Its always "too soon" to judge effectiveness right until its too embedded to change.

More and more such incidents happening daily www.bbc.com/news/article...

"They're eating the carp. They're eating the swans." Nigel Farage doubles down on his bet that immigrants were eating cats and dogs in America. He now suggests there's a 'similar story' in Britain.

For an English audience. This is paracetemol. Totally and completely nuts.

There's a wrong way and a right way to report this

Will Oxford disclose how much it paid (or did not pay) for this? Surely a sweetheart deal (has research money thrown in!) so OpenAI can plaster Oxford over its marketing and raid other unis’ fees, library budgets to throw into the sector’s massive inference funding chasm.

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

I've been sitting on this for a while, but I was lucky enough to be a part of this documentary, Disease X, coming out tomorrow, 9 pm on BBC2. We talk about the next pandemic and I have my say on risk and health inequalities. Read more here and watch tomorrow! www.thetimes.com/article/e944...

'In terms of choosing which areas to prioritise, [Kieron] Flanagan said this would be inherently political, as there is “no conclusive data and evidence…that will answer that question”.' It's striking that almost no one is asking what evidence the "too many things" argument rests on. Start asking.

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

There's been a shift towards support to the far right here and it's horrible to see. But this remains a vastly less racist/homophobic/anti-semitic country than it has been in the past. Which makes it all the odder that our politicians today seem more scared to make the argument.

Not going to pretend today wasn't depressing but the far right has been stronger in the UK before. Mosley packed out Earls Court and was backed by several large newspapers. Enoch Powell had the support of 74% of the population. Musk has a net popularity rating of -52%

Our democracy is too precious to be a plaything for foreign tech barons. Elon Musk doesn’t care about the British people or our rights. He only cares about himself and his ego.

Anybody still using X needs to ask themselves what would it take for you to leave it?

This is century-defining stuff.

I’ve hear this several times now, so something must be cooking. The gist of it appears to be that the arts, humanities, and social sciences should “pay for themselves”.

roll up, roll up, get your unfunded hobbyist research here, before it all goes... www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

The odd thing here is that the PCE pilot wasn't exactly laser focussed on EDI. Lots on open research, researcher development etc. And the old environment section was also more about culture in terms of phd funding, support, reputation.

We want robust, enormous research that is SUCH good research, you already know how important and right and insightful it is before you even start it. We want research so predeterminedly world-changing that there is hardly any point actually doing the research at all.

The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion, after getting $1.2 trillion richer over the past year alone. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is getting squeezed by tariffs and high prices for groceries, utilities, and health care. The system is broken.

UK government report based on internal civil service trial finds Copilot doesn’t increase productivity, and indeed makes Excel take longer and with more errors, and requires Powerpoint users to have ‘corrective action’ applied to their outputs. www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/m...

Hopefully the BBC will follow up on this story to cover the fact the venue mentioned in it had all of its windows put out on Friday night by someone with a hammer. Seems somewhat relevant. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Quick rundown for non-US academics of whether you're likely to be eligible for the Anthropic payout: 1. you have works published in or before 2022 2. which are registered for US copyright (most likely if you had a US publisher, not otherwise): check here publicrecords.copyright.gov 1/2

All 3 of my books are in here (plus the edited one), and many of my articles.

Also; aren't most lectures now recorded anyway for the VLE?

On the same day in the Telegraph:

It's really a miracle he can make it up a flagpole!

Very much this. Phone the police rather than / as well as move people away.

It seems pretty obvious that the complete absence of pushback against overt and nudge-nudge racism is impacting anti-racism norms that have been a foundation of social cohesion in Britain for decades.

'Europe is at war with Russia' is a deeply weird thing that you can find out just by reading the information that governments put on their website and if you read a quality newspaper, but *actual politicians* don't really talk about:

Martha Wainwright on the 20th anniversary of her eponymous album. Brilliant concert.

Actually jaw dropping from James McMurdock MP, even by his standards. We cannot become numb to this. The far right are in Parliament, and they're trying to normalise outright, vicious racism (same goes for the likes of Rupert Lowe too)

The Loop is well represented at #CDP25 with *5* volunteers from @theloopuk.bsky.social & The Loop AU & another *3* whose work was presented. I presented on our poppers paper published in BJC, written wth @markmccormack.bsky.social, @liamwignall.bsky.social & Henry Simmons. £0 doi.org/10.1093/bjc/...

‘Operation Raise the Colours’ Organised by Well-Known Far-Right Extremists hopenothate.org.uk/2025/08/22/o...

A proudly racist man with a previous conviction for violent disorder has set up a militia to "tackle crime" and still gets the soft soap treatment

It's "old news" now, so it doesn't get much attention in the national media. But Elon Musk continues to post a stream of white supremacist and Neo-Nazi propaganda on his account on X (his social media network) day after day. It never stops. All interspersed with pro-Trump messages.

Perceptions have real effects www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-insti...

@brighton-hove.gov.uk hi, where is info about road closures re triathlon this weekend?

Reading an article titled "Why didn't Brazilian democracy die?" and a key part of the story is a Supreme Court that actually did its job

fundamentally the problem is that if you think "hotels are where I stay on holiday and I like being on holiday so living in a hotel must be fun and it's not fair others get to do it and not me" then you have the intellectual reasoning of a little child and it's going to be hard to engage with you

Luttig is communicating vastly more clearly and honestly about Roberts and Scotus than most Democratic officials are. It’s absolutely flabbergasting.

'Matt Lazell, head of product and development at dataHE, said it had not yet been a “disastrous” year for lower-tariff institutions, but “it is not the strong year…that could have been seen given the record UK 18-year-old placed rate”.' A grim 'yet' there for the sector. 1/3

Rachel Brooks: it's 'unsurprising that elite universities are acting so decisively...[but] raises “serious concerns” about the financial stability of other institutions, many of which play an important role in educating students from less privileged backgrounds and supporting local economies.' 2/3

And, as Gayle Rubin tells us, that panics around sexuality are normally distractions from broader iniquitous social transformations.

Turns out the Online Safety Act should have worried less about what the kids were up to online, and more about what the adults were doing.

This report is doing the rounds, but it's advocacy research - it's constructed in a way to find the evidence the author/sponsor wants to enact the policy change they already have decided upon. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The human cost of Russia’s war against Ukraine www.channel4.com/news/the-hum...

Looking at the age splits here: 50-64: 33% is more than the % in that group that actually went to uni 25-49: 35% is high at top end and low at bottom end 18-24: 54% is roughly the % who did So the survey shows that more older folk wish they'd been able to go to university than actually did

Goodness. This versus energy costs of GenAI.

Pritzker: "It's cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes."