In today’s @financialtimes.com one of main culprits responsible for the devastation wrought by Brexit advocates for a MAGA-style cull of government departments and regulators. These architects of destruction need to be held accountable for their actions.

Latest in the National: I spoke with Rachael Muir, Business Archives Surveying Officer for Scotland, who told me about her work across the country, investigating, organising, and sometimes rescuing archives. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 www.thenational.scot/culture/2548...

To the children, students and families from Gaza arriving in Scotland for medical care: You are welcome here. Our communities will stand by you as neighbours and friends, and Scotland stands with the people of Palestine. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇵🇸

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Nothing to see here. Meanwhile the UK government ceding more and more control and giving more concessions to Big Tech.

Always missing you Joe 🫡

My latest, based on an oddly unimpressive MI5 assessment document.

If you're starting a postgraduate course in History this autumn, please do consider joining the Royal Historical Society bit.ly/41mTuck Postgraduate Membership brings access to research funding, events, publications and networks. You'll join an international community of more than 6500 historians.

"Still, the hard work of thinking things onto the page is hard." Every word of every post in this thread.

Before this I thought 21st-century fascism would be sophisticated and insidious but it is really cheap, loud and explicit.

This from a government minister who celebrates using ChatGPT to write strategy documents. When I think of @teamlabouruk.bsky.social dearth of talent I immediately think of Peter Kyle!

Good to see the Australian Senate holding university senior management’s feet to the fire.

The UK govt is blindly embracing a £47bn AI strategy without careful consideration of the profound implications of this policy. They need to be held accountable for this. @snp.org @libdems.org.uk @scottishgreens.org @plaidcymru.bsky.social

An excellent new piece from Grace Ballor & @sabinepitteloud.bsky.social on globalist elites political organisation after 1945

This was inevitable in UK Govt’s uncritical and full throttle embrace of AI, in distinction to its sounding of caution over MegaProjects. A flawed technology, allowed to consume precious energy and water resources (disadvantaging household and other industrial consumers & pollute communities.

As @nytimes.com @davidenrich.bsky.social Murder the Truth highlights for the US, the aggressive use of legislation & lawsuits to silence criticism & democratic voices is very worrying. The Malicious Communications Act, 1988, is nasty legislation & this is a particularly virulent use of it.

Scotland has a choice in 2026; support a strong mandate to leave this unconscionable political union and privilege the sovereignty of the Scottish people, or be subject to policies imposed against our will. The decision to remain in the UK in 2014 left us with Brexit, austerity and more. Enough! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Stephen Flynn was reprimanded in the Commons for quoting Peter Mandelson, who told journalists to 'f*** off' when asked about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein 👇

Yes, Stephen Flynn's right. This is what Peter Mandelson, aka the Prince of Darkness, said to FT political editor @georgewparker.bsky.social on the train from London to Manchester. www.ft.com/content/085e...

Applications are invited for the 2026 CISS Scottish Writing Fellowship at the University of Otago in Aotearoa New Zealand. Flights, accommodation & stipend for 2 months at the Caselberg House near Dunedin. Apply at the link below by 31 October. Good luck…! www.otago.ac.nz/ciss

And what are the implications for UK economy & society of the expansion of Gen AI & data centres that: employ few; consume vast amounts of energy and water (📈prices for households & industry); pollute heavily; & for unnecessary tech. The UK govt, least of all, has thought about these questions!

The launch of my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book Songs of Seven Dials will be at 6pm, Tues 21 Oct, at Waterstones Covent Garden. I'll be in conversation with the wonderful @julialaite.bsky.social. Please do come along. Free tickets, but register in advance www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-of-s...

I know the irony meter is long since broken but by my count Farage has cheated on both women he was married to and divorced one and separated from the other. That he’s being given a platform to lecture anyone on this subject reflects where we are! 🤨

For the record. My posts were not even about Kirk directly, but about America's apathy towards political violence, and the coddling of white male shooters and hate peddlers. I was fired because I mentioned race: white men and violence-- that was my "gross misconduct."

