That's it, I've had enough. I just can't push any more of this paperwork around any more. Time for a short intermission until Tuesday 6 January. Love and hope and happiness to you and yours until then! 🎄

Well let's face it, that was one of the worst years that the university sector has ever experienced. It's made all the more painful by the certain knowledge that next year will be quite a lot worse.

In case you missed it, my book on the Blair years has been chosen by the @financialtimes.com as one of its best new books on politics! You can pre-order it here: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526146328/

'New Labour, New Britain?' by, er, me has made it into the best new politics books list at the FT! Many thanks to @greenmirandahere.bsky.social for the kind words. (1/2) www.ft.com/content/dd0f...

The marking marathon might be near its end! I have now marked 58 scripts and written nearly 17,000 words of comments and advice on them.

Only 11% of the UK population tell YouGov they think Brexit has been a success. Farage comes to power and tears up the Brexit deal, the Windsor Framework and the UK's membership of the ECHR. Not sustainable in any way.

This exposes the most likely calamity ahead: that at the v moment the UK population turns completely against Brexit and starts to demand its reversal, a Reform UK govt is elected and tears it all up. Could poison politics for decades.

Hey, do you want a doctor or someone to look after your elderly mum? Tough, Farage has destroyed even that bit of your life like he destroys everything he touches.

The UK is now facing an emigration crisis and a shrinking population. It must, must, must reverse engines on immigration immediately - throw the doors open and wave people in. Otherwise we are inviting disaster.

I talked about the UK as a net emigration country in my Bristol Festival of Economics session in November. Chairman of the MAC himself pooh-poohed what I said. Let's see who's right shall we.

The marking marathon continues: I have now marked 51 scripts and written 15,000 words of comments!

My entire X timeline is anti-EU posts from people I don't follow. Even if I change it from 'for you' to 'following', it switches back to 'for you' each time I open the site. X is being weaponised against the EU. And unfortunately X is still the public square for European journalists & politicians.

The conspiracies about Strictly are everywhere, it's crazy. It's like people take a beat and then repeat verbatim a line from a crazed world of nonsense. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

UK happiness suffered a lot in the pandemic and its aftermath, but it's still higher than during the early 2010s. Declinism is the same nonsense it was in the early 60s and mid 70s.

Look at crime fall and fall and fall and fall. There's unlikely to have been much of a a safer time in English and Welsh history.

The UK drinks less, smokes less, is better informed, more highly educated, more likely to survive serious diseases... than ever ever before. Holiday thought: snap out of the gloom guys.

My article on the future of Britain's universities is now out in Political Quarterly! Regular readers will know that IMHO many simply don't have one, beyond regular radical downsizing and mergers. A vast and foreseeable waste of your money. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1467923x...

Every day at some point I think about the appalling danger of a RefUK govt to UK state structures - to the settlement in Northern Ireland, to the Union, Faslane, security, internal counter-influence measures, cross-border policing, race relations.

HS2 could have transformed Britain and the experienced shape of the country itself. Instead the Brits managed to cock it up in the most spectacular fashion imaginable. Whole libraries will be written about this disaster. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Happy Leeds Tram Day to all those who celebrate - cos its every single day in this stupid, stupid country. Groundhog Day! You can't go anywhere, ever. Stupid. 🤮 www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Lots of you will be logging off at the end of today. So what's coming up in 2026? It'll be packed. On 25 Sept I'll be honoured to give a Royal Historical Society public lecture in London on 'Rights of Way and Access to the Land in England and Wales’. Come along! royalhistsoc.org/royal-histor...

If anyone would like me to speak about the Blair govts at their local bookgroup, bookshop or Labour Party (etc.), just DM or give me an email and we'll talk! Happy to help, just doing my job etc.

Lots of you will be logging off at the end of today. So what's coming up in 2026? It'll be packed. I'll be talking in York on Tues 3 March about my new book on the Blair governments. Come along! I'll also be speaking in - at least - Bristol, London and Oxford. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-labour...

