Good long article on the scandalous story of the Carpenters Estate in Newham www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle... One missing bit: UCL's withdrawal was partly the result of joint activism by students, staff & estate residents michaeledwards.org.uk/2012/11/01/u...

#OnThisDay in London housing history, 2014: FocusE15 campaigners occupy empty flats on the Carpenters Estate, Stratford, in protest at impending private development. focuse15.org/e15-open-hou...

Those of you old enough will remember Robin as the guy who treated the Focus E15 mothers of the Carpenters Estate with such horrific contempt. He's a mysoginistic, gentrifying bully - so perfect from Reform.

The Neoliberal experiment…

President Catherine Connolly has explicitly labelled Israel a terror state, escalating diplomatic friction between Dublin and Jerusalem. The historic announcement intensifies the Irish government's outspoken stance on the Gaza conflict, reflecting a major shift in European diplomatic rhetoric today

Right now Palantir has a £330m contract to run our NHS health records, but this spy-tech firm shouldn't be anywhere near  our health service. Email your local hospital today and ask them to say no to Palantir goodlaw.social/668d1d

My new Substack post looks at the controversial regeneration of Lewisham's Pepys Estate: 'a monolithic concentration of public housing', they claimed 'it makes sense to break that up and bring in a different mix of incomes and people with spending power': municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-pepys-...

It could have been a smidge better even, imho: “Not in jury due to injury, Jacob Elordi can can Cannes plans” But still 11/10.

I love this…. #BlueSky

The Danish gov’t has installed floating platforms planted with wildflowers and native vegetation in the harbors and canals of Copenhagen, to create urban habitat sanctuaries for birds, bees, pollinators, insects, and even some aquatic life. #FlowersOfBluesky #InnovativeSolutions💡

Iran-US negotiations are going so badly because the US hasn't negotiated in 100 years. In that time, all it has ever done is issued surrender terms and forced people to sign 'deals' that surrender sovereignty to them. Actually talking is brand new to the US, so it doesn't know how to do it.

Activist Juliet Lamont faced systematic violence in Israeli custody. Australian activist & 180 aboard one detention vessel were bashed & beaten. Many suffering, broken ribs, faced sexual assault, tasers, beatings, & injections with unknown sedatives. Campaign of Israeli violence.

Lots of noise about Israel, but absolutely nothing is being done as usual. The EU and UK could cancel their Free Trade agreements with Israel, as their citizens want them to. The blow to Israel would be massive, and the EU/UK wouldn't even notice.

Note the toilet police are back again. There are strongly held views here of course. But as someone who is getting on a bit & on long term medication that requires visits to the WC the issue is not what toilet I might use but the too frequent reality that often there aren't *any* public toilets

There are days when I miss being an editor. I loved writing headlines. Whoever did this, I hope they took the rest of the day off.

The only real appeal of Andy Burnham is that because he was up in Manchester as mayor, he was somewhat removed from the taint of Starmer's Labour in Westminster. But it turns out that while not tarred by the same brush, he *is* the same brush.

Times I will use my car horn: -a driver is in the midst of cutting me off -to support union workers on a picket line Got to do both today.

I must have fallen through a time portal back to 1990 because a whole bunch of climate orgs and advocates are suggesting natural gas is the climate friendly fossil fuel and also export revenue from LNG could be a boon for the nation. Whereas I was under the impression that we needed to wind down gas

"Italy condemned Israel’s abuse of Gaza flotilla activists as “unacceptable” and announced it would summon the Israeli ambassador after footage showed Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting detained activists who appeared bound and blindfolded in Ashdod port"(QNN) #Italy #Israel #GlobalSumudFlotilla

@acjsissons.bsky.social what's the besr place to look for reliable heat pump advice?

Sea cucumber uses its frills to catch plankton and other small particulate, and then feed it in to its central vent (which it also poops from). youtube.com/shorts/EGwBU...

That’s how you do it! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 @MayorofLondon

One in three children in the UK are living in poverty. Labour’s answer? Cheaper rollercoasters.

