Aside from the moral bankruptcy of once more pulling up the drawbridge to HE, does anyone actually think doing the Treasury's dirty work for it will save us? Their policy is simply 'spend as little money as possible whatever the consequences'. Precisely zero additional money will be freed up by this

#AcademicFreedom | We have written to The @openuniversity.bsky.social to express our profound concern about the university’s response to a letter from the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) regarding the use of the term ‘#ancientPalestine’. Read our letter: bit.ly/4r0j68L 1/3

Spotted Tenconi and his fascist Turning Point meatheads campaigning in Oxford today. They bravely left before the rest of us finished work and never bothered advertising the 'event' in advance. Presumably he didn't want a welcome party

Academics and students are more likely to face “repression” for their pro-Palestinian views than any other group in the UK, says European Legal Support Center www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academi... via @julietterowsell.bsky.social

Mind-blowing genius for Labour to dream up a wedge issue which divides only their own voters and not those of literally any other party

Breaking: on two counts, the High Court has ruled that the Labour government's proscription of the campaign group Palestine Action was unlawful – a win for its co-founder Huda Ammori, who sought a judicial review of the ban

Take the time to do this folks. The proposed changes to ILR are shocking and cruel, which is made abundantly clear in the text of the public consultation linked below. Please lend your voice to try to mitigate the cruelty.

‘Burke and Fox’s relationship could not withstand the ideological chasm that emerged between them after the French Revolution. But they believed passionately in the importance of friendship.’ Daisy Hay on Edmund Burke and Charles Fox. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

TIL Wetherspoons has a section of its website on Jean-Paul Marat – explaining a display about him in a Newcastle branch. Unfortunately it isn't clear that he ever actually lived in the city www.jdwetherspoon.com/pub-historie...

Surely a good omen for my PhD that I have now visited enough French archives to earn Grand Voyageur status with SNCF

BREAKING 🇵🇸 Israeli regime forces have stormed Birzeit University campus in the Occupied West Bank, injuring 41 students, including 9 with live bullets.

You'll notice that the "hard decisions" politicians are always talking about are always "cutting benefits for poor people" and never "disagreeing with America" or "banning billionaires' CSAM-machines".

Good strategy by Labour to insulate higher education against the seemingly inevitably Reform UK government by making everyone redundant now so that there is very little left to burn down

‘Wedderburn argued that true freedom was possible only if land were handed over to the formerly enslaved. Where it wasn’t given, it should be taken.’ Chris Townsend on the Black abolitionist and antislavery campaigner. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Programme and registration for International Actors in the Making of International Law 1750–2000 are now available!

I have a very short article out Fenêtre sur Tour, the magazine of the departmental archives of Seine-Maritime, on British migrant technicians and mechanics in Rouen c.1800!

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

My brother and I are now a week into our sponsored bike ride from Land's End to John O'Groats and we have made it as far as Warrington(!), about 650km from the start. We're raising money for the Brain Tumour Charity and Solace in honour of our late mum. Please do consider donating what you can!

Anas Al-Sharif’s last will and testament, written in April: “I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person... I entrust you with its people, w/its wronged & innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace.”

Last day for this!

When he was running to be Labour leader Keir Starmers campaign video boasted that he had stood up for protesters when the full force of the state was against them. Today his govt is arresting a disabled blind man for holding a placard.

In the Israeli parliament MP Ofer Cassif was pulled away from the podium & prevented from continuing his speech. Why? Because he said genocide was taking place in Gaza. Meanwhile here in the UK we're constantly told Israel is a democracy.

Summer 2025 very much in progress

Bye forever, WeTransfer.

Incontrovertible evidence, now, of *police* investigating families supporting their kids with gender affirming healthcare in the UK. For trying to do the best for your child, following best practice in most of the world, here you get a visit from the police. Thank you, Wes Streeting.

The world's most famous medical NGO concludes Israel is committing genocide. It joins a consensus of genocide scholars, including in Israel, and NGOs like Amnesty International. No politician or journalist can claim "I did not know at the time!" to evade future justice.

It's shameful that we were even considering renewing him. The people at the top of the club were not blind to this situation, and still considered it in the interests of sporting expedience. Lessons should be learned.

🚨 The CfP is out for 'Invisible Actors in the Making of International Law, 1750-2000'. Deadline for submissions is 10th August. Please share with your PhD students and ECRs in history and law! networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

Libraries are a pretty cool place to be right now. (We have air con).

Really looking forward to contributing to this exciting workshop next week with an amazing lineup of speakers!

Quoi

If you were shocked by my film on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, you haven’t been paying attention. this film tells us nothing new about the situation in the occupied West Bank.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Less than 7,000 signatures needed for self-ID to be considered for debate in Parliament. Sign here 👇 petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

Oxford academics drank from cup made from human skull until 2015, book reveals

This is why I’m here: 🧵Trigger warning: suicide I am the proud mum of a trans woman, Alice. Alice came out to her best friend, Lucy when she was sixteen, to her sister, Kate a few months later. She didn’t come out to me. Why not? Probably because I’d absorbed media transphobia 1/10

I should probably make this website my homepage

The Supreme Court sided with FWS. But it didn’t hear from a single trans person. This ruling sets a dangerous precedent and erases trans women from protections. It puts trans rights back 20 years. We won't stop fighting for trans rights 🏳️‍⚧️

Many things are bad in Germany at the moment but the Speisewagen is not one of them

if you’re an artist who ever thought “what’s the point? The world is Hell and I should do something that matters instead” even in an ICE detention center people will treat art as sacred, seek it out, and find joy and comfort in it. You aren’t making art, you’re making hope.

Pretty amazing place to work from home

This is the text of the email just sent to hundreds of international students telling them that their visas have been revoked due to activism or social media posts.

Hundreds of international students have just received an email telling them their visas have been revoked. The ‘justification’ is campus activism or social media posts. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/hun...

Like others, I pulled out of a scheduled talk at Columbia earlier this academic year. Colleagues and students at Vichy-on-Hudson have asked us to renew our boycott commitments. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

NEW: Hossam Shabat’s Last Article Filed hours before his killing in an Israeli airstrike, journalist Hossam Shabat describes the resumption of Israel's scorched earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. Translated through tears by Sharif Kouddous dropsitenews.com/p/hossam-sha...

This week's column is on how clinging on and hoping for a Labour surge either in terms of popularity or well formulated policy is now for the birds www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Mahmoud Khalil’s letter is a manifesto for our times: it is our generation’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail “I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear” inthesetimes.com/article/mahm...

UK universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock (@davehitchcock.bsky.social) on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be approached as an interdependent system. www.historyworkshop....

What is the point in voting? Why did I even get out of bed?