I know I’m predictably anti-Starmer, but I think people were rather too quick to give him credit for his handling of the US-Israeli attack on Iran, and here we are.

Many many things that are bad about this, but the essentialism implied by 'national attitudes' is one of the more chilling aspects.

I’m pleased to say that we’re advertising for a permanent lectureship in early modern English Literature (grade 7). I’m happy to answer any questions via email. Please circulate. www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer...

I’m glad that the immigration changes Amy be watered down, and I don’t want to be churlish, but I hope liberal commentators aren’t just going to accept the thinnest gruel from the government. The proposals are draconian, cruel and wrong and should be scrapped wholesale.

Whether or not the student here is real, the pose is fundamentally pathetic: ‘I cannot cope with something challenging; I have no agency to determine my own beliefs if I’m told something in a room I have freely chosen to be in; save me from my weakness before it’s too late!’ Just ludicrous stuff.

Hyde Park is such a wonder to place - big enough to be a genuine green lung, and always filled with such a cross-section of Londoners and tourists of every class and ethnic background.

As they say, not that I have published on the intersection of academic freedom and freedom of speech (and why confusing them is dangerous), but -- oh wait, that is *exactly* what I had published on (a thread/selection, and DM me up if you need access to anything): link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I think that whether someone sees the challenges of self-driving cars as primarily technical and logistical, or regards the legal side as more important, tells you a lot about the person's worldview, assumptions and educational background. (Not being snarky at all; it's a genuine observation.)

Don't think we would notice any change in Brighton tbh

Self-driving just doesn’t work as a proposition: Its only benefit is to allow the ‘driver’ to relax. But you’re not legally supposed to relax, and doing so could lead to responsibility for accidents. So the idea is that you sit in total vigilance, in a vehicle that makes it much harder than before.

Sending sympathy to colleagues at the University of Kent and anyone reading this affected by the outbreak in the area. What a nightmare situation.

Blimey the Tory Peer Nigel Biggar is really out to get me at the moment. Would love to know what he identifies as “bad” history and why he describes teaching it as “force feeding”. There seems to be a mounting authoritarianism in his tone.

On Nick Timothy’s comments, I’d say it’s hard to see any genuine allowance for religious freedom if such freedom does not include the right to make maximalist statements about God in public. To bastardise St Anselm, one cannot really talk about the Abrahamic God without making maximalist statements

Must admit until recently I was starting to get worried that the constant resignations-and-firing chaos of Trump 1 had been consigned to history, reassuring to see it back and rapidly accelerating.

Just heard Trump say of Kent that he was always ‘a nice guy but very weak on security’, so clearly an obvious choice for a counterterrorism leadership role there.

I hope we will see more Christian leaders condemn this kind of rhetoric and the bizarre ideas included within it. (I'm struck that many Catholic occasions, such as public Eucharistic processions, would also be declarations of domination by this rubric.)

Striking how much more erudite and educated that Mamdani message is than anything from a British politician for decades. While neither the style nor content would work for all audiences, how many members of our front benches would be able to speak with such intellectual depth even if they wanted to?

I was not expecting the Leopold II reference.

Well this is a new low. Very Trump 2-esque to go after an innocent individual and personally attempt to ruin their life for sport.

A fascinating look at Ealing Studios, their institutional history and its context here from @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social - I learned a lot.

His immigration policies just are, factually, more restrictive and draconian than May or Sunak, so anyone largely or wholly motivated by immigration policy is right to describe him as “worse” on that metric. Badenoch, I agree, is bonkers, but people are rarely across the detail of opposition policy.

1/3 Since I wrote this response to Nigel Biggar’s malicious and completely false attack on me and university colleagues in The Spectator he has re-published it on his subscribers-only substack with me as the poster boy for “bad” history teaching at Sussex. alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

One effect of this is that Starmerism is basically Blairism without the aspirational bits of neoliberalism, and when considered in those terms its unpopularity is hardly surprising.

It is obscene that this woman continues to be invited to national events like Remembrance Day. The UK will not overcome the radical right threat until its leaders decide that if you work as an agent against society and basic decency, you don’t get to keep your privileged spot in the establishment.

