Ha! The original Lancet article on the dangers of reading in bed is here: doi.org/10.1016/S014...

Question: Has any post, article or presentation that uses the term "workflow" ever been worth reading?

*Academics of Bluesky:* Do you know a great UG/PG student with excellent quants skills? @nspmartin.bsky.social and I are advertising a great fully-funded PhD on MRP and minority voting with our friends at Ipsos, so send them our way! ✌️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Reform win a seat: The true Volk have spoken and we all must listen. Greens win a seat: Early reports that Muslims may have ‘voted’ (an ancient Islamic practice designed to steal elections). How severely should the franchise be limited in response?

Opinion: Going forward this behaviour should be penalised in the same way we penalise clubs for fans' racist abuse.

Very clear that for Starmer, 'sectarian voting' is when British Muslims don't vote Labour, and for many others, it is just when British Muslims vote.

The more I think about it, the more the sectarianism line makes me cross. Not just because it's obvious cobblers, but because, if you are South Asian Muslim, why shouldn't you strategically vote against parties that directly threaten your legal residence and basic rights?

Oh wow, that is really sad news. Connolly's book Why I Am Not A Secularist is one of my favourites, a very clever critique of the inconsistencies and evasions of much left liberal politics.

Bloody hell. This is completely scathing but there's not much to disagree with.

A good overview. Also includes sound advice for Labour should it wish to revive its fortunes. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

"We have to learn the lessons from that", says Starmer, in a letter that amply demonstrates he has not, in fact, learned the lessons from that.

Lancaster's @imogentyler.bsky.social defines the term ‘grand theory’ for listeners of BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed 💭

"Black Border. Begins: To Dave Lister, condolences on your passing away. What's that poem? Now, weary traveler, rest your head, for just like me you are utterly dead." RIP Rob Grant.

The UK university sector is world-leading but it’s also tangentially connected to immigration so i guess we’d better kill it

Start your Tuesday cheerful with this evidence of the life-changing work of @londoncentric.media. Incredible stuff.

Awesome new book by my awesome colleague!

Is this bad

It’s on Google, even though it is making search worse. It’s on WhatsApp, even though I absolutely do not want “homework help” or “relationship advice” from my messaging app. In the year of our lord 2026, it is everywhere. And it *doesn’t work*.

Really fun thread and piece at the end!

London’s “worst mass eviction in recent history” is underway; hundreds of households across London told to get out of their homes this week by the same landlord, ahead of the renters rights act. The landlord? Billionaire Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

None of the coverage of this - none of it - bothers to consider the vital question, namely, what the f*** were universities supposed to do? Teach in person? Close entirely? How exactly would that have benefitted the students taking action?

If Starmer 2.0 means nothing else, perhaps it can mean this…

You can also read the text in English here: www.bundesliga.com/en/bundeslig... - maybe the best thing about this is exactly how specfic he gets about both the nature of and the solution to the problem.

Swedish opposition politician compares the country’s government to… Tottenham 😆

Labour lost three by-elections yesterday - all to different parties mobilising disaffected voters on their liberal left flank: Greens (see below), Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru. Starmer/McSweeney strategy of marginalizing the left flank to go after socially con Reform curious continues to backfire

Famous critical race theorist, Ernest Renan

A detail I missed in this story is that 35 percent of any money paid goes to the claims farmers organising the action. Whole universities at risk to feed parasites in law firms. thetab.com/2026/02/16/h...

This is excellent and perhaps the clearest illustration of why we need PR or AV in the UK. The UK public would prefer *any* party above Reform, and yet in the current system, an election tomorrow would probably deliver a Reform government.

Our new piece out today in Times Higher Education about the threats to Geography in the UK - particularly fieldwork - please do share. It links to a recent snapshot survey on the challenges being faced in UK HE, which highlights the inequities of the challenges, but also fears of what is yet to come

J.G. Ballard understood everything about Reform UK decades ago. He saw them very clearly.

Also applies to universities. I know too many colleagues who use these detectors on students' work. Ironically, one of the AI indicators is a 'flawless' writing style, which ends up with students penalised for being good at writing.

For me this is very simple. There is widespread, longstanding practice of using "Zionists" as coded slur for Jews, or "Jews I don't like" (regardless how they define themselves). That is sufficient reason to refrain from broad-brush language such as "Zionism=Racism" or "Zionists not welcome".

I never really sign stuff. But this was different. It's not about trying to facilitate or block a particular party's route to power. It's about an electoral system that's unsuited to the political realities we face today and risks giving us government after government with no convincing mandate.

Presumably this opens the government up to compensation claims? If so, this could be an expensive as well as stupid and draconian mistake.

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Aided by genAI models like ChatGPT, “writers” hoping to get paid for fake stories have become an even bigger problem for publications big and small. One such writer almost pulled one over on COYOTE — until @soleilho.com, who is a nerd, spotted a key idiosyncrasy.

Totally normal democracy we have here, 10/10, no notes thehill.com/homenews/med...

Badenoch apparently the most prime ministerial party leader. Shoot me now.

Yeah, British politics is simple. You just need to improve public services without any meaningful tax increases, reduce immigration without any labour market impacts, and deliver growth and you'll be hugely successful.

I missed the linked review on what works to reduce violence against women and girls, published by the Home Office in December The review should be of value for English universities in addressing harassment and sexual misconduct (an OfS condition: www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-an... )

I only recently found out about the Gen Z 'Christian revival,' where seemingly legitimate polls are showing a quadrupling of church attendance among young adults. Naturally, I had to look into the data myself, and found a more mixed picture than I'd expected. open.substack.com/pub/georgina...

Macbeth: SHIT

Morgan McSweeney's resignation means the Epstein files have claimed another scalp in Europe. In the US, meanwhile, crickets...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors. Great work everyone.

While people who would probably qualify as liberals risk their lives in the frozen streets of Minneapolis (and do similar brilliantly organized solidarity work in New Orleans and Chicago and many other cities), not sure what this is supposed to mean.

I'm not especially sympathetic to Starmer but JF makes a pretty compelling point here.

Excellent appointment. I've been thinking recently the BSA ought to be talking more loudly about the (possibly existential?) crisis in UK sociology, and the wider crisis in higher ed. Les is among the best communicators on both subjects IMO.

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".