The Government: Get rid of jury trials because judges are best placed to make decisions. Also the Government:

I realise this isn’t the main thing anyone is thinking about Harry Kane right now, but I wonder if someone styles his hair for him before games or if he’s become a dab hand with the bouffant effect…

When did David Beckham start looking like George Michael?

Considering Labour has closed remaining actual safe routes, including family reunification and for Afghans, which also blocking work and study visas specifically from countries which high asylum rates, this is massively disingenuous bullshit from Mahmood. 4/

My current fave heatwave game is finding out about how everyone's boiling hot cats are only doing the bare minimum to cool down while simultaneously being furious about being hot. Here's a picture of my idiot who won't stop going in direct sunlight despite being black. She's so mad she's roasting.

The sentient carpet has finally deigned to lay on the cooling mat. Briefly. Very briefly.

ANALYSIS: It is an unwritten rule of British politics that journalists will say any old shit for a byline.

Political lesbian, Julie Bindel, doing just straight-up homophobia now I see.

One week left to book your ticket for the SHP Conference! 40 wonderful workshops, 2 kicking keynotes, 1 raucous roundtable, fabulous fringe sessions, beautiful bildung sessions, and an exhilarating exhibition! If you can't make the whole weekend, then why not join us just for the Saturday!

Lovely to see the Linc full of soccer fans. Last time I was there, @carolinepennock.bsky.social got us onto the big screen. #GoBirds

Lovely to see this review of The Firearm Revolution in the WSJ

It says a lot like where we are/I am right now that I'm struggling to give a toss about Starmer's resignation.

I’m going to be there talking about our Teaching Indigenous Histories and Perspectives in Schools project! Who else?

This article on the recent historiography of American expansion is really interesting, not least because of the way it pulls together all the shade the various authors have been throwing at one another...and I am 100% here for it go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AO...

A lot of large consulting firms were using degree apprenticeships to upskill in tech a few years back, only to find a lack of work in that area/ AI bridging the skills gap, so they didn’t offer jobs at the end of the apprenticeships.

No, the problem with apprenticeships really IS the employers. Universities offer to provide top-class education through apprenticeships, but there has to be an employer offer to take on the actual apprentices. And there were STILL 354,000 starts in 24/5, but down from 500k a decade before.

Great use of the word ‘guarantee’ there to mean ‘I think this is a good idea’. And where does Burnham think all this ‘technical’ education is going to happen? Has he forgotten that all the polytechnics are now universities?

Bravo.

Vaccines are BRILLIANT.

Even if taken in good faith, this really is the most terrible argument. “Women who’ve had mastectomies absolutely should not be allowed to reclaim their bodies and celebrate surviving cancer. This is a traumatic and terrible thing and they should stay ashamed.” I mean…

In news that will surprise no one (or at least no women), AI is sexist.

Historians…

As ever, I remain baffled and horrified that the British Academy considers 'mid career' (for the purpose of fellowships) to end fifteen years after the award of your doctorate.

Well, it took them long enough to arrive at the obvious conclusion, but at least they've noticed.

Had an exchange with Chris Grayling in which he insisted that Cameron's elevation to PM made the Tory party more attractive to women like me. I told him that it did not. Later that evening, he trod on the train of Carol Vorderman's dress.

Very much enjoyed this thread. bsky.app/profile/jack...

We lost Rosamond McKitterick, a great scholar, a great teacher, and a great human being, far too early. This has been hard to write, but thinking about her, who she was and the person she chose to be can never bring me anything but joy. #medievalsky salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2026/06/15/a...

I look forward to the BlueSky demographic abruptly skewing thirty years younger.

Irish people and historians watching the Americans call the rioters in Belfast 'Irish loyalists'...

'“It’s a sad reflection on the sector as a whole when the Russell Group is unwilling to present a robust defence of UK higher education in response to a shoddy political hatchet job,” said Andrew McRae, a former dean of postgraduate research at the University of Exeter.' Well said. 1/3

YES.

Following the shameful decision of NHS England to forcibly detransition trans kids under the care of Brighton WellBN Good Law Project is funding gender affirming private healthcare for at least 10 young trans people whose treatment has been withdrawn and whose financial need is greatest.

When I meet people in the real world, they have 0% - and I mean zero - knowledge of the disaster unfolding in British HE. Even if their kids are actually at uni. They look at me as if I've gone mad. This is why. 👇

I’ve yet to meet a single male supporter of trans exclusion who has the slightest interest in or familiarity with women’s spaces or asks a single question about why trans inclusion is way more popular with women than men. Because you’d have to be interested in women’s opinions to ask that question.

“Sex-based protections” are a made up buzzword by people with zero interest in women’s or queer people’s welfare, and the idea that trans kids have to be denied medical care for *my* sake is unbelievably offensive. How DARE you.

I get the impression that some people aren't clear what this means. This is the UK state deciding to intervene directly in the healthcare of individual children, depriving them of medicine that their doctors have prescribed for their personal health & wellbeing, in defiance of global best practice.

This is horrifying. These young people are being failed by the NHS, by @ukgovernment.bsky.social, by @labouruk.bsky.social & every @ukparliament.parliament.uk MP who doesn’t stand against this. Will @zackpolanski.bsky.social & @eddavey.libdems.org.uk speak out about this appalling abuse of children?

Number of MPs signing EDM 240 is now 114 which means more than one MP in 6 has now signed. This includes @sarahowen.org.uk who was rightly obviously very dissatisfied with Mary-Ann Stephenson's answers in the WEC yesterday. edm.parliament.uk/early-day-mo...

I can say definitively that if accepted this code of practice will make my life demonstrably worse. Even if I'm never challenged, it still introduces a high level of stress and anxiety any time I need to use a public space. Any time I go to the gym or go shopping or anything comes with more risk.

Who on earth are these “Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail" notifications for? Seriously, does ANYONE systematically print emails?

Ditto. I use Zotero for note-taking and I have never in my life even tested its footnote function. I like doing my own footnotes as I go. The extra words make me feel productive! (And I’m a better proofreader than Zotero anyway.)

This is like those jobs that are only advertised for a week, isn’t it? Everyone on the inside already knows who’s getting it.

Where could Rosie be?

Yet another reason to be sad about this one...

This is all clearly absolute madness, but I am glad to say that this extent of this madness has finally prompted @delivering4crawley.bsky.social and others to put their heads above the parapet and denounce it.

Three cheers for @wnbooks.bsky.social and @aaknopf.bsky.social who let me have both footnotes AND endnotes in On Savage Shores! Citations matter.

We are up to 91 MPs backing the anti-EHRC Early Day Motion. Some of our representatives do listen. Keep nagging them. edm.parliament.uk/early-day-mo...

Hannah Spencer wrote to the MP and Bridgett Philipson about the EHRC Guidance and its a great letter www.instagram.com/p/DZKYZKgihy... I've added alt text to the images and will post a screenshot of the post and its text in the replies! Good work @greenpartyhan.bsky.social we 💕 the feminist greens

✨ Out today! ✨ Happy publication day to #AGoldenWorld @faberbooks.bsky.social 🎉🎉 uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-go...

Watching the UK collapse into frothing far right conspiracism is the real decadence. Too many people letting it happen