*chanting* pop pop pop *more bluesky voices join* POP POP POP

Thousands are marching in Selma calling for a full restoration of the voting rights act.

2,700 in limbo for months, with more than 600 expected to lose their jobs. Having been at risk of redundancy last year, I can’t imagine the impact of so many feeling so insecure and devalued. Cruel and destructive. Solidarity to all.

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

Today’s Education Select Committee report on higher education is the best report on HE to come from Govt/Parliament in ages. It takes a rounded view of the whole system, moving away from the more atomistic or narrow accounts we’ve seen 🧵 committees.parliament.uk/committee/20...

🧵/ While the Tory leadership has decided the results were a success, how did the party actually perform? They lost 41% of the seats they were defending, meaning Badenoch has now overseen the two worst results for a primary opposition party in living memory, by a clear margin (next worst is 25%).

Telegraph headline this morning: ‘National Trust branded a ‘disgrace’ for tearing down flag.’ What is disgraceful about protecting the nation’s monuments from harm? They belong to past, current and future generations. They are protected from alteration and damage by law.

Thought this was a model response from @celiarichardson.bsky.social to a pretty harsh article in the Spectator about the National Trust

Had my Galaxy S9 for over 10 years & a new battery last year. A great phone I'd happily use for many more years. But built-in obsolescence means Samsung hasn't updated its operating system for years, so now lots of apps saying they won't work on it. Very frustrating.

family photo

Birmingham: 95/101 seats declared [3 wards to come] Reform 21 Green 18 Labour/Coop 16 Conservatives 16 LibDems 12 Independents 12 [6 seats to go] No overall control (nor can any alliance of two parties get near to 51) [Previously: Labour 52, Cons 22, LibDems 13, Ind 10, Green 2]

Think it's hugely telling that we have this voting on VE day, how not have any grasp at all of our history.

Will definitely look at the detailed results in the local elections. Probably not listen to the news which has constantly pushed particular groups, who have no interest in supporting normal decent people. Indeed deliberately undermine the country. And should be held to account.

Thankfully I successfully avoided the danger of children crossing when I went to vote. Glad to have the sign warning me of this dangerous thing.

On that - credit to the TUC for, when they marked their 150 anniversary, including this inglorious episode in their anniversary celebrations. Many politicos with a sentimental idea about what a trade union is for would do well to read it:

The metaphors are, yet again, getting a little heavy-handed.

No one is better at keeping hope alive than Rebecca Solnit, the historian and essayist whose *Hope in the Dark* got me through the first Trump administration and whose *A Paradise Built In Hell* inspired my novel *Walkaway*: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070... 1/

Like a gut punch, this quietly spoken sentence from Lubaina Himid who is representing the UK at the Venice Biennale www.ft.com/content/2a58...

WOW! I am so thrilled with this! What a wonderful re-use of the dataset. This is EXACTLY the reason that datasets should be out and circulating for scholars to use and reuse!

Lazy morning.

The Government ten days ago released a new strategic vision for archives which makes a strong and convincing case for their central importance. Using it as a yardstick shows just how far short of best practice the BBC Written Archives Centre falls. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/new-strategi...

Very late to this, but sad to hear that Denby has gone into administration. A little bit because they make such beautiful plates, but mainly because industries like this are so crucial to local (and national) economies…

"I see the Green vote as being ethnic minorities. Many who don’t speak English" - Nigel Farage to The Sun. The Greens are on 15-20% in the polls. Their national vote will be > 75% white British. It is significant for Farage to try to delegitimise both ethnic minorities & Green voters in this way

Shouldn't be surprised this is disingenuous. No democratic mandate for this. An utterly flawed & dangerous bill, felt like giving permission to kill for convenience or put pressure on the most desperate. Would have made terrible law. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Hi I wrote about the making of classic platformerChuckie Egg and talked to its creator Nigel Alderton. Please give it a read as I want to show there’s an audience for this gaming history stuff 🙏 www.theguardian.com/games/2026/a...

let's make a cultural value judgment: palantir are a bunch of execrable fascist shitheads and their ideas go against the basis of every civilized country on earth, from which they should be extirpated like the intellectual cancer they are

“Whenever a difficult point is touched on, it is brushed off with such speed you can almost hear the Palace’s press secretary calling whoever is running the BBC this week.” Queen Elizabeth II: Her Story, Our Century gets my first ever 1 star review. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

this sounds kinda like a "who cares" achievement but its a very exciting milestone for rich guys who are extremely invested in a future where robots they control are slavedrivers and prison guards for the rest of the human population

‘Famine and widening food insecurity are the foreseeable consequences of military aggression in the Gulf. That reality ought to weigh heavily on a world that has largely understood this war through the narrow lens of oil-price instability’ www.ft.com/content/3634...

While death and destruction rained down on Iran during the war’s first month, the world’s 100 biggest oil and gas companies brought in an extra $30 million per HOUR in windfall profits. Yes, $30 million per HOUR. All because of the deadly and reckless decision making of one man.

All the things going on in this country, so many things to focus on, & in the wider world. And yet again our media & news commentators obsessed with something that is truly meaningless for our lives & the challenges we currently face. No real holding government to account at all.

Many of you have heard that my editor Sean McDonald will no longer be working at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I wrote a little bit about my feelings at the end of an era.

'the eight problems he describes, along with eight ways to fix them, can pretty much all be traced back to the unplanned competitive market that the lifting of student number controls created.' (Jim Dickinson in @wonkhe.bsky.social ) 2/2

'Universities cross-subsidise domestic teaching and research activity with the income gained from international student fees.' And (not least in the post-Brexit context of diminished international mobility for UK students) international students widen the horizons of UK students and staff alike.

Broken record here, but we cannot fix, save, improve, renew or whatever English universities if we only attend to taught students, DfE and OfS. Universities are major engines of research, innovation and civic good. Minimally DSIT must also be centrally in the frame. They're not big schools.

On 10 April 1998, the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was signed, a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process. One of the crucial figures in the agreement was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam. Read Dr Emma Peplow's article for more on Mowlam's impact.

Israel is a rogue state and is deliberately trying to break the ceasefire and use the opportunity to annex part of Lebanon.

After almost twenty years on the platform, EFF is logging off of X. This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue. 🧵 (1/5) www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

[The Apollo 11 plaque] reads: "We came in peace for all Mankind." As the United States was dropping 7 ½ megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock. - Carl Sagan

The fact that nobody seriously believes there is an institution in this country that will check the president—that we’re all just sitting here hoping that he gets distracted and fails to follow through on his genocidal threats—is the most damning indictment of our political system I’ve seen yet.

Look at the Artemis II crew!

New 1926 General Strike map online! Using early 20th century Ordnance Survey maps, the online resource shows strike events (through archive sources) in their contemporary landscape. Explore the map, digitised sources and more at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...

The president is a rapist pedophile

Israel passes law to give death penalty to Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks

It is absolutely stupid that a major focus of policy response to the Iran War is on the planned 1p rise in fuel duty in September (watching Trevor Phillips interview Bridget Phillipson). Of no help now to anyone to abandon it. Shows how trivial our political debate has become.

Eddie is 'helping' me write up the books I've read over past few months. If helping means sprawling your body over the notebook making it very difficult for someone, ie me, to write in it.

I love this poem. The Donkey | The Poetry Foundation share.google/uiymcnMN6cxJ...