"I see gangs of masked thugs roaming the streets rounding up anyone the wrong colour, and I think: *this* is what Britain needs."

With the government bringing in new restrictions against immigration, many people assume net immigration will nevertheless remain high. However, the evidence actually suggests that immigration will fall dramatically over the coming years and reach lows not seen for decades (pandemic aside). (1/x)

People recognised as refugees fleeing persecution & granted the right to live in the UK to be denied the right to be joined safely by their spouse & children. This Labour govt is a moral void, a stinking darkness, an empty hollow of cowardice & contempt. #r4today www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

As Shami Chakrabarti says in this piece, international human rights law has never protected people from expulsion just because they’d face worse healthcare or prison conditions. Obviously there’s no way Starmer doesn’t also know this, despite clearly implying here that it does. So >

Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals. Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’. What, Michelle? 🧵

New! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer. This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Any time people start talking about weakening protections for certain groups I am always reminded of this quote.

Can we all just shout about how despicable it is to scapegoat migrants for everything? Can we just stop being too polite or shy about it? Can we condemn it at work, with friends, family, on SM, everywhere? Can we just not keep calm & carry on until it’s too late? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

It is exactly the word you would apply by any sensible definition.

Going to stick my neck out and say this policy will never be implemented, or will be successfully challenged if it is, leaving the government blundering around (not for the first time) infuriating its former/ potential supporters and getting no credit from its opponents 1/

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system! Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

Forced volunteering. Fuck this. I am a trustee of a charity. Our volunteers come to the Centre because they believe in what we are doing and want to help the local community. They do not come there because they are forced to.

Yup - that “volunteering” and “contributing to your community” has the distinct sound of “we want you to do shit for free for us to prove you’re allowed to stay in this country despite the fact that we will have fleeced you a minimum of £12k for the privilege.”

Further to this, all the characteristics mentioned by Mahmood already have to be met to get ILR (salary, English, life in UK test, clean criminal record, no welfare benefits) other than this weird Duke of Edinburgh style volunteering thing that they cannot possibly implement.

If you require migrants to meet higher standards than the average Brit, whether that is in terms their language requirements, voluntary service, which isn't remotely "voluntary" if it is compulsory, or anything else then you have a system which is by definition discriminatory. One which dehumanises.

This is a regular misconception in the UK too, that our job as professors is to micromanage student societies that invite people in to give evening talks. That’s great and all but it’s ancillary to our day job.

Dehumanisation as policy. It ignores people's actual lives and experiences in favour of some sick idea that migrants are just resources to be used and discarded at will. It is incredible how Labour has become, in practice, the most anti-immigration government in decades. news.sky.com/story/shaban...

People voted for Starmer partly because they were sick of nothing getting fixed by a government who were so obsessed with immigration that Sunak had STOP THE BOATS affixed to his lectern. Lectern looks different, but the exhausting racist bullshit remains exactly the same. And nothing gets fixed.

Ok. They’ve pissed me off. I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards: 1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

Bless those who think the Home Office can successfully carry out a huge IT procurement exercise for digital ID cards for implementation before the next general election.

A giant has passed. May his memory be a blessing. usali.org/institute-ne...

To be fair visas are the least of the problems. Lack of public funding for research, no job vacancies, and salaries about a third of what they would be used to in the US are rather bigger obstacles.

Jerry Cohen was kind and helpful when he didn't need to be. It's a miracle he finished his memoirs, because he was too busy continuing to live. If you've learned something in the US about law in China, you or your teachers have Jerry to thank. We'll miss him. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Farage’s plans to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain would ruin lives and tear families apart. Rather than dismissing Reform’s xenophobic proposals as 'unrealistic' or 'unaffordable', our government should be clear that they are cruel and unjust. We must stand up for migrants' rights.

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’.

Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.

Trump administration set to tie use of acetaminophen during pregnancy to autism. The announcement will also promote a medication called leucovorin as a treatment for autism. (Leucovorin is currently used to treat folate deficiency.) 🎁🔗 wapo.st/4nkMdCO

But this from Kyle is batshit: "Too often people go to University to 'explore research and knowledge'". Yes, Peter, that's what a University is for - it's not to create businessmen, something it's not suited for.

