By Jim Benton

What would be a concrete potential consequence of a UK minister (or even the Prime Minister!) coming out and saying, "'civilizational decline' is a fascist trope and it is deeply disturbing to see such language used at the top of the US government"? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

It's hard enough to keep up with the destruction of universities locally. Especially when the dial is set to full-on demolition. But really this is a global, or at least pan-Western crisis. Reaction, inequality, elite failure, AI delusion – a perfect storm for which we seem totally ill-prepared. 1/4

I mean this response was literally one of the things used to paint the left as 'unserious' in the period 2015-2020. So it's great to see that many are coming round to this approach but I fear that ship has long sailed.

This is an excellent initiative and if anyone is thinking of doing something similar for sociology/social sciences then I would be happy to contribute

Akehurst's whinge and Burnham logo:

I am very glad the internet has discovered JLM's analysis of Busytown

Question: what is a web 1.0 site that you still visit (semi?) regularly and which still remains usable? I'll go first: AllMusic

The right are constantly painting Mamdani as some scary Marxist radical and he's telling kids where they can play basketball.

It occurs to me that “Tony Blair all-channels campaign to force massive spending increases on AI” may be one of the most unwanted, unasked example of political/media shitehousing this century so far. You could fit everyone in Britain who likes and wants Tony Blair and AI into one football stadium.

The hoopla about social media is an excellent example. No one is even asking whether older people are radicalised, or damaged more, or in greater number, than digital natives. We just kneejerk demand the removal of the autonomy of younger people.

Blairites were a minority in the Labour party when TONY BLAIR WAS ACTUALLY PRIME MINISTER. The last person to run for the leadership on a Blairite ticket they got 4.5% Any political journalist worth their salt can't be that ignorant of internal Labour party politics so what is going on here?

There is literally nothing more popular in British politics than attacking Tony Blair, one of the most reviled public figures in Britain. It speaks to the political cowardice of those involved that they won't speak on the record.

I think it's worse, these companies are trying to convince us that these things aren't worth doing

It’s really frightening.

These are the kinds of comments made after the establishment in your country wages a 30 year war on media studies.

What's your most reasonable radical opinion? Mine is that I wish we lived in an economic system where people didn't feel such pressure to get to work that they had to risk the lives of kids on bikes with their aggressive driving.

There are many good and correct reasons for not using WhatsApp (and removing yourself from the big platforms in general) but as someone involved in junior sports, you are making things much much more difficult for the rest of us.

There really was no introspection, no analysis of priors after the failure of the Brexit campaign.

The rise of AI hype* in universities goes hand in hand with the rise of managerialism. *By which I mean the boosterism and uncritical tech-optimism far beyond the capacities of the tools. That's before we get the the obscuring of the ethical, epistemological and environmental impacts.

The weird thing about AI though is that it's the youngest who are most skeptical. Take a look at this new NYTimes/Siena polling. AI is mostly bad: 18-29: 47% 30-44: 43% 45-64: 32% 65+: 24% Just 17% of Americans 18-29 say AI is mostly good.

Strange for Lisa Mandy to be taking an interesting British politics and culture now considering as culture secretary she's spent the past two years ignoring both.

I'm sorry, what? In writing my first monograph, I spent six weeks trying to track down a citation in TWO languages I didn't know. And good thing too, because the citation was wrong. That's scholarship. That's research. You know, the thing we're trained to do?!?

Surprise Surprise

AI companies are writing their own constitutions. Meanwhile, a shared vocabulary for contesting algorithmic power has been traveling across red and blue states, from legislatures to civil society. New from me in @science.org: "A Civic Grammar for AI Rights" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵

I stand by the claim that young people are infinately more critical of AI than given credit for and the biggest boosters are boomer middle-managers who don't really understand it but like the vibes.

Lots of people down on Lisa Nandy today for going AWOL from her brief but I prefer to think she's just been working on her pet project...

Thinking about Starmer's nationalisation of steel to save 2700 jobs in Scunthorpe (good) & the news that at Nottingham Uni 2700 staff face redundancy risk (bad). How much of Lab's problem is a fantasy of heroic manual workers they'll "save", leaving some workers feeling patronised, others ignored.

Sorry but Starmer's '"I will not be discussing my leadership in cabinet, only in individual meetings" and then refusing individual meetings' is the most middle-manager flex imaginable. Got to respect the bit.

Hard to imagine an action that would damage trust in the justice system more than this. Convicted of one crime and (in the most underhand way possible) to be sentenced for another.

In her resignation letter, Phillips points to her work done as safeguarding minister in the wake of the 'Mandelson saga'. This is the same Jess Phillips who is an ally of Mandelson acolyte Wes Streeting.

Made my own Angine de Poitrine concert at home

Counter theory: Labour's problem is that it is currently dominated by people who think these two things are separate

PSA: the language of 'splitting' the vote is grounded on a position that some political parties have a right or expectation to the support from a particular social bloc. It makes for an extremely narrow (and I'd argue lazy) analysis of politics.

Looks like essential reading

In the not so distant past, a group of prominent British political scientists with large social media followings would post on an almost daily basis about the approval ratings of the Labour leadership. This went on for months and months. They don't do this anymore.

Just 7 days until release! Continuing my countdown of highlights, I want to talk a little about political economist Thomas Cooper. In the 1780s he was an enemy of slavery in Britain. Within a few decades he would become an agent of it in America. www.versobooks.com/products/312...

Arguing against a ban on protest not because it is authoritarian, anti-democratic and morally bankrupt but because it would have negative electoral consequences is peak New Labour

Labour are going to get (deservedly) humiliated in the polls today. It's clear from their campaigning, and the discourse of their loudest supporters, that their response will be to go harder against the left.

The British Sensible Moderates are in a bit of a pickle because Starmer really was meant to be their avatar and he's been a bit useless and proven very unpopular. Since they tended to claim both that there was a secret majority Yearning for their Sensible Leadership and it'd be grand... uhoh.

Some interesting statistics from @thehonestbroker.bsky.social, & this is after expanding the steering committee to include more from the Global South! It would be interesting to compare to CMIP6 ScenarioMIP gmd.copernicus.org/articles/9/3... and Moss et al www.nature.com/articles/nat... 1/

Post your warning sign. Danger of drowning/Yay, bacon!

This problem stems, at least in part, from the fact that academics are among the most resistant to calling themselves working class. Class consciousness in academia is far too wrapped up in a professional ideal that, if it existed at all, has been killed by the managerialism of the past 30 years.

How is it that the leading article in the Guardian uses quotes from (by my reading) 7 Labour MPs and yet only two (Anna Turley and Heidi Alexander) are on the record - and their quotes are taken from another interviews. Political cowardice and journalistic slop working hand in hand.

I had to spend a significant amount of time in my 3rd year Sociology of Work class showing students how to structure answers in an exam

gotta keep iterating on the STS program shirt design, probably