Lots of you will be logging off at the end of today. So what's coming up in 2026? It'll be packed. On 10 February I'll be publishing 'New Labour, New Britain?' - a whole book on the Blair governments. Have I said anything about it yet? www.amazon.co.uk/New-Labour-B...

Lots of you will be logging off at the end of today. So what's coming up in 2026? It'll be packed. M'colleagues @drhick.bsky.social and @draflint.bsky.social from the 'All Our Footsteps' project will be publishing a book on 'Outdoor Singing in Modern Britain'! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Has anyone asked Kemi whether the crime deportations will include Irish dual nationals yet? Of which there are many millions across the whole UK. Have you insisted on getting an answer. If not, why not?

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

University life and Higher Ed have always been mythologised and misrepresented. But now they're the subject of continual and outright lies. It's sad, but there you are.

I have now marked 40 essays and written I think about 12,000 words of comment and advice. I am... tired. And slowing down.

Still astonished and horrified by yesterday's intervention from the Leader of the Opposition. In a normal country, at any normal time, it would be a resigning matter - immediately. Yet it just blows past, like everything else. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Today has been another shameful one for our politics. It beggars belief that the Leader of the Opposition should use her office to say such things.

Yep.

Wonder what John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May think of Badenoch's latest outburst. Maybe someone should ask them.

I have checked and the actual Leader of the Opposition, paid for by you and me, has officially put this out. Totally disqualifying.

Oh my God has she really said this? Genuinely very worrying. I just can't understand the crater where the Conservative Party used to be. Bad for conservatism, bad for the country, bad for women and girls, bad for everyone.

Every time I discuss universities with voters - even highly qualified ones - I get the same eight points: *Taxpayer pays tuition *Waste of money *Far too many unis *We need apprenticeships *Lecturers get x3 months holiday *Social engineering *Woke *Get rid of Humanities So, so tired of it all. 😫

The total pack of lies being put out everywhere about rejoining Erasmus would be laughable if they weren't so serious. Almost every 'fact' put out to make it seem poor value for money fake or twisted.

Are the Tories really going to major on hating... Erasmus? Have they all got better jobs to go to or something?

NEW: One of the launch events for my book! This one's in York, at York St John University, during the early evening of Tuesday 3 March... There'll be others, in Bristol, London and Oxford, but this one's now got a signup available. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-labour...

Matthew Goodwin objects to prosecuting this: ‘I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.’

There's hundreds of people - some of them giving their actual names - saying that the UK is on the verge if an armed revolution, a race war or an economic Depression. It's crazed, it must boil the brains of people on there.

Dear Lord, I've just been over to X-Twitter and the sheer tidal wave of obvious lies and hate! It's a good job no-one's really on it any more. Like having a bag of rancid puke break over your face.

Hi, have I pushed my new book enough now? You can pre-order it right away, and it'll be out in the world on 10 Feb! manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526146328/

J.G. Ballard and the future? Writing a book about it mate. Got two chapters in draft already. Available 2028 or 2029! *Scribble scribble scribble forever*. (1/2) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

*Screams endlessly in infrastructure* Just build stuff! Just build it now! We've got so much cheaper and quicker light rail tech now, the whole country should look like a tram line. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A new Dark Age being pushed by our strategic competitor, the United States. www.denverpost.com/2025/12/17/t...

A terrifying age of monsters. Unless we in the UK are careful NHS research will be trashed next by the same ghouls. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

A great event towards the end of Jan - m'learned colleague Daniel Gordon, who recently took voluntary redundancy from academia, is going to reflect on how that feels and what it's like. Since many academics are going to be in that position, important. 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-univers...

I've now marked 25 out of 64 essays, and I've written just under 7,000 words of comments. But everyone tells me it's all a load of rubbish and pointless and that lecturers are lazy wasters, so 🤷‍♂️