Excellent piece this

The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.

Ed Davey, once again, miles ahead of our Government. Between him and Polanski, I'd be very concerned if I was Labour. Often these two are saying what it should be saying, but for reasons not entirely obvious, it is not.

I suspect there's also a strong element here of far too many journalists and BBC managers spending too much time on X and getting a wholly misleading impression of how big a story the Trump edits were. They're excessively influenced by right-wing activist opinion, and particularly US opinion.

A thread worth reading - especially the 3rd part

UK universities cannot thrive while continually cutting academic staff No amount of wellness webinars, Lego play workshops, communal climbing events, bounce back sessions, desk yoga, jigsaw puzzle nights or Vice Chancellor's Special Awards for Resilience can change this

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

I don't understand these kinds of business news stories. Why do we not have proper ways to take back the money from owners with convoluted trusts? How come they can escape with our money in this way? It feels like they are stealing from us. PPE Medpro owes £39m in taxes www.bbc.com/news/article...

It's obviously a bad thing if any prisoner is released by mistake, but why is it worse if it's an asylum-seeker? It seems just to be taken for granted now that someone is more dangerous because they're an asylum-seeker than because they're a criminal. Something very dangerous is building here.

A fabulous thread for heritage, archaeology, history and bureaucracy! 🏺

⚠️Just a quick reminder, there are a few days left to apply for these two positions in #palaeoproteomics.

Really enjoyed today's lunchtime talk by @josephinequinn.bsky.social on How the Eorld made the West. Just gutted I had to leave early for a meeting. Food for thought. But then archaeology is BIG on sex, trade and war! 🏺

If you’re wondering why archaeologists were upset about the Lost King film, you should read this and ask yourself how you would feel if someone misrepresented your profession and professionalism in this way. I also recommend @pittsmike.bsky.social book Digging for Richard III.

The plan seems to be to widely perceive the UK as such an unsafe place for international students because of rampant racism & xenophobia that they stop coming and seek their education in alternative countries. We have a role as academics to counter this. Both our morality & livelihoods depend on it.

If you're a member of the National Trust remember to vote for council members by midnight tonight. Use the Quick Vote option. Entryist pressure group Reform Trust is trying to seize control. Stop them Voting is quick and easy if your membership card is at hand secure.cesvotes.com/V3-3-0/nt25/...

Could Katie Lam identify the London schools where "more than three-quarters of children don’t speak English to a serviceable school standard". Well done to @davehillonlondon.bsky.social for giving Lam + CPS the chance to substantiate this claim at the Tory fringe www.onlondon.co.uk/dave-hill-ka...

Man with stubble, "Small boats arrivals are 37,000. There are over 4 million kids in child poverty. And 4.5 million who can't get a dentist appointment" #BBCQT "We spend 90% of the media discourse on the 37,000. How much more could we achieve if we put that effort into the 4.5 million?"

Everyone with a Labour MP needs to do this. Mine is @libdems.org.uk and I am pleased to say is on here instead @dannychambers.bsky.social

Elon Must won't stop. I wrote this for @theobserveruk.bsky.social.

I've written a couple of things over the last days about how the government and much of Westminster remaining on X as the platform becomes increasingly toxic is having consequences for our politics...

Colour me Janan. (www.ft.com/content/00e9...)

Hey BBC and newspapers! This is what can happen if you actually stop fawning over the hard right and give media coverage to other parties! Please could you do the same with the @libdems.org.uk and @greenparty.org.uk and give them the coverage they deserve? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yuk yuk yuk. Open racism season is upon us.

Your daily reminder that the government continues to commercially support an individual who wants to destroy it through fascist violence.

Good thread on Elon Musk, a fellow of the @royalsociety.org and therefore an exemplar of their values.

Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community. Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.

I’m old enough to remember when everybody agreed that higher education was a “market” and offering “choice” was how the universities were meant to grow on.ft.com/3WTwBue

'Proposals to reform assessment and the way teaching quality is measured risk standardising university curricula and treating institutions like big schools, critics have warned.' 'Big schools' does rather appear to sum up DfS's conception of universities, sadly. 1/3

Always good seeing @lewisgoodall.com skewering politicians. Both what Robert Jenrick said and what Sarah Pchin said are clearly racist.

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

Truly this has to be seen to be believed. Very disturbing but also revealing of how severe Trump's character flaws are. Hard to imagine how someone could be so petty and lacking in dignity to behave this way, but here we are.

Shocked that this is on X - a lawless, extreme platform where the majority of Westminster still mingles without any thought to whether they should be there.

Exhausted. Think I overdid it today. #covid

Tory MP and "rising star" Katie Lam supports the mass deportation of families who came to the UK legally — a policy so unprecedented it has been compared with Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians. But did you know Lam has drawn sartorial, as well as policy, inspiration from the brutal Ugandan dictator?

The govt is revoking the A303 (Amesbury to Berwick Down) Development Consent Order 2023, ie it's closing down the Stonehenge tunnel. A reminder that despite reports citing only vocal tunnel opponents (such as below), it had much backing, including among archaeologists www.forbes.com/sites/carlto...

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

"The good, the bad and the rude peer-review" Notably, this paper was (rightly) cited in the Discussion: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The fact there was no attempt at historical preservation of materials from the East Wing demonstrates how Trump and MAGA are ultimately cultural ignoramuses with no appreciation for America’s history.

Something that should mean grant success is removed from job application and promotion requirements. #academicsky

Hadn’t, in truth, really absorbed the scale of what the Conservatives are proposing on ILR and immigration more broadly until this week’s Sunday Times interviews. Some thoughts on that in today’s note:

Never forget. Never again.

'Excavated with colonial labor and shipped to the Netherlands, the famous fossil is being repatriated to Indonesia along with 28,000 other fossils.' 🏺

People who have come to the United Kingdom legally, played by the rules and made it their home do not need to “go home”. This is their home. I've written to Kemi Badenoch to give her the chance to reject these divisive calls from her frontbencher Katie Lam.

Yesterday, we held 24th Sara Champion lecture, by Dr Barbara Oosterwijk on 'Traces of Touch: From Palaeolithic Embodied Markings to Amazonian Decorated Hands'. This was a fabulous lecture & you can watch (& award presentations) here: #Archaeology 🏺 www.youtube.com/live/tq-Aj1Y...

We have to ensure that neither the Tories nor Reform get anywhere near power. Utterly horrifying proposals on so so many levels.

Excellent writing here.

UK's 166 universities are anchor institutions in their communities, with a huge multiplier effect on local economies (x14). Collectively, British universities support about 1.2M jobs, even more marked in the North, Wales and Scotland. £80bn gross value added isn't loose change.

For all that universities have plainly used international students as cash cows, they have been among the only places where young Brits could meet as peers with people from abroad. Slowly losing that is disastrous.

Take part in this Express poll on brexit then RT xd.wayin.com/display/cont...