This is almost exactly the same as the Euro-Sausage episode of Yes Prime Minister 😂 (A sign that there will be a new PM soon? 🤔)

It's crazy that the last time Italy was in a World Cup knock out game, I was a first year undergraduate student

It's based on a sci-fi book about a scientist working with extraterrestrial alien to save the world with science! In the end the protagonist put all life on Earth at risk and sacrifice his life to save an alien planet! It's about as "woke" as it can get!

Is partner partisanship associated with vote choice? @cerifowler.bsky.social finds that it was for the 2016 Brexit Referendum & subsequent elections in the UK & argues that this can help us understand gender gaps in vote choice. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/D8Fdnbw @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #polsky

Watched Project Hail Mary the other day. Quite surprised that I was among the handful in the theater that laughed at the reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind Am I really that old? I'm still in my 30s BTW, my review of the movie: 👎👎 #IYKYK

"Why would you punish people for being strong?" "But all the strong people will move away, and who would be left to protect us?" "We need to lower their obligation so that people are incentivised to get stronger"

Just out: the new @vdeminstitute.bsky.social is clear: "The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history" V-dem uses a global dataset on democracy with over 32 million data points for 202 countries, from 1789 to 2025. www.v-dem.net/documents/75...

V-Dem v.16 is now released, w. updated scores for 2025. Most countries remain stable from 2024, but some clear improvements (on diff’t democracy indices), incl. S. Korea, Sri Lanka & Mauritius. Largest declines came, by far, in the US. This figure shows 10-yr changes on the Liberal Dem. index.

Somebody at GBNews has been watching the Yes Prime Minister Christmas special 😏

New research on Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-ELAB movement shows that constituencies exposed to tear gas saw more businesses publicly align with the protest movement. When repression meets pro-movement consumers, activism can become profitable. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Years ago, when I was a polisci undergrad, getting sick of being asked by friends and relatives over and over if I am going to become a politician upon graduation, I came up with the following response: What you are saying is like asking a criminologist if s/he wants to become a criminal 😏

Women MPs and climate action 🌍👩‍💼 @hannahsalamon.bsky.social's new research from the UK Parliament shows women MPs talk about the environment more than men helping embed #Climate issues across politics

This proof the fan theory that For All Mankind is in fact the prequel of The Expanse

It's a shame the post-merger party isn't called attack of the clones

Meanwhile, in a normal and functioning democracy…

This is my yearly PSA that we have a lunisolar rather than a lunar calendar 🧧Happy Lunisolar New Year everyone🧧 May all of you have a prosperous year of the horse 🐎

I never really sign stuff. But this was different. It's not about trying to facilitate or block a particular party's route to power. It's about an electoral system that's unsuited to the political realities we face today and risks giving us government after government with no convincing mandate.

Counter to what examples like the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea might suggest, country’s names are surprisingly accurate descriptors. This opens the study of names in political science. Author: jwgivens.bsky.social Check it out here: doi.org/10.1017/S104... #polisky

This has brought more shame to United and the fans than everything that has happened on the pitch in the last 13 years. Shame on you Jim Ratcliffe!

Nothing better highlight the absurdity of American capitalism than the fact that the #Superbowl trophy is lifted not by the players, nor the coach who actually won the game, but instead by the owner of the team.

I was working on an MP speech dataset. I noticed some weird speech fragments in the docvar when I try to manipulate it Turns out one of the speech overshot the max length of cells in Excel, breaking the raw CSV file I've wasted a day diagnosing this Moral of the story: Stay TF away from Excel!

It’s like Portugal’s leading conservatives have read the massive amount of political science research that shows cooperating with or mimicking the ultra-right empowers the ultra-right and destroys the conservatives.

Mr President, it's the Libdem here, could we have our bar chart back please?

What is wrong with our world, encapsulated in a single Rotten Tomatoes page

You can almost sense her loath for her leadership! If she weren't the party leader she would have jumped ship to Reform already.

Guess what they are playing on BBC Two right now

Meanwhile, in a normal and functioning democracy……

'I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of art', says a certain failed applicant to the Academy of Fine Art Vienna

“Leave Greenland alone!” (H/T @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social )

I was fitting a topic model on my laptop overnight. But Windows decided to update itself so a whole day of progress is lost!🤬🤬🤬 Hey Microsoft:

My feeling as a Manutd fan tonight!🤬🤬🤬 #Glazersout #INEOSout

When I learned that the latest POV footage of the Minneapolis ICE shooting was not a leak, but a voluntary release, I thought of this line from The Big Short:

WTF? You've created a game on what? I think this game will either be my next obsession or the biggest let down of all time……

I've said it before and I'll say this again: Whoever willingly takes over the managerial position at Manchester United right now lacks the strategic sense to succeed as manager in the Premier League

It just occurred to me that Back To The Future is an 80's movie that very much tapping into nostalgia for the 50's So all the BTTF references in Stranger Things are basically us in the 2010's being nostalgic of the 80's being nostalgic of the 50's

I'm voting for him to own the libs……😏

Merry Strangemas! (Spoiler: Listening to Max's blabbering rather than running up that hill ASAP is absolutely excruciating)

A fight broke out in the 🇦🇱 Albanian Parliament last week during a vote for the next ombudsman. Probably the last entry for my parliamentary violence dataset in 2025.

There is no coming back for the Tories when they can't even secure the support of Ebenezer Scrooge 🤭🤭🤭

I'm hosting Christmas dinner this year, on the menu is Salmon en Croute and Roast Chicken #Poliscicooks

After living in the UK for over a decade, I have my first encounter of the often hyped "War on Christmas" I was canvassed at my home to not celebrate Christmas by a bunch of extreme left wokeratis from a group called……(check note)…… Jehovah Witness

Trump has announced his own Hunger Games…… I suppose we are not far away from having the first Purge

Maybe the way forward for the BBC is to put @number10cat.bsky.social in charge?

Hey Gemini, creat the cast photo of a TV series that is "The Boys" meets "The West Wing"

Freedom and democracy have toppled, only capitalism remain standing

Comic Sans would have been a better fit with the vibe of this administration

Just finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir As a fan of sci-fi, it's a great read. But as a political scientist it's nonsensical Nothing, not even a dying sun, is going to result in the kind of international cooperation and decisive action from society and governments as depicted in the novel

The pool draw for 2027 Rugby World Cup 🏉 is out! I can't believe I gotta see Hong Kong play against the All Black!

😢