Fantastic choice! Congratulations @lawrencepatrice.bsky.social !

We (adults) have created a world in which teens use smartphones to "navigate daily life" and "access to support networks" over exactly the same period that we have diminished the infrastructures that enable all this in 'real life' - accessible public space, youth clubs, reliable transport, etc etc.

A bit more of Mahmood’s performative cruel stupidity here Most asylum seekers have no control over where they are housed or for how long or how long it will take the H.O. to make a decision and for appeals to be heard AND, meanwhile, THEY‘RE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity

The UN commission of inquiry has published a report on how Israel targets & kills Palestinian children "There can be no doubt in anyone who reads todays report that every intl legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children"

Each uni has a consultancy in that tells them how to run a degree cheaply. They all simply say 'mega lectures' (LOL, infrastructure) & 'generic modules staff is interchangeable on'. It's pitched as rationalising, creating a 'sustainable' portfolio. But its destroying what university actually is.

Congratulations to the winners of #Carnegies2026 @carnegiemedals.bsky.social Beth O'Brien wins the Medal for Writing AND the Shadowers Choice Award. Kate Rolfe wins the Medal for Illustration. Shadowing Medal for Illustration goes to Aimée de Jongh 💐#booksky booksforkeeps.co.uk?p=60318&prev...

I'm only adding to the praise others have been giving this piece, but it's the best response I have so far read to today's events, by quite some margin. Every paragraph, every line is pointed, accurate, and powerful. www.liberalcurrents.com/starmer-out/

So my five year old daughter has lived under 2 monarchs, 2 popes, and is about to see her 5th PM.

Hah! I had a mostly tame childhood / adolescence but it still included knocky nine doors and occasionally building fires and exploding deodorant bottles in them. There wasn’t even a McDonalds in my town so we had to make our own fun.

Important reporting on the growing links between UK politicians and US anti-abortion organisations. The aggressive rollback of reproductive rights in parts of the US has shown how quickly hard-won rights can be undermined. Read the iPaper article via the link in our bio.

Every time my child brings a book home from school I am reminded of the need for qualified librarians in all schools. 2/3 are unsuitable for her age / contain something she finds scary / just plain terrible. Today was especially bad : a ‘variant spellings’ book for about five stages further on.

Very sorry to hear of the death of @raulpachecovega.bsky.social . I never met him but - like many others - greatly benefited from his generosity in sharing details of his research processes and pedagogy. @jovanevery.bsky.social has written a lovely memorial piece: jovanevery.co.uk/in-memoriam-...

If you, like me, have been wondering what the hell you can do in relation to the relentless stripping away of trans rights, this is one clear concrete action.

Modern fairy tale adaptations: ‘the original tale is probably too bloody for children‘. My child, watching the ballet of Cinderella: ‘They should take those bad sisters and put them in the bin and mash their heads!’

Absolutely this. Already a lot of things are operating on the goodwill of staff keeping it all going. It’s pretty astounding how universities seem to have bought into a cultural narrative that theyre full of dead weight which can be shed without consequence

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Honestly believe most people still don't care, but the endless dripping of poison means they also don't care that much about defending trans people.

This is the opposite of the gotcha the author thinks it is. If the museum took the railway set it would need to catalogue it, assess it for conservation, store / display it appropriately. Acquisitions are a substantial financial commitment!

Absolutely fuck right off. I’m so sorry trans friends.

That feeling when your fun little side project turns into a hydra with multiple theoretical tentacles

Yesterday Kier Starmer announced Labour will nationalise British Steel, and save 2700 jobs. Today, the Uni of Nottingham put 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. This is just one university. Across the UK 15,000 higher education jobs need saving. Where is the rescue package for our universities?

The House of Commons Committe has now reported on the likely impacts of a university insolvency: "In this report, we recommend that the Government fully recognise and reflect the economic and civic anchor role of universities when developing policy and responding to financial distress in the sector"

This account illuminates why we’re seeing such struggles at university level to engage with what used to be basic skills. Students are terrified of speaking in seminars - because they think there’s a right answer they need to serve up.

“The desire not to have an argument means we never make an argument” - this sums up the fundamental failing of this government

If Streeting is the answer, Labour hasn't understood the question.

You can't out Nazi the Nazis

Crucial point by John Curtis on BBC - Councils flipping from Labour to Reform are because Labour are losing **to the left**, & Cons to Reform Chasing Reform failed Labour; they lost the base & didn’t convince many on the right (Failed Tories too) Watch everyone learn the wrong lesson anyway

Always worth voting...

For some reason if you want kids' closed toe sandals you need to look in the boys' section. Are little girls' toes not worthy of protection? Clearly they're expected to be sitting and walking demurely, not engaging in active play.

So. If you work in HE, are reading this, and are not in your union: Join it. If you work in any other sector, care at all about having a university sector, and want to help: tell your MPs how you feel about all this as directly as you can.

We know, but I'm typing anyways: Doing well in the REF will not save our programmes. Being good at teaching students will not save our programmes. Being diligent and agile employees will not save our programmes. Merging into the intellectual equivalent of hospice care will merely delay matters.

On the May day Bank Holiday no less. It’s almost like employers don’t want their employees to unite and organise around these decisions.

Voters without ID have just one day left to apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate to use at the upcoming local elections in England. To vote at a polling station, voters must present an accepted form of photo ID. A Voter Authority Cert. is a free form of ID for those who lack any.

My university hasn’t reached this level of clarity yet. Managers tell themselves it’s all going brilliantly *because* they’ve sacked so many people.

When you’ve got United in the 21st century at 8pm and vigils in the 14th century at 5am

Did not expect to spend this much of my adult life wondering if we would still have the same prime minister by the time I came out of a meeting.

Before Covid I never would have imagined that a clear and looming disaster would be met with... zero preparation. Yet here we are again. Why are we not ALREADY rationing fuel to ensure we can maintain food supplies, emergency services etc? www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Managed to start writing two separate articles on extremely metafictional texts. Every paragraph entails painfully separating the multiple strands of idea and allusion, then reweaving them in order to explain how they work. Remind me to choose something simpler next time!

But don’t make them be the one thing you really want, the cost of freeing up your time

one final comment: project hail mary is widely described as "hard science fiction," which is internet for "a Boy wrote it, and that Boy was not george lucas"

Another reason to hate death vehicles www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... (in case killing pedestrians isn’t enough)

This sounds brilliant!

Lovely to have made it to Bristol despite the UK train system making its usual effort to ensure you never want to get the train ever again

If anything incentivises diagnosis it's the fact that our education system is so unfit for purpose. If we had smaller class sizes, a less test focused environment, more opportunities to play and move, then many children would be able to cope without the 'adjustments' allowed by a diagnosis.

Every word of this rings true. Universities make sweeping changes and meet concerns raised by frontline staff with the bland assurance they have completed an EIA despite the fact said process didn’t engage with staff at all

There is an imagined working class, that largely no longer exists and a modern working class that the political class rarely interact with outside of service provision.

'A third of [Danish] women no longer work in academia eight years after having a child, according to new research that suggests extra childcare responsibilities are hindering women’s abilities to climb the career ladder.' 1/2

Good HE is really simple: quality time spent with subject experts who know and care about their students. My university and many others are deliberately abandoning this truth in favour of financial and organisational efficiency.