Unbelievably, it's been 25 years since we lost Kirsty MacColl yet the beauty of her music and her memory still resonate. Here's a song I wrote for her to sing in the 1995 movie 'Mad Love'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWjl...

Like the Post Office Horizon scandal before it, a story that has been covered for years and years by Private Eye without national newspapers apparently noticing. Lots more money siphoned off while everyone else looked away.

Nearly every Take relating to this has been done except one, which is - why would the European leaders take advice from Starmer on how to beat the far right? Who among them envies his popularity or admires the sagacity of his advisors? www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

Sensible universities see their staff as assets to be nurtured and protected. Foolish universities see them as a cost to be minimised. Really stupid universities see them as an enemy to be defeated. @sheffielducu.bsky.social

Check out this post about our current situation from a colleague at another university. @sheffielducu.bsky.social

Opportunity for #students : @mcs-medact-ippnw.bsky.social  Holdstock-Piachaud Student #Essay #Prize opens & encourages students to explore the themes covered by the #journal who will be shaping the future. #Disarmament #climate #nowar #medact #competition #research #publichealth #publication

The only Legitimate Concerns about asylum seekers are concerns for their well being and safety. For a rich country like ours to incessantly whine about these people as if we are their victims is perhaps the single most pathetic spectacle in British politics over the past quarter century.

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

Starmer’s Labour and the BBC both show what attempting to appease the far right leads to: stronger demands to move even further right. Who could have guessed?

#BISA2026 submissions deadline is TODAY at 11:59pm 🌟 We cannot wait to see you all in Brighton as we look at the next 50 years in IR 🎉 Today is your final chance to get your submissions in 👉https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/call-papers-0 VisitBrighton Simon Rushton @julietdryden.bsky.social

Last call for BISA 2026 Conference submissions - get your abstracts in asap. 👇

Academic milestone day.....my first ever CFP, alongside the fantastic @ckweatherill.bsky.social We're putting together a panel looking at Gender and resistance in environmental politics for the @mybisa.bsky.social conference next June. Please share away and get in touch if it's of interest

Announcing our #BISA2026 conference keynote as leading scholar Professor Kimberly Hutchings @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social 🎉 The title will be 'Violence and the Meaning of Peace’ and we are very excited! 🌟 Find out more 👉 buff.ly/c46i8zp @simonrushton.bsky.social @visitbrighton.bsky.social

Authors -it’s worth checking this to see if your work is included, -though seems there’s much less on the eligible works list here than work downloaded from LibGen or PiLiMi -though this might be the beginning of legal action over AI theft of copyrighted work, rather than the end. Good Luck 🤞

It's time to start planning for next year's conference! Get in touch if you want information on the process, or if you'd like us to share a call for papers!

I feel like putting together a Loss and Damage panel I think. Time to think about it still, but feel free to reach out if you want in.

Brighton here we come! Very excited for BISA2026. Let’s start thinking about panels and roundtables to submit and see if we can reach the 375 that were accepted onto the 2025 programme. See our call below. @mybisa.bsky.social @simonrushton.bsky.social

🎉 Our #BISA2026 call and homepage is OPEN NOW 🎉 Have a look at our call for papers down below - submissions for papers open on the 24th of September 🌟 We are so excited - more here 👉 conference.bisa.ac.uk @visitbrighton.bsky.social @simonrushton.bsky.social @julietdryden.bsky.social

The Labour Party: incredibly slow learners. How has pandering to the far right gone so far? www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Snapshots podcast: episode nine - Professor João Nunes from Universidad Pontificia Comillas 🎉 With @bisa-global-health.bsky.social and hosted by Christopher Long Snapshots reveals the nature of work and life in global health 🌎 Listen here 👉 buff.ly/8zCIffZ @apapamichail.bsky.social

Job opportunity: IR lectureship at Uni Western Australia with some great people. external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/en/job/52091...

Can't fault the clarity of Labour's message on protest. There are BAD protesters who must be punished (Irish musicians, anti-genocide vicars) and there are GOOD protesters whose views deserve respect (masked thugs with petrol bombs trying to start a pogrom)

This only matters if government cares about the possibility that the risk will become reality. No indication so far that they do. Instead, Starmer clings doggedly to the doomed Reform Tribute Band strategy.