Maybe I'm being naive, but is this not a situation where there could be scope for negotiation and splitting the difference - letting universities charge EU students a bit more than home ones but a lot less than other international students? Unless there's a legal reason why that would be untenable?

Big skies today

Given the environmental cost of premature obsolescence, there’s a clear case for regulation to force manufacturers to support such systems for a reasonable or even a maximal lifespan. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

ICYMI, please take a moment this weekend to read, sign and share this letter if you have a stake in languages and/or linguistics in the UK. (Sign by filling in the form linked on top) #langsky #linguistics #🐦🐦

Not the most principled argument against anti-migration policy, but an important practical one: When governments enact harsh measures, most of the public remain unaware of them; rightwing media and political parties largely ignore them, because of course it's in their interests to do so.

Exactly this.

There was definitely already a culture about ‘having a six pack‘ and various other body-related things amongst the boys when I was in school. But I think what we lacked was the whole lifestyle infrastructure to support it - the gym, the obsession with protein, and other worse things.

It’s exactly the same attitude government brings to some immigration issues, where high rates of success on appeal are taken not to beg the question of why the Home Office so often makes the wrong decision the first time, but rather lead to demands to restrict or remove right to appeal.

When is the world going to say ‘enough’ to this rogue state’s madness?

I’m not dissenting at all, but it is very striking that this has (quite literally, as far as I can see) 100% support on Bluesky, which is probably unique amongst social media sites and very reflective of the particular audience on here.

This is the biggest act of cultural and political vandalism in the UK in recent history. It will lead to unprecedented damage. Unnecessarily but ideologically committed against one of the few sectors in which UK remained world leading. Labour have deliberately allowed this to happen.

So far in the last year Israel have formalised seizure of Gaza, parts of Syria and now Lebanon, this is the behaviour of a rogue state convinced of its own invulnerability.

I often read Americans talking about the Hague and the ICC who clearly do not know that the USA never supported the international court and is not a member. People also talk about the USA abandoning international law. The USA never really signed up. International law was for others.

If members of the US administration are happy to brag openly about war crimes, believing they have nothing to fear, then everyone who opposed the jurisdiction of international courts over the US - which includes the leadership of both main parties for decades* - has some responsibility for this.

This is obviously subjective, but it feels like there's greater willingness now to acknowledge that a little bit of consumerism is a healthy thing, more so than say 20 years ago. I suspect we've got poorer and have realised the value of what we're missing. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Just all creep and no mission these days, isn’t it?

From a friend in Beirut this morning, who in the last few days has seen several Israel missile strikes within walking distance of their home.

The Home Office provides constant proof that progressive elite capture of institutions never went far enough (I mean this 100% seriously).

I'm trying to think who this idiocy is for, who would say: I wasn't going to vote Labour but now they've blocked a clearly exceptionally bright Sudanese woman from doing a postgraduate course in computational biology at Cambridge, I'm all in? www.ft.com/content/4493...

This is cruel to the young people concerned, self-destructive for the UK and will not win over a single Reform voter.

Gentlemen, you can't bring souls in here! This is the prayer room!

Starmer is getting credit for not fully backing the war on Iran and that’s fine. However, the UK still fails to take any action beyond the most minimal over Israel, which is at least the co-aggressor in this war, as well as the cause of atrocities in Gaza. We need renewed pressure in that direction.

This is a well-meaning piece and not wholly wrong. But I'm sceptical that in these times the REF can be a real driver against precarity; it simply isn't financially significant enough, and its effects are generally long-term and spread out, a problem in a period when immediate solvency is everything

Deadline for the "World Literature and the Global South: Frictions and New Horizons" CFP is March 15! 👇

Trump’s decline is clear if you compare how he is now to during Covid. While he had some infamous moments then and veered around a lot, there were periods when he was able to hold a consistent and coherent message at least for a while. Now he is unable to do that even for the briefest period.

“God knows what it’s gonna do.” This isn’t just about students. It’s about every business, every worker, every person the Southend campus brings life to.