S WHAT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS AND THATS WHY WE DON'T USE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Important thread

The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.” * read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)

There you have it, the Board of Peace is nothing more than a corrupt real estate deal dressed up as diplomacy with the sole purpose of enriching Trump and his favoured cronies.

‘Terrible things are happening outside… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return… to find their families gone.’ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This is actually a weirdly boring time to specialize in International Relations because there's no actual intellectual substance to any of this. Like, yeah, man. Shit's fucked. Fucker's nutso. That sort of insight is why I'm a fancy-pants political scientist you should all respect and consult.

Abstract submission open for the LEAP conference, taking place in Oxford in April. Please circulate and submit!

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project. Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months. Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

Oh, come on ... Being computer illiterate is not an acceptable excuse for filling in your Universal Credit incorrectly or missing your council tax payment. The consequences are severe. Only the wealthly allowed to be a "computer illiterate oddball"? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Used an online word counter tool for a text I wrote /project I'm involved in. Ad next to it: "Hey the text you wrote with your own hand looks a bit AI-generated. Use our AI tool to rewrite it, so that it doesn't sound like AI". Yeah right.

Any food policy that reduces overweight/obesity is going to be "bad for business". That's why they lobby against policy changes to the food system that might benefit everyone. But medical innovations are subject to different regulatory processes. Has anyone read something about this distinction?

📢 New research blog! Find out how our perceptions of "hard work v privilege" differ when we are looking at ourselves rather than others in Dr Joe Greenwood-Hau's recent piece for @uk.theconversation.com ⚖️ @uofgsocsci.bsky.social @uofgsps.bsky.social

🎉 New Special Issue Published! (Vol. 46, Issue 1, Feb 2026) is out now, titled: “Democratic Innovation beyond the Deliberative Paradigm?” Exploring fresh horizons in democratic theory and practice. @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @sagepub.com @uofgsocsci.bsky.social @oliverescobar.bsky.social

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Wonder why the illegal sex abuse image factory and racist promotion service owned by the world vilest man has such a poor reputation? It really is a mystery.

banning X is a national security issue for every country, plain and simple its explicit goal is to amplify and empower the largest Nazi-adjacent party in every country in which it operates it is also the largest deepfake porn generator in the world this is not a difficult call to make

Very disappointing that the BBC MoL discussion about life expectancy doesn't at all mention austerity or any other social determinant of health, all about C19 and the NHS e.g. no exploration at all as to what it means that Scotland's best ever mortality still worse than England's worst during C19.

Just like climate change , there are two sides to this but one side is lying and we can just report the truth.

Every media figure and politician could do exactly this right now. @garygannon signs off from X, the deepfake child sexual abuse material generation app.

Join our first Webinar of 2026 - a fast-paced introduction to Policy Modelling for Health — who, what, and why it matters. 🗓 Tue 20 January, 12–12:40pm 🎙 Inside Policy Modelling for Health with @julescox.bsky.social, our Deputy Director & Assistant Director – Research GMCA. Register: bit.ly/445i5DK

This government published a strategy on violence against women - but can't criticise a site undressing women as abuse & harassment It intends its opposition to racism to be central to its re-election pitch, but seems to have a merely rhetorical stance of anti-racism bsky.app/profile/sund...

This is a thread of major media outlets falsely anthropomorphising the "Grok" chatbot program and in doing so, actively and directly removing responsibility and accountability from individual people working at X who created a child pornography generator (Elon Musk, Nikita Bier etc) #1: Reuters

This has been clear ever since the owner of X started promoting civil unrest in the UK more than a year ago…