Unlike what Minister Jack Chambers claims Ireland has one of the lowest per capita ratio of civil servants among EU member states. And significantly fewer than other high tax member states like Sweden, Finland and Denmark

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

democracyforsale.substack.com

For sure. And I would also suggest that a functioning society must not have people who are gleeful about annihilation in positions of power.

#Ceuta: an extraordinary migration event nandosigona.info/2026/07/31/c...

Ceuta: a migration crisis or a diplomatic message?

Nando Sigona The speed and scale of the arrivals in Ceuta are difficult to explain as an ordinary migration event. According to provisional Spanish estimates, around 50,000 people crossed from Moro…

nandosigona.info

Govt planning c. 100 new data centres by early 2030s, mostly in already water stressed areas. They have no legal obligation to disclose how much water they use. Meanwhile Govt launches £75m publicity campaign to urge us to reduce water use & privatised water companies waste 19% thro leaks. Madness

This is a pretty abject failure from both government and business. We've known for years the economy is going to electrify and we will need thousands more electricians. And yet the pipeline of new skilled workers entering the sector has barely grown. www.businessgreen.com/news/4533537...

'Effectively static': Electrician numbers plateau despite looming net zero skills gap

EXCLUSIVE: Number of electricians working in England saw net increase of barely 1,000 last year, despite need to add more than 32,000 skilled workers to the workforce by 2035

businessgreen.com

Insane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/electric-s...

Researchers used electric stoves to treat asthma. It worked.

The latest evidence that gas is bad for your health.

climatecoloredgoggles.com

The day’s first casualty: James Timpson resigns as prisons minister. This is a big surprise! Timpson had a long history as a prisons reformer before entering government and seen as one of Starmer’s more innovative & exciting appointments. He’s also delivered a big change programme in gov. So: why?

Prisons minister Lord Timpson quits government

The businessman said it was an "honour" to serve in the post, but the BBC understands he feels he has achieved all he can in the role.

bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Renewable energy: QUB flow battery breakthrough

A 3D-printed battery designed at Queen's University Belfast could speed up energy storage research.

bbc.co.uk

You sometimes see Government TDs pointing out that Ireland isn’t unique in the world in having a housing crisis. But this graph in today’s Financial Times shows just how extreme ours is compared to the places elsewhere, which also describe themselves as a in a housing crisis.

Only 40% of Brits think the recent heatwave was 'very likely' down to climate change. Yet #climate scientists say it was "virtually impossible" without human-caused warming. The link went unmentioned in nearly 3/4 of news stories, so the media is letting us down. #EndClimateSilence

More signs of resurging HIV after USAID’s closure. African Neonatal Network reported at IMNCH (a global health conference): HIV+ pregnant women ↑50% & those not on antiretrovirals ↑>300%, year-on-year, across 22 hospitals in 5 nations. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

Yesterday the Telegraph reported on my comments about air conditioning. The comment section is quite something. I have apparently become a hero of the anti net zero crowd by saying something what I think is sensible about air con. Allow me to point out three ironies in this 🧵

An important paper about protecting science from political interference. Europe needs to defend its science against the kind of attacks unfurling in the US. By Martin McKee, Christina Pagel & Tiago Correia in the European Journal of Public Health: academic.oup.com/eurpub/artic...

Europe must learn from America’s assault on science

In June 2026, several prominent diabetes researchers, including Steven Kahn, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, were removed by police from the annual meeti

academic.oup.com

Brazilians to get the weekend, Spain rejects xenophobia, Californian billionaires panic, New York shows how government is done, and the truth is revealed about whether people really are selfish. Welcome to the Public Good News.

Private care companies suck wealth from local areas and public budgets to feed their profits, instead of providing the best care. Executive pay booms while frontline workers receive little more than minimum wage. We want to end extraction in the care system. Here's why... 1/2

Centre for Young Lives@cfyounglives.bsky.social · 4w ago

Sadly this has been happening for many years and it’s a scandal that needs to be ended. Care homes charging councils up to £28k a week per child www.thetimes.com/article/b34d...

This is wild. 93% of the renewable electricity generation added to the Irish grid over that last decade now powers data centers, rather than reducing fossil fuel use. Data centers have pretty much annihilated the health and climate benefits those renewables could have provided.

Hannah Daly@hannahdaly.ie · 4w ago

What is even more striking is that data centre demand has matched 93% of the growth in renewable electricity generation (wind + solar + hydro) over the past decade. If we measure since 2020, data centre demand has grown nearly 3-times faster than renewable electricity growth.

The CSO has released data on metered electricity consumption for 2025. The extraordinary headline figures: - Electricity consumption from data centres grew by nearly 10% last year, and now accounts for 23% of Ireland's electricity demand.

A few token places on safe and legal routes for refugees cannot in any way mitigate or atone for what this government has done and is doing on asylum or immigration policy. A thