We send our deepest condolences and love to Jewish communities across the country in the wake of this morning’s horrifying attack.

Kicking off our fantastic line up with a showcase of new research! Get in touch if you are a postgraduate or early career researcher who would like to introduce their work to the field. 📍 Hybrid: N304, IHR, Senate House, WC1E 7HU and Online 📅 Thursday 16th October, 2025 ⏰ 17:30 🔗 bit.ly/3INwCfO

It's the start of #BlackHistoryMonth 🎨 This page gives you a useful starting point to begin exploring the work of Black artists on Art UK 👉 artuk.org/discover/art... 🧑‍🎨 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b.1977) © Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Corvi-Mora, London. 📷the artist.

Are you an emerging scholar researching Black British history and looking for opportunities to share your research? Please get in touch with @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social or Meleisa Ono George via contact info below to take part in this ⚡️ talks session @ihr.bsky.social (and please share widely!)

'Our public libraries are free in three critical senses. Firstly, they cost nothing to join and to use. Secondly, they are open to all in our communities. We must also add a third concept of freedom: the freedom to read – to engage, without restraint, a diversity of knowledge and opinion'.

Are you an emerging scholar researching Black British history and looking for opportunities to share your research? Please get in touch with @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social or Meleisa Ono George via contact info below to take part in this ⚡️ talks session @ihr.bsky.social (and please share widely!)

It’s less ‘countering Reform’ and more like Reform cosplay. Reminds me of Cameron opening doors for Euroscepticism in his party’s mainstream and then being surprised when he couldn’t win referendum campaign to stay in Europe. Just bad strategy.

You're right, but it's not just exam culture, it's the whole way we talk about education now - as a means to an end, a product. Your chosen degree being measured against other subjects in league tables of earning potential. The incentive to actually explore ideas, grow intellectually, shrinks.

The IHR Black British History Seminar is now on Bluesky, thanks to @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social! Give a follow for updates:

The IHR Black British History Seminar is now on Bluesky, thanks to @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social! Give a follow for updates:

Excited to read this new book on the case for reparations! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

'Englishness is in crisis. But it's comforting to know that it has been for more than a thousand years.' Great review of Catherine Clarke's new book. With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers. on.ft.com/46jMcc9

Europe's richest turkey demands cancellation of Christmas.

But potential tech investment. (Insane to me that the current government sees more economic growth potential in technofascism than in supporting universities and further education for innovation and skill development)

Probably the most influential & absurd lie in recent British history: the idea that white people will enjoy a better quality of life only if brown & black people can be prevented from crossing the channel to seek asylum.

The new fascist aesthetic: Men: toadlike, unearned smugness etched on their faces. Hairloss incompatible w/ their understandings of masculinity & white supremacy, so they shave or weave Women: peroxide aryans. Split ends as brittle as their personalities Gold embossing in a can from Amazon Prime

Given how the American ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on terror’ were conducted, this insanity may have dire ramifications not only for the US but for anti-fascist movements and groups around the world.

This is what Harold Wilson said in reply to Enoch Powell's 'River of Blood' speech. Oh to have politicians of this calibre again. Imagine Starmer saying this?

Enforcing conditions where research only happens in the context of research grants would lead to a catastrophic shrinking of UKHE research across sector. Mad. Plus, creates conditions where only government sets agendas for research, which is a dangerous loss of liberty

Amazing the extent to which you can crumple a sector in just the span of a REF cycle…. The kicks keep coming from far-right chasing Labour ministers making policy based on badly conceived impulses mediated through market-speak instead of sound policy to support education and creative research

'"You can’t have hobbyist research that’s unfunded going on in institutions. We can’t afford it.”' Such a badly formulated phrasing of the issues, so open to so many misinterpretations. If this is the level of thinking about research among sector leaders and policy-makers, be very afraid.

Villainy.

Financial consultants for higher education have two buttons: downsize staff, or merge to create ‘efficiencies.’ Neither of these things helps solve anything on the ground or on the balance sheet long term. The real issue is that economics of the sector & existing policies for sector don’t work.

Attended a fantastic online launch event for this report this evening. It’s an important and timely reminder of the essential role historians can continue to play in this essential conversation about the past, present and future.

Not surprising for anyone who has been working in universities and journalists should take note! How many millions have been spent across the sector and by UUK?

A fantastic evening!

Only 1 in 6 victims of sexual assault report the crime because of staggeringly low rates of success in investigation & conviction, but sure, let’s use resources to go after a famous artist for posting on a listed building. This gov’t has so badly lost step. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

So glad to attend the launch of @cathamclarke.bsky.social’s thought provoking new History of England in 25 Poems last night, which explores the ‘polyvocality’ of England’s voices, truths, and agendas. A very insightful read so far from an outstanding scholar.

A helpful graphic for No. 10.

Brilliant & important analysis from @kojokoram.bsky.social: why the populist right’s attack on history is integral to its attack on democracy & human rights: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

'It can take weeks to write a grant proposal, so how would it feel to have a machine reject it in seconds? Researchers in Spain have been finding out, after a major funding foundation in the country turned to artificial intelligence (AI) for help with reviewing grant proposals.' 1/2

This is genuinely what a Labour government thinks terrorism looks like in the UK right now and I'm losing my god damn mind

"If you chase the far right, you will become the far right, and people will vote for the original not the copy".

I had a dream about deep fried sushi last night which I immediately took as some sign of worrying mental decline. But maybe that would be good? Like arancini meets sushi? I offer this idea freely to anyone opening an Italian-Japanese fusion food truck.

Ok, Green Party, please bffr with this boob hypnotist guy. The level of misogyny and pseudoscience that leads to that kind of comment is not something you just apologise for, it’s indicative of a deeply disturbing world view, no? I want parties on the left to succeed but be serious. Am I wrong?

Absolutely disgusting racism.

Some news from me in case you missed it 📌

Returning to my favourite institutional home this academic year as an @ihr.bsky.social Research Fellow. Thank you to the wonderful team at the IHR for your ongoing support. I’m no longer affiliated with Goldsmiths, so please contact me at [email protected] going forwards.

Returning to my favourite institutional home this academic year as an @ihr.bsky.social Research Fellow. Thank you to the wonderful team at the IHR for your ongoing support. I’m no longer affiliated with Goldsmiths, so please contact me at [email protected] going forwards.

This looks fantastic, can’t wait to read it!

Things are going great….

This is ‘quiet bat people’ level nonsense. How about use that £2B for funding universities for, y’know, actual learning, research innovation and skill building? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The BBC is a publicly funded service. Its archive should be open to anyone and researchers should not be beholden to the bbc to choose what we see. And not on only 2 days a week either.

This is not only a serious issue for historians and not only a serious issue for academics (although it is that). It's a development that's also deleterious for the GLAM sector, for example, and part of a much larger trend nationally and internationally to restrict and dismantle access to archives.

Meanwhile, the regular protests in London against the genocide in Gaza attended by thousands go largely unreported…

This is just textbook 1930’s fascism

A U.N.-backed food security group has issued a dire warning: famine has officially now taken hold in northern Gaza and is expected to spread in the coming months.

1/3 A plea to Labour and Keir Starmer: Practical fixes to the economic mess you inherited from the last government will not be enough. You need to fill the moral vacuum that they created too. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...