Another eg of headlong AI dash with no thought to any of the implications. UK govt already subject of a legal challenge for another data centres by campaigning group Foxglove. You can be sure that Trump will be pushing hard on behalf of his Big Tech funders this week. @ukparliament.parliament.uk

US funded and abetted far right attacks on democracy which this gutless @teamlabouruk.bsky.social government entertain, fawning over the man presiding over dismantling the last vestiges of democracy in the US.

I hope you can access this because in it @humzayousaf.bsky.social eloquently talks of the atrocities perpetrated by Israel

My dad pictured spent his 28th birthday at one of the most brutal battles of WWII, Monte Cassino. Before he died he eventually told me of the trauma of that battle & a 19 year old dying in his arms. This is what happens when you don’t confront fascism @ukparliament.parliament.uk

I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

The UK government is using the full force of the law against those protesting genocide in Gaza but will not move against convicted felons and US citizens advocating regime change. Now is the time for moral courage @ukparliament.parliament.uk

Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats are all on record stating that Scotland’s future should be Scotland’s choice. So here’s the question every Scot deserves an answer to - what’s changed? It's your right to decide - sign the declaration. www.yes.scot/decide

Though it’s traumatic for me to bring this up, I was targeted by a group allied with Turning Point USA in 2018, with the help of Tucker Carlson on Fox. My home address circulated online and I got death threats. 1/

Watching all these centrist pundits stress the “civility” of Charlie Kirk’s style without addressing the ugliness of his substance is giving me a renewed appreciation of how the civil, polite White Citizens’ Councils conned the same crowd into thinking they were distinct from the cruder Klan.

wrote on charlie kirk for the newsletter this weekend

Final word on this. The suggestion implicit in this that research is somehow not integral to every aspect of learning and teaching, KE and public engagement is ridiculous. But then what would most VCs or principals know about such things. It’ll conveniently allow them to further wield the hatchet!

An absurd statement from ministers but unsurprising from a government devoid of real policy thinking and responding reactively to the political dog whistle. FWIW I spent part of this week teaching a group of Chinese CEOs who were baffled by the UK govt’s undermining of UK HE & HE’s poor leadership.

An MIT report revealed that nearly 95% of enterprise generative AI pilot programs have failed to achieve measurable gains in revenue or productivity. READ MORE: www.profolus.com/topics/mit-r...

“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute…These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”

Horrors of Trump detention centre: Lisburn man tells his story after arrest for 'looking like a Mexican' Lee Stinton was lifted by US immigration police on an American street — in an incident he compared to a kidnapping. Here, he tells us his story.

The White House Press Secretary, the official spokesperson for the Trump administration, told reporters in an official briefing that the president wants to invade "every Democrat-run city" with troops. Any media still pretending that this is about "crime" is making a conscious choice to lie to you.

Humanities, arts and social sciences degrees are disappearing in many UK regions. With more young people than ever studying close to home, course cuts are narrowing their choices at university. @timeshighered.bsky.social covers our 'Cold Spots' report today. Read more at https://bit.ly/46e3wOy

Really pleased to see that this has now been published in the latest issue of Contemporary British History, alongside articles by @fibowler.bsky.social, @andrewperchard.bsky.social, @benjthomas.bsky.social, and others.

This stands as rare and fair review of @nicolasturgeon.bsky.social Frankly - in contrast to the crude hatchet jobs that proliferate - by a journalist with integrity and flair.

Just a reminder that in the midst of waves of anti-migrant, anti-refugee and anti-asylum-seeker rhetoric and activism, there are also many charities working quietly, stoically and hard to fuel a better conversation and a better future. Actively supporting them makes a difference.

The unprecedented verbal kicking that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was given by @raskin.house.gov in US Congress merited significant coverage in the British press. But it didn’t get it. @neilmackay.bsky.social explains why...

Given the IEA’s projections, the insatiable resource demands for energy (and water) of this profoundly flawed and unnecessary technology has major implications for many economies, placing pressure on infrastructure, industry and society at large. National govts ignore this at their peril!

I can’t speak highly enough about this scheme. I’ve benefitted from it. It’s a wonderful scheme - managed by great staff - which allows you to do so much. Happy to speak to any interested parties.

This 

History teaches us that the most horrific & extreme violence against scapegoated groups can be normalised swiftly. It really isn’t such a big step from sending ‘inconvenient’ people to be killed, to killing them yourself. news.sky.com/story/farage...