The events of the last week In both the UK and US have filled me with a sense of dread. Why? The tyrannical zeal of the US far right? The madness of Musk? The menace of Farage? Yes. But mainly because Keir Starmer makes me feel as if we're all vulnerable. THREAD

I've been around this debate long enough to recognise that the label 'low quality' is more often applied to research that's - qual or creative, but not quant - in the humanities and social sciences, not STEM - prioritises issues of accessibility and equality - includes communities - is 'political'

Someone left a spectacularly ignorant comment on TDT & usually I’d do something funny in response but I feel like this requires some earnest education: Autism & sensory processing, here we go - 1/

I never expected Labour to be particularly good, but I had hoped they wouldn't actively make things even worse. Every day it is just something else to push back against as they target minorities. Suspect it will continue to just get worse at this stage.

Dragon House in York was defaced with racist graffiti last week, targeting a family who’ve been part of their community for over ten years. One window cleaner from Crystal Clean Services stepped up to clear the abuse.

Anyone I know on a visa is 100% of the time nervous about that visa. They're not going to try to just oopsie their way into staying in the UK for longer. All this correspondence does is intimidate an already very intimidated demographic.

This racist sewage fragment moved to the USA four years ago

"Fears of mass unrest" over the appeal court over-ruling the high court. The Independent says police "braced" (again). There is once again a list of 23 locations where protests will be attempted. These v underwhelming (30-300 people) when previous protest "waves" announced last weekend & in July

Sunder is again performing an important public service in providing an evidence-based record of attendance at protests and counter protests across the country.

Good to see the appalling crypto casino (and Everton FC sponsor) Stake getting some media attention at long last; but it took a live-streamed death on their partner Kick's sick platform for this to happen in France. And in the UK? Nothing.

One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/

I love this so much and I am absolutely tearing up about it. The gentleness and plainness of this, the way he just lets her be her (and she seems so damn lovely, who wouldn’t?), the generosity. It isn’t going to solve the world’s problems, but this kind of humanity is a hell of a start.

it really is quite astonishing at how determined to fuck the university sector Labour is

In recent months, we have lost a significant portion of our funding. Yet we remain committed to helping the world better understand China at this critical juncture in global politics. We are asking for your help to keep our websites up and running. giving.chinadigitaltimes.net/page/serverc...

The welfare bill has passed but it’s barely the same bill. It is government by cut and paste and with such chaotic speed, many ministers will barely know what’s in it. An utter shambles for Labour - and horrific unnecessary stress and suffering for disabled and sick people watching on.

This Times story about an alleged massive cryptocurrency fraud has several interesting football connections, linking to one of the earliest attempts to buy a club with crypto (Nantes in 2018) and a name to give Everton fans nightmares... 1/ www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/art... archive.ph/yuzzc

Further reading! If you want to go deeper into Xuelei’s work, her book Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell is now available @universitypress.cambridge.org‬ www.cambridge.org/core/books/s... @asianstudiesed.bsky.social @bethp1.bsky.social @hanofdan.bsky.social @aaronwmoore.bsky.social

Researchers! Are you a fox 🦊 or a hedgehog 🦔? In this episode of Beyond the Books, Beth talks to self-professed fox-type, Dr Xuelei Huang. From cinema to smells, they dive into the softer side of history and cultural cosmopolitism in Republican China. Full episode: youtu.be/lrl234hkIZo

This is the reason why our British daughter and her Mexican husband could not & still cannot live in her own country, which is what they wanted to do. They're self-employed artists, not wealthy enough. Theirs is one case among thousands of others, some of them tragic. www.change.org/p/stop-the-i...

1 in 3 children living in poverty are migrant children. This is not a coincidence. Hostile immigration rules drive child poverty. Tomorrow, MPs will debate child poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds. Make sure your MP is there - send them an email NOW! act.praxis.org.uk/email-MP-NRP...

The government commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to look at the minimum income requirement for sponsoring a foreign national spouse or partner. This is what you must earn in order to live with your spouse or partner in the UK if you are British or settled here: www.gov.uk/government/p...