Live documents like google docs seem like an improvement upon just emailing drafts to each other, but the amount of time I find myself fighting permissions, dealing with accidental duplication and re-explaining where the link is is starting to add up. One day I’ll switch to a typewriter in spite.

With one ward still to declare, Reform UK have badly lost in their London target seat of Bexley, by 29 seats to 7

Oh wow i didn’t realise the Greens were doing fitness supplements

We're all bureaucrats!

My university has just described the closure of a department & cutting of courses as 'an exciting opportunity', creating 'new possibilities for growth'. The only growth here is in senior management using marketing bullshit to describe the sector-wide destruction of the arts & humanities.

The rally yesterday was such an incredibly joyful way to kick off our industrial action. Our members are excited, ready to fight, and even more ready to WIN. MAB starts on May 20th with strike action on May 22nd. See you all on the picket line. #StopTheCuts #SaveHE #UoN #UoNUCU #UCU

Interesting thread on when populist policy makes contact with air

The Green Party has launched a Workers Charter to ‘rebalance’ the relationship between workers and employers. They say: "All anti-union and anti-strike laws introduced since 1979 would be scrapped." This is a really big deal (thread)...

Back on strike with @sheffielducu.bsky.social. Why? Management is pushing ahead with restructures despite sitting on £200m+ in reserves. Along with colleagues in East Asian Studies, I also find out in 12 days how many of us they want to fire. No justification is deemed necessary by management.

‘Minimum viable product’ Is exactly the philosophy we’re seeing everywhere.

Just saw a flyer from a Reform election candidate saying they 'attained citizenship through the proper legal process.' So just like everyone else, they mean?

Except those of us who were born here, that's just nepo baby shit

Newsletter #16! Feat. @markpendleton.bsky.social at LGBTQ+ webinar, @matthewbarnard.phd on free speech, @rullsenberg.bsky.social responds to Antonia Bance, @bparsia.bsky.social on Sussex/OfS, a save the date for our Congress social, NEC update & more! #UCU #UKHE ucucommons.org/ucu-commons-...

The April 2026 issue of @irrnews.bsky.social Race & Class leads with mine, @nicholasbeuret.bsky.social and @davidharvie.bsky.social 's article on how the UNHCR's Refugee Environmental Protection Fund makes refugee labour into a source of carbon credits for global carbon markets.

Well done everyone. Well done.

Or even better, boomers who listen to it on the radio. ASMR for old people.

Was horrified to discover at yesterday’s NEC that the two imho vexatious complaints to the CO against our union that recently found no breach (save 1 technical which had no sanction) cost our union a six figure sum to defend (before counting staff time & resources). We cannot recover the money. 😡 /1

Absolutely beaming. So much work and time went into this and it’s going to make things so much easier and nicer #UCU

And passed with overwhelming majority! Such a great set of results from today’s NEC #UCU

And this has now been ratified by our NEC with near-unanimous support and no opposition voiced. We’re over the moon! #UCU

Delighted to say this passed with overwhelming support at today’s NEC #UCU

In response to the horrible antisemitic attack in London, Mark Pendleton and Bijan Parsia submitted the following late motion to tomorrow's NEC (1 May 2026). #UCU ucucommons.org/nec-late-mot...

This is a political programme shared across Labour, Reform and the Tories, based solely on a whipped-up, insane fear towards a minoritised group that has done nothing wrong, and is systemically oppressed by the state, for simply existing. And professors defended a figurehead of the oppressors!

Oh my god. Did they not do even basic vetting? The real Anne Frank, seriously?

A summary of what they said is available here, note the headings:

Will 100s of UK profs that signed statements supporting Stock due to the falsely claimed suppression of her speech by Sussex express outrage over being lied to in order to (1) further the career of Stock and (2) force unis to remove statements protecting trans faculty/students from harassment?

“Today’s high court ruling overturning the £585,000 fine imposed on Sussex University shows just how unfit for purpose the OfS is. It’s time for Labour to step in and close this Tory-backed institution that has been used for nothing but attacking staff and students.” @drjogrady.bsky.social

Entirely correct.

Hot take into the void: "ultra-processed food" is basically the antivaxx conspiracy theory for people who think they're far too well informed to get hooked into anything like antivaxx.

There is absolutely no way you thought we were going to sit by and watch the UEB cut 600+ jobs at our university, did you? Join us, Unison AND Unite on May 6th for a rally to save our university. 10:30 AM, South Side of the Trent Building. We're ready to fight. Are you? #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

Ah the top 1% of vaginas. The quim de la quim.

There was also literally a House of Lords inquiry and report on how bad, in value for money terms and much else, the OfS is for taxpayers. Changing who leads it or making it more about 'financial stability' does very little to change that.

I have nothing particularly useful to contribute except this: this is the direct consequence of Polanski's uncritical embrace of the idea that the Labour antisemitism scandal was basically fake. He opened the door to those people and lo and behold

We might have found some “efficiencies” we can make

On 31 March 2025 the Office for Students employed 475 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff.

Fuck.

Dementia is the new cancer when it comes to health clickbait stories. Oh and anyone wondering about those "miracle" dementia drugs certain charities were demanding the NHS pay a fortune for last year. The latest testing shows they provide no benefit.

Reminder that there is no scientific definition for "ultra-processed food", and no theory for the mechanism by which it is supposedly uniquely harmful.

This is wide of the mark. The OfS goes rogue, exceeding the mandate of the regulations it is meant to enforce and that means… the regulations are wrong? Dare I say it? This piece from the free speech brigade is… Orwellian?!

Fun start to cross-exam. OpenAI attorney William Savitt asks about Musk's earlier testimony, when he said: “No, Tesla is not pursuing AGI. It’s literally trying to make a car drive from A to B.” Savitt then showed Musk an X post from a month ago: "Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI"

Statement from @ucu.org.uk GS @drjogrady.bsky.social on the Sussex ruling: "The fine imposed on Sussex was never about free speech; it was about forcing views onto campus and enflaming culture wars." 💯 #UCU 1/2 www.ucu.org.uk/article/1449...

I remember first seeing this on a Scouts trip to Teeside University around this time as part of an IT badge of some sort. One of the first times I got to use the internet and send email.

The Hampster Dance website in 1999 This website was one of the earliest examples of an Internet meme and it was created by Deidre LaCarte in 1998. #InternetHistory

Bang on from @drjogrady.bsky.social “The regulator has lost the trust of the sector, and there now needs to be a complete rethink from government over how it will work to protect higher education” @ucu.org.uk www.ucu.org.uk/article/1449...

Banger for a sunny afternoon and OfS getting beat www.youtube.com/watch?v=t65N...

The OfS v U of Surrey judgement is very interesting. Mostly a win for UoS - OfS basically decided what it wanted and rigged the ‘independent’ committee’s report. Here’s OfS’s Freedom of Speech Director referring to Cambridge students as the Khmer Rouge; staff as ‘spineless or complicit’.

this is an absolutely extraordinary scoop by Guardian: Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, the Guardian can reveal www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This is an excellent result for anyone who cares about actual freedom of speech, as well as academic freedom and about not having *the government* meddle in university business.

This just gets truer