As someone who called the 2022 invasion right, I can tell you now that the 'pressure Moscow till it buckles' theory is totally for the birds. We are definitely in or entering a period of danger where Putin may lash out unpredictably. We're not ready. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

I was quoted in the Swedish press yesterday: 'The Spectre of Brexit Still Haunts Labour'. 'A diet of X and WhatsApp groups, combined with an endless series of prime ministers, is burning out the ability of key decision-makers to think and act long-term'. ordfrontmagasin.se/artiklar/bre...

Currently in this workshop about the challenges of accelerating new technologies when it comes to archives. Exciting stuff! lustre-network.net/event/glow-r...

Strong agree. Don't let the heat go to your head. Instead of being insistently stupid, investigate some smart data today:

That Tony Blair has been in the news again, hasn't he? Well you can read a whole book on his time in office by, er, me. I've tried to capture the realities of domestic policy: the amazingly successful, the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Just **ten pounds** in the sale! Link below. 👇

My book on New Labour and the Blair years is in the @manchesterup.bsky.social sale for **just a tenner**! Roll up, roll up, you won't get a better bargain than this today: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526146328/

This is one of the dumbest and saddest things I've ever seen. We should not think of universities in this way, and if we do that'll destroy everything that is both useful and good about them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

📣 People are understandably up in the arms about this (it is horrible). But just want to wave a hand out there 👋 as we're going through the same thing in Humanities at Northumbria (1 out of 5 staff need to go by end of July). 1/?

I've said and done all I can on universities. It was obvious all along what would happen, right down to the year and the order of the dominoes. Without big policy changes the next two to four years are utterly predictable as well. Sorry to all colleagues and students it's working out this way.

Unis as critical parts of national infrastructure have been passed over to ill-equipped management teams with very narrow remits - to smash and ruin. Is that a good idea in the era of national competition, economic stagnation and Cold War 2.0? 🤔 www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

It's much too late now to save large parts of Higher Education, but there's lots that can still be done if we stop and pause this madness. Otherwise most HE will just be concentrated in SE England at Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial, Kings and a few others. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers...

The cuts at Exeter University won't work. They never work. The high-ups will be back for more in a year or two, then even more a year or two after that. Unis just keep doing the same thing consultants tell them to do, over and over again. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What's happening at the University of Exeter is a disaster for both the region and the country. The way the sector is set up, it is *inevitable* and *unstoppable* that this will continuously happen everywhere. We need to stop, get out a blank sheet of paper and start again.

My only reflection on #Brexit ten years on is that it looks quite a bit worse than it did the morning after. I said then that the British state had suffered its worst defeat since Suez. Now it looks like it has suffered by far its worst defeat since the Second World War. That's it really. 🤷‍♂️

'Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets' - Disraeli. theconversation.com/ten-years-on...

Absolutely ridiculous and unsustainable: Rejoining the EU leads young people by 50+ points. A disequilibrium which can't and won't last. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Not the least of Brexit's disasters, which helped hollow out the state and made it unresponsive and unable to react to citizens' needs and views, has been the schism between the state and the young.

Just reading this - seems like great stuff about long-term trends in class voting. Who needs all these facts when you can just crank up the take machine though? 🙄 Some actual data on this is Open Access and its FREE. 👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

"There’s a wider sorrow, too, and it’s watching waste... Watching departments, indeed whole faculties, built up with so much taxpayers’ money just cave in because of the whims of a mere here-today, gone-tomorrow fashion for markets." @gsoh31.bsky.social states it perfectly.

Awesome! "These resources link with ‘Changing place; changing places’ A-level geography modules and may provide stimulus material to help students’ devise independent investigations linked to urban change."

Two more great pieces of work for you today, this time from our @ukri.org/ AHRC-funded 'Spaces of HOPE' project on community-led planning. First: an A-Level teachers' pack on peoples' planning in London and Sheffield... (1/2) geography.org.uk/resources/sp...

An important read by @gsoh31.bsky.social on the end of UK universities as we knew them. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

NEW from me: I'll be speaking at Loughborough University's GLOW-Ready Workshop on 'user needs, trust, and responsible use of AI in government archives'. I'll be talking about the 'deluge of data' in contemporary history. It's online, sign up here! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/glow-ready...

I'm quoted today in @theleaduk.bsky.social: 'I don’t think in my career there has been a time when... rank and file academics are so far from the government'. national.thelead.uk/p/brexit-eu-...

