Wonderful article, just lovely.

The Council for Science & Technology which advises the PM is looking for a new member ‘with social & behavioural science expertise’. Great opportunity to bring a social science perspective to the heart of policymaking. Apply by 19 Jan apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/roles/9075

CBS didn't run the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, but over here at @propublica.org we've been working on the story since March, including finding out who each and every man sent to that maximum security prison was. You can see our reporting here: www.propublica.org/series/depor...

A friend has gifted the dog a Christmas jumper, and now he won’t allow anyone near it to take it off.

Excellent piece by @tomcalver.bsky.social on the collapse in UK immigration, based in part on @jamesbowes01.bsky.social analysis for @ukandeu.bsky.social. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

The dog is having a long overdue trim, but he’s *not* happy.

This story is extraordinary, if anyone hasn't seen it yet. This will end up hurting blameless scholars whose names get attached to invented publications.

The International Monetary Fund asked me to review the literature on migration economics to draw lessons for low-income countries. In a new @iza.org paper, I argue that policy for the 21st century must discard four outdated ideas. www.iza.org/publications... 🧵 thread—>

This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

Exam time! Technological innovation has destroyed the advances made by technological innovation, so students once again sit their exams using tools from the 18th century ('pencil') and the 2nd century ('paper') #analoglife

Ministers have got themselves into an awful mess by confusing a output (houses built) with an outcome (more affordable housing delivered in an environmentally sustainable way).

I'm sure this is going to go well.

The VF piece illustrates both why artists are indispensable and why people in power hate them so much

The Migration Advisory Committee has published its annual report today They have supplemented their earlier analysis of the fiscal impact of migrants on skilled work and health/care visas with those on family visas. Full results below: www.gov.uk/government/p...

NEW WORKING PAPER: I've been working on something called "Electoral districts as samples from the national population". You can find it here: www.chrishanretty.co.uk/20251217-dis... (1/n)

Wow - hard to see how that wouldn't be a career ending result for Starmer.

Permanent job in the cambridge german department waiting for a specialist in german modernism! First permanent modern german job there in almost a decade - exciting! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPS629/a...

Here's a little something to get you started this morning: My Big List of #Photography Videos. Enjoy!

#African #Hawk #Eagle #photography #nature #outdoors #birdwatching #BirdsSeenIn2025 #Botswana

My heart. Rescuing dogs and cats from an active war zone must surely earn you a special place in Heaven. True heroes❤

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Perfect. No notes.

Community college enrollment has been declining since 2009/10. The optimal policy response to this depends on the root of this decline. I'm thrilled @nber.org today released my working paper with Harvard PhD Joe Winkelmann titled: "Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment"

YASSSSSSS! GET IN! MAXIMUM CHAOS!

Dismal framing. Every aspect of most asylum seekers’ lives is controlled & paid for by the Home Office. They can’t work, are told where to live & have no autonomy or dignity. So they aren’t *choosing* to use taxis & don’t need to be “banned” from doing so. The HO just needs to get its act in order.

Adrian Horton, ‘We have to be able to ask difficult questions’: who really took the iconic Napalm Girl photo? (@theguardian.com; #skystorians) www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

Fewer workers. Fewer international students. More people leaving. A "step in the right direction" according to the PM. Impossible to take PM/govt seriously on growth if they are deliberately reducing it (and making the fiscal position worse) *as a matter of policy*. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure invites applications for a two-week Summer School on ‘Micro-Census Insights into Historical Households, Mortality and Fertility’, held at University of Cambridge from July 6-17th, 2026. Application deadline February 2 2026.

Did she announce the tax on international student fees? I can't find it in the OBR file.

Happy to share our latest study published in PNAS. Using data from 274,316 French students, we find that lower-SES students are less likely to wait for better university offers, even when waiting would lead to more prestigious or better-fit programs. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I know that this is bad in terms of process, but it does make it much easier to follow, and will (selfishly) save me lots of time in writing tomorrow's lecture. If they could just leak the distributional analysis too...

Want to hold a major academic conference in the humanities and social sciences? We offer up to £20k (and sometimes £25k) for a conference on any topic to be held between April 27/March 28. Apply by 29 Jan 2026. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

We (with @drqueue.bsky.social) explain the process in @uk.theconversation.com theconversation.com/the-real-rea....

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: M&S' £12 "BIG TIN" of chocolates is exactly how you remember Quality Street was as a child, i.e. it's actually a big fucking tin full to the brim of chocolate and not a half-filled plastic tub of sadness

It would have been hard to believe, when I moved to the UK over 15 yrs ago to start my PhD at Edinburgh, that successive Conservative and Labour governments would actively undermine one of the UK's most successful and strategic sectors and run it to the ground. Unbelievable, really. And here we are

I see the Labour circular firing squad continues unchecked.

The dog has had enough of the rain and is refusing to budge.

I am currently, because I know how to enjoy a Saturday morning, writing some guidance for people on filling this consultation in. As I do several things are highly apparent. Before I go through them though I don't want this to put people off of filling it in. It is important to do so nonetheless. 1/

The potential benefits of migration are not identical everywhere. This remarkable new resource from @niskanencenter.bsky.social maps the US counties where the economic benefits of immigration might be highest —> www.niskanencenter.org/mapping-amer...

Mahmood/government should say explain *objective* of increasing time to settlement for 15 years for care workers who arrived 2022-24 Is it A) to get them to leave? Why? B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits? C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.

The Supreme Court meets today to consider the President's wish to suspend part of our Constitution: the 14th Amendment securing citizenship for US natives. I joined with 95 other social scientists to document the costs of this act for the United States. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Two more #Oxford events today: - Climate Breakdown & Political Division: Navigating Polarisation www.alumni.oriel.ox.ac.uk/events/oriel... - Screening of The Invisible Doctrine at the Phoenix Picturehouse, Q&A with Eliane Glaser: www.picturehouses.com/movie-detail... Hope to see you at one or both.

In my corner of the bass-playing universe there was life pre- and post-Mani. He brought a liquid, melodic funkiness that EVERYONE copied. And when I finally met him he was exactly how you imagined him: joyful, generous, unstarry (& more of a star because of it) and wickedly funny. A life well lived

Just like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There’s a planet where all the teaspoons are teleported to.

The i Paper is reporting that once the changes are brought in, the 20 year route will be applied to refugees who are already here. I can't over emphasise the level of terror this will cause to our refugee population, and the lack of detail and timescale will make it very difficult to calm nerves.

This is just wonderful

This is terrifying. "[AI agents] can... infer a researcher's latent hypotheses and produce data that artificially confirms them." ... "We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people" [email protected]

Cloudflare outage destroys all human communication except Bluesky, this is the weirdest sci-fi scenario I’ve ever seen

Worth noting: • Upward revision applies to entire 2021-2024 series — the *trend* in emigration is *roughly* flat • As infuriating as big revisions are, they mean data is getting better • BUT wild that we ever used a survey to gauge movements into and out of the country instead of counting people!

Lots of sensible recommendations in the House of Lords Social Mobility Policy Committee report published today, including the importance of place, prevention, and a proper data strategy publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ld...