Helping to improve the sustainability of manufacturing (…checks notes…) nuclear warheads. Shameful if true. www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/exclusive-sh...

⏰ the deadline is 30 June for this role with our new #Multispecies #Mutualisims project, generously funded by @wellcometrust.bsky.social pls do get in contact if you have any questions ⬇️

New publication! 🎉 “Quasi-public Partnerships: Multistakeholder Governance in an International Organization” in Global Governance 🔓 brill.com/view/journal... The paper will be of interest to those interested in:

Apart from those things, he sounds ideal!

Some reflections with Owen Parker on the @lsepoliticsblog.bsky.social blog about why Labour's softening of the (hard) Brexit settlement is definitely a good thing, but still a very long way from the actual soft Brexit we desperately need to get growth going again

Starmer again asks all the wrong questions. “Will the cost be worth the political benefit?” How about asking “Will the investment reduce child poverty?” Hopeless. I pity Labour backbenchers for having to put up with this. But I also blame them for doing so.

Today's "Article I wish I had written" is: What does security look like? Exploring interpretive photography as method? by @jknyman.bsky.social and Adam Ferhani. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Fab resource for anyone thinking about visual politics and methods.

Never mind the policies, the language Starmer uses - about human beings who want to do nothing worse than work, study, live with their families or seek refuge here - is simply appalling

This is such a bad take. The vast majority of academics are against marketisation, tuition fees, the exploitation of overseas students etc etc. They are depressed, but not at all surprised, by stories like this. 1/3

Truly pathetic stuff from the Labour Party. The fast route to electoral oblivion and a far-right Faragist government. Grim. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

CALLING FOR SUPPORT - geographers @newcastleuni.bsky.social are facing compulsory redundancy. ALL geography professors have been placed at risk, with a quota that 2 out of the 20 must go. Others also at risk. Please help make these harsh + unnecessary cuts publicly known. #StoptheCuts to British HE

Are we still not supposed to call it a genocide? www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Yes, this is right. Starmer’s Labour Party are an unfortunate combination of cruel and thick.

It is almost as if constantly pandering to the far right just …strengthens the far right! Who knew!?!

Fantastic turn out today - brilliant to see

Lively @sheffielducu.bsky.social picket at The Wave. For once it’s not snowing!

First day of 10 days of @sheffielducu.bsky.social strike. Elmfield building representing. #stopthecuts

Tomorrow our members are taking strike action to say no to job cuts! 💪 Join our picket lines from 8:30am, as well as various teach outs from 10am, and a Demo on the SU Concourse from Midday. 📣

UCU stands in unwavering solidarity with trans members following the Supreme Court ruling. We proudly support trans rights. We will listen, learn and act alongside our members. Our full statement: www.ucu.org.uk/article/1399...

New article out in Globalization & Health with @adebengyp.bsky.social and @kstoreng.bsky.social looking at the Gates Foundation’s efforts to influence European donor governments. Open access here: globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

I recently had the pleasure of recording a podcast with Owain Williams as part of SPERI’s New Thinking in Political Economy podcast series, looking at the pharmaceutical sector. Available now via the link below or wherever you get your podcasts!

Hopefully someone is looking very closely at what Trump’s family and his associates invested in over the last few days.

We’re in very bad times in UK universities, not least for early career colleagues who are finding job opportunities - even part time teaching work - drying up. This new initiative from @mybisa.bsky.social gives those of us in jobs a way to at least make a small positive difference.

So if the Home Office wants to reduce student migration numbers it needs to explain why it considers British families paying more for uni and/or the largest employer in many red wall towns going under is a price worth paying to reduce a form of migration that bothers no one

🎉New team member 🎉 Eve joined BISA in March as a current politics and international relations student at @sheffielduni.bsky.social . Outside of BISA, Eve enjoys running all around the peaks! Find out more about Eve and the rest of the BISA team at

Interested in understanding the impact of mega-foundations and other private actors in global health governance? Apply by April 23 to join the Global Health Politics group @uio.no PhD: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... Postdoc: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... www.sum.uio.no/english/rese...

No need for peace studies anymore: Trump has achieved peace. Job done. 💯✅