Hundreds of thousands of workplaces use software to monitor employees. Now, a new study has found that many of these tools share data not just with employers, but with digital advertising platforms and data brokers as well. Read more from @laurenfeiner.bsky.social:

“Crop estimates underscore just how bad the situation is. Growers will see their smallest wheat crop in terms of production since 1972, according to the USDA; 1.56 billion bushels this year, down 21% from 2025. That’s especially harmful to Kansas, one of the top overall producers of wheat in the US”

This is a Carbon Robotics LaserWeeder G2 actively eliminating weeds utilizing high-energy lasers without using chemical herbicides. Apparently commercial laser weeding technology only entered mainstream farm operations over the last few years. First I’ve heard of it though. IG: carbon_robotics

Obtained this mighty tome in a charity shop today for only 20p. I have read them all except EAST OF EDEN, which I have long planned to read, so now I have the chance. I love Steinbeck. In fact it was THE GRAPES OF WRATH that first got me into modern literature when I was 18 years old... #booksky

Labour lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens as they did to Reform UK in the local elections, according to new YouGov polling

Katalin Karikó is one of the most extraordinary scientific stories of this era. A girl from a modest Hungarian household helped develop technology that saved millions of lives worldwide. In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries that enabled effective mRNA vaccines.

⚡️ Cuba Girds for Invasion as Trump Launches Raúl Castro Indictment Amid Punishing Blockade Plus: The Trump admin. tried to push boxes of Starlinks onto Cuba as part of its... Story by José Luis Granados Ceja, @ryangrim.bsky.social, and @mazmhussain.bsky.social www.dropsitenews.com/p/raul-castr...

“We object to working on Palantir's FDP – it is not & never was, the right choice for the Health Service. NHS must not renew Palantir's contract & we will fight internally to make that happen”… “There is a better way & we are willing to build it ourselves” 👏👏👏 www.opendemocracy.net/nhs-england-...

they should invent software updates that make the software better over time instead of worse

Mark Blake (Green Party) elected leader of Haringey Council tonight

Change?

Just FYI: I sometimes tag things with #LawStudentNote in case you (or your students) are looking for topics. Feel free to join me, if you'd like. My tagged topics generally relate to my own research, for obvious reasons. But I'm sure there are lots of great topics out there.

It was, how can I put it? An interesting annual council meeting with twists and turns.

I can't not post a picture when we order from our favourite Turkish place 🤤

Everybody knows Franz Kafka, but almost no one knows his sister Ottla. She was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz on Oct 7, 1943 after volunteering to escort a group of orphans from the Terezin ghetto so they wouldn’t be afraid.

The Bees are disappearing but EU is failing to cut pesticide use Glyphosate a known carcinogen sales rose more than 44% between 2015 and 2024 EU is now considering approving most pesticides permanently. Profit of pesticide industry is all that matters www.dw.com/en/eu-is-fai...

Councillors due to vote on new administration to run Haringey Council Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter, has been asking the Greens, Labour and Lib Dem groups to confirm how they will vote but all have stayed silent prior to pivotal meeting on Wednesd https://haringeycommunitypress.co.uk/?p=550508

I LOVE when my French friends come to visit! They say lovely things like: "Of course we should add more butter to that!" "Of course we should have another bottle of wine!" "Of course we should have a three hour lunch and order 4 desserts!" These my kinda people!

11 June 1400h-1600h BST online Dialogues in co-production. A Fairville event. Co-producing the city from below. www.fairville-eu.org/_files/ugd/1...

100% #BookSky

New paper by me and Saite Lu in @regionalstudies.bsky.social - social trust and productivity www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (open access)

I can't believe we turned "Laptop Worker" into a term of derision. We now have the tech and business models to allow millions of people to make a living in ways unthered to a farm plot, assembly line,, or cubicle. That's very cool! Do not project your weird yearning for the mines on to me.

'Defence not Defiance': the banner of the Northwich & District Amalgamated Society of Salt Workers created in 1893 with a rare early depiction of a female worker bottom right. Now on show in the Weaver Hall Museum, Northwich.

Has professional pay been particularly stagnant in recent decades? Yes, it seems so, with junior managers, cultural workers, teachers and healthcare workers particularly hard hit, while minimum wages have pushed up pay for caring, leisure,sales, elementary and machine operation occupations.

Interesting post on the plotlands - thousands of self-built shacks, chalets, recycled buses and railway carriages erected on mall plots across the country ... www.culturematters.org.uk/the-plotland...