Many thanks to @phillipspobrien.bsky.social @davidedgerton.bsky.social and others for these endorsements! #AdvanceBritannia

We're excited to announce the call for papers for #MBS26, the next Modern British Studies conference, at Birmingham in June 2026. We'll be launching the #MBS Association at this event, to support further regular conferences in Modern British Studies. www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

Very insightful comparison of the significance of Margaret Thatcher and the Queen for understanding where we have been led to from @anthonybarnett.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Join us for a roundtable on 'The Modern British City' in January at Senate House, London, with Simon Gunn, Erika Hanna, Owen Hatherley, Peter Mandler, Otto Saumarez Smith and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, followed by wine! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech: our writers’ verdicts David Edgerton, Faiza Shaheen and Maurice Glasman respond to the Prime Minister

Our new magazine, Equator, is officially out in the world — and here @equatormag.bsky.social Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event in London: equator.org

We’ve heard a lot about flags but turbines and steelworks are the true stuff of economic sovereignty. Britain has been blatantly exposed as dependent on foreign governments and multinationals, as demonstrated by the recent closure of Grentmouth oil refinery. Read more in my @lrb.co.uk article ⬇️

A rich study of the extraordinary radicalisation of the British right.

I think often about how the historian @davidedgerton.bsky.social predicted the disturbing extremist slide in UK politics, in this interview conducted in the summer of 2023 and recounted in my book What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except the British). linktr.ee/whateveryone...

Yup www.ft.com/content/a48c...

Quite right - it macerated the brain. It’s time to retire the word ‘technology’

I'm a big fan of the colourful briefs given by government teams regarding how brilliant they were to achieve trade deals, obviously effort was involved, but a mostly tariff reducing UK-India deal was always on offer - it was lowering UK ambition that got the deal. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Starmer's party has an extraordinary capacity to prove its critics right. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Even declinism gets worse - nice from @johnmerrick.bsky.social

If only I didn't waste my time researching stuff and instead just went on about "blockchain-based trade initiatives" I could presumably earn a lot more money...

I've written about Keir Starmer's government in its first year www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...

Yup - big, big problem.

Haven't digested yet, but there are 16 world-leadings and 8 superpowers in the text ... assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685854...

"The only debate now is whether you are agile enough to seize future chances or be rapidly left behind. That is the driving purpose of my plan for change." Oh dear. Whatever a strategy is, this isn't it. www.ft.com/content/a033...

Ukania ✅ Original New Left critique of the peculiarities of British capitalism. Yookay ❌ Boorish far right mantra of surface level gripes, real or imagined. Tom Nairn had your number.

An idea for Keir ... crane-dragonfly-8ey5.squarespace.com/blog/2025/6/...

This is a wonderful discussion of my Rise and Fall of the British Nation, and the first to note the importance to it of my critique of Cain and Hopkins, which I took, along with that of Anderson and Nairn, to be richest existing analyses of the twentieth century British nation and empire.

Honestly I still can’t stop laughing 😂😅🤣

David Edgerton durante su conferencia “What can chemistry tell us about capitalism, and what can capitalism tell us about chemistry?” en la #14ICHC @euchems-histchem.bsky.social

Pouring water on a duck’s back - me and others telling Keir Starmer to change things www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/0...

A devastating portrait of a sentimental, nostalgic, prime minister without ideas

Once again! An essential call for a “genuine rupture” meanwhile back on what remains of the ranch… www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I've written for the Guardian on Labour's nostalgia for the warfare state. @kingshistory.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It’s not *technically* out until Thursday. But I’m smiling.

I've made a submission to the Business and Trade Select Committee on defence industrial strategy and its complexities and history, and calling for realism and modesty. The UK gave up being a defence industrial superpower many, many decades ago ... committees.parliament.uk/writtenevide...

So it's coming up for a year of Labour in government. And we still don't have an industrial strategy. Why has it taken so long, what exactly is the problem, and what should we do about it? Some suggestions here 👇

*Copy one of Boris Johnson's stupidest and most self-destructive policies. *Ignore the massive wave of public fury it ignited. *Smear and attack anyone warning that it might not be a great idea. In this week's column I ask what the hell Keir Starmer is playing at. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Very good to see @kitkowol.bsky.social brilliant book reviewed in the LRB! New Deal at Dunkirk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

With the exception of the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office, departments have far smaller budgets than before austerity. Most departments are smaller in real, per-person terms in 2025-26 than they were before austerity in 2009-10. Read more: buff.ly/JYOFEFW

A most interesting memorial in Marseilles Cathedral which makes the point that the UK was part of the Empire and did most of its fighting in and with France. Wish I’d seen before - would have used in my Rise and Fall of the British Nation!

Join us, at 6.30pm on Weds 2 July, for the Society's 2025 Prothero Lecture, with Professor Peter Gatrell. Peter will speak on 'Refugee World(s): a Twentieth-Century Retrospective' and reflect on an academic career dedicated to refugee and migration history bit.ly/44Q4MYT All welcome. #Skystorians

For VE Day, a necessary reminder that WW2 was global and not national - a wonderful series of podcasts with Michael Baker www.unknownwarriorspod.co.uk/wwii

80 years ago a bus strike meant many people had to walk to central London for #VEDay. A potent marker of how Churchill had fought a Tory War but the peace would belong to Labour. Read more in my book: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

BBC PROJECTED NATIONAL SHARES: Reform 30 Lab 20 Lib Dem 17 Cons 15 Greens 11 Oth 7 Reform's 30 is best ever for a third party, exceeding high water mark of LDs in mid 2000s. Cons 15 (and 4th) worst ever. Lab 20 joint worst ever.

I've posted a brief reply to @ersatzben.bsky.social (thanks @hetanshah.bsky.social ) as it is important that we develop a more successful research policy. www.davidedgerton.org/blog/2025/5/...

Why is anyone surprised? Labour gave up on the Runcorns of this world (once the future) twice over in the last forty years. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thinking about Runcorn and Helsby election this 1st May. I lived in Runcorn New Town in 1977, working for ICI Corporate Lab, which no longer exists, living in James Stirling's Southgate estate, pulled down in 1990, next to Shopping City, now apparently not what it was.

A very funny takedown of the very weird and not a little disturbing Anglofuturism thing - pleased to be quoted in it. thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2...

🔴 Remember Aria, the “moonshot" research agency dreamed up by Dominic Cummings? It's funded by £800m in public money but exempt from FOI laws We decided to fight for transparency... and we won 🎉 New on Democracy for Sale w/ @lucasamin.bsky.social democracyforsale.substack.com/p/dominic-cu...

Great stuff here from @petergeoghegan.bsky.social and @lucasamin.bsky.social and the lengths Tory ministers went to to prevent scrutiny of Cummings's research and innovation project Aria (and how they've been found out). www.aria.org.uk substack.com/home/post/p-...

'Environmental defenders were wary of Starmer’s Labour party, though I don’t think anyone believed it would be worse than the Tories. But here we are.' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

With a fortnight to go to 80th anniversary of VE Day reupping this analysis of how the UK came to think of the Second World War in profoundly national ways @kingshistory.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ehr/article/...

Our free festival of ideas - the @britishacademy.bsky.social Summer Showcase - is on 20/21 June. With workshops, panels, film, research exhibits and more. I’ll pick out a few highlights on this occasional thread, but you can see the programme and book here www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/summe...