Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

fish and chips, the native British dish invented by sephardic Jewish migrants in the 18th century using a vegetable no one on this island had encountered before the 16th

"There is simply no sign of a fiscal catastrophe from the 'Boriswave'. Recent migrants are very likely to be employed, paying tax and seem to be contributing to British society..it will help, rather than hurt, Britain’s fiscal position." Analysis by @lgilbert.co ukandeu.ac.uk/lower-migrat...

Fantastic Inside Politics by Jen Williams today:

Very happy for my @casaucl.bsky.social colleague and co-author Mateo - congrats!

"If you wanted to design a policy that would cause human misery and be about as popular as typhoid in a jacuzzi, it is difficult to imagine how you could do better than this. This is a more extreme policy position than, say, the BNP’s 2005 manifesto"

Ready for a change in direction, want to step up your #gis and #giscience 'game', or interested in #AI, #datascience, #IoT and the #urban? Sign up to hear more about our four Masters programmes at a virtual postgraduate open data on 30 October from 1-2pm: www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/eve...

Superb

Last month’s tube strike did not, in fact, bring London to a grinding halt on.ft.com/4nSaQXK

🚨 📚 Heads up! Applications are open for fully-funded UCL PhD studentships via UBEL. Please get in touch if you’re working on topics in economic geography, urban policy or urban economics. Deadline: 10 November! More info: ubel-dtp.ac.uk/esrc-student...

By me this week - the happiest thing I've got to report of late, with a glorious trip over the summer to Montreal "Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport." www.economist.com/internationa...

It’s wild now much the Isle of Man actually resembles a certain rose-tinted vision of what Britain should be: - Low and flat taxes - Lax regulations on finance and gambling, attracting offshore industries - Not much health and safety - no fluoride in the water, some roads without speed limits

Host kitchens and zombie brands: top rundown on London’s food delivery scene from @londoncentric.media www.londoncentric.media/p/host-kitch...

🧵🚨 The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news. Today our report is published! www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n... 1/11

"Here’s what is not a measure of whether someone is integrated: the colour of your skin. No one who looks at me and my grandmother, a white South African, in the street, can tell which of us is more integrated (it’s me, for obvious reasons) or frankly even that we are related." on.ft.com/4gXsyX0

😭 IG newberlinlibrary

Some of the most thoughtful social commentary atm is coming via @manchestermill.bsky.social manchestermill.co.uk/jews-and-mus...

Very nice article co-authored by one of my former students, Mihai Codreanu, discovering how much of many documents eg press releases, job postings, have been written using LLMs (10-20% depending on type of document but it might have stabilised in late 2024) www.cell.com/patterns/ful...

Careful, powerful reportage by @manchestermill.bsky.social. Thank you for writing this.

On their holiest day, Manchester’s Jews face their ‘darkest of moments’. Our story about today’s attack. manchestermill.co.uk/on-their-hol...

Terrible news that two people were killed in Manchester attending their place of worship at the synagogue in Manchester, with others seriously injured. Community Security Trust @cstuk.bsky.social who do so much to keep Jewish people safe at faith and community spaces have issued this advice.

👇👇👇

There are eight million stories in the naked city; feels like the @londonermag.bsky.social is telling every one of them, and that’s good www.the-londoner.co.uk/londons-braz...

Hitting ambitious housebuilding and affordable homes targets will be key to reducing private rents. Read the latest Housing Outlook here ⤵️ buff.ly/pQXp2Sc

📣 Want to know more about the links between #Migration and #Innovation? 🚀 Check out this new book I co-edited with Francesco Lissoni 👉https://lnkd.in/d6Eav8AW 👉 lnkd.in/dESBJeFQ @inaganguli.bsky.social @maxnathan.bsky.social @profzeke.bsky.social @dariodiodato.bsky.social

Social housing stocks across the OECD. The UK is doing much better than I expected!

Nothing in this acknowledges the economic reality of why many brownfield sites don’t get away as housing: they’re not financially viable unless someone (usually us, in some form) pays for them to be cleaned up and made ready

A cool use of AI in newsgathering, this. US companies are talking more and more about the risks rather than the benefits of AI in their SEC filings (while still being super-optimistic in earnings calls). By @melissahei.bsky.social @chriscook.news & @claradoodle.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...

Confessions of an Early Career Researcher. We've released a new 'warts and all' podcast, in collaboration with @leverhulme.ac.uk which might be of interest to anyone thinking of starting a career in research www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/confess...

I'll have more to say on Reform's proposals to scrap ILR at some point but for now I'll just note this - anyone telling you this is a popular idea doesn't know the polling. Overwhelming majority of public back giving people who work and pay taxes most or all rights after 5 years or less

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

The H1-B visa thing is, like everything else in the Trump administration, set up to carve up exceptions for friends and punish enemies. It’s the authoritarian thru-line that stitches everything together.

Great bit of Mancunian Kremlinology by @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social

The research isn’t with you on this one, Peter www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

This is bad advice on an individual level: most entrepreneurs fail, and it's better to get a good job in an existing business. On a social level, entrepreneurship matters, but it's determined by access to finance, things other entrepreneurs do, market size, not 'drive'.

Someone is going around central London changing Rs into Ps

Opinium asked 500 ethnic minority respondents about racism and flags for ITV Good Morning Britain www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

MHCLG estimating that "196,500 net additional homes have been delivered in England between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025". The numbers are heading in the wrong direction for the government to get anywhere near their 1.5m target and they'll be lucky to hit 1m at this rate.

Andy setting the bar very high here

Counterpoint: suburban science parks are also pretty good for spin-outs! Lots of evidence for this.

My column in tomorrow's paper:

The people marching in London today are very obviously the ideological descendants of the Mosleyite BUF fascists of the 1930s. The mainstream news and media are too timid to point it out, but that's what they are - and we normalise it at our peril.

This is a must-read 👇 A reclusive mogul, terrible hotels (I’ve stayed in a couple), asylum profiteering, fading seaside resorts, economic regeneration, it’s all here.

on.ft.com/3I6b7GR Stop talking about wealth taxes — make these reforms instead (this is by the excellent Dan Neidle - but I reckon there’s only a slim chance of sensible decisions like these)

FT mag piece from me: Spent a long time looking into the Britannia hotel chain, beneficiaries of a vast amount of taxpayer money via the asylum system on.ft.com/47HEE46

Productive academics: it’s September already, got to finish up those papers Me: bsky.app/profile/maxn...

Well I foolishly promised it two months ago, so I had to write it... Behold my analysis of UK immigration policy and my attempt at coming up with some principles that could command public support. It's long (7,000) words because, well, this is complex stuff. So here's a thread... 1/n

I finally wrote about being continually mistaken for David Baddiel maxnathan.medium.com/baddieled-2b...

A chat with a Cambridge professor about why tube strikes are likely to cause lasting *improvements* in Londoners' commutes. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-und...