I'm quoted in this @hannahfearn.bsky.social @theleaduk.bsky.social article about how #Brexit hammered Britain's universities... Take a look: national.thelead.uk/p/brexit-eu-...

Myself and colleagues from across Higher Ed have gathered under the auspices of @isrfoundation.bsky.social to think about new models for Higher Education... We'll be adding pieces as we go, and we've already published quite a few. We can't go on like this, and we shouldn't. isrf.org/projects/rec...

Two pieces from me this week you may have missed: (2) what it's like to live inside the unceasing retreat of British Higher Education and its rapid unscheduled disassembly. It's, well, bad. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

Two pieces from me this week you may have missed: (1) why no-one cares about Britain's university crisis. The only answer you get is 'yeah but apprenticeships' - not realising just how critical unis are to their provision. But what can one even say any more. 🤷‍♂️ www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

This is very good, and what always strikes me as particularly extraordinary is that British Universities aren't even asking for extra support from Government, pretty much all that's needed to avert crisis is for them not to regulate as heavily.

This is a grim view, but it is what Universities feel like on the inside these days.

NEW from me today: ICYMI it earlier, I've written for @arguablymag.bsky.social about the quiet crisis destroying almost everything important about universities, and why no-one's talking about it. Take a look: www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

This is a powerful, concise overview of where UK HE is today. I want to pick up on a couple of points in it, in the short thread below. None of my comments are referring to specific institutions.

Firstly, it's a travesty what has been happening to HE in the UK. Secondly, watching from a far with still a foot there, the decline of the university sector in the UK is a few steps ahead of what may be down the road for HE in similar systems, particularly, Australia and Canada.

“The truth is that ministers have not the faintest clue what to do”. @gsoh31.bsky.social writes on the quiet collapse of Britain’s universities and why so few people seem to care. www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

When I meet people in the real world, they have 0% - and I mean zero - knowledge of the disaster unfolding in British HE. Even if their kids are actually at uni. They look at me as if I've gone mad. This is why. 👇

This nails the top complex to solve, too “woke” to bother, and too imperceptible a collapse to react de facto response from politicians. There’s a lot you could do by spending nothing - number controls, ban consultants, severely truncate REF etc. But Westminster can’t even imagine that.

It is always striking to me when, meeting non-university friends, they ask how work is, and I say some variant of 'OK personally, altho obviously pretty shit in general', and they ask why, and I say some variant of 'sector in meltdown', and they are surprised and had no idea...

Today I've written for Arguably on one big mystery in our public life: why does no-one care about the existential crisis of our universities? Read all about it... 👇 www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

excellent from Glen @gsoh31.bsky.social as always

Why is the universities crisis being ignored? Essential piece by @gsoh31.bsky.social for Arguably on the “grim dribbling away of one of Britain's great triumphs and economic advantages” – and why so few politicians seem to care. www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

NEW from me... In case you missed it yesterday, I've written for the @isrfoundation.bsky.social about what it's like inside the decline and likely fall of Britain's attempt to build a mass Higher Education system. Read all about it! isrf.org/blog/what-do...

Essential reading for anyone currently going through the UK Higher Ed crisis…

There's been a lot of talk today (as every day) from people who have got everything wrong about Higher Education for years, but still continue spouting nonsense about it. Ignore the drivel: we are destroying something vital, and something good. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

This is an important read for anyone trying to understand the HE sector in the UK. As one of the staff persuaded into voluntary redundancy this year I was saddened to leave. But I am beginning to feel as if I escaped in a lifeboat from a burning ship loaded with gunpowder.

As someone in exactly this situation, I found this insightful

What's it actually feel like to live through the decline and fall of mass Higher Education in Britain? Today I've written about this from the inside here... Hope you like it, and hope you find it useful. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

I'm involved in a @isrfoundation.bsky.social project about the future of our universities. As it stands, the mass sector doesn't have one. Read all about why here - eight articles (and counting) about the end of a dream. isrf.org/projects/rec...

NEW from me: today I've written another piece in our @isrfoundation.bsky.social series on the destruction of British Higher Education. What's it like to live under the threat of redundancy? Read all about it here: isrf.org/blog/what-do...

"Seeing whole areas of the country without an accessible Chemistry department, a Drama school, a Languages faculty – so that young students who can’t afford to move away from the parental home simply can’t consider those subjects. What a waste." New blogpost from @gsoh31.bsky.social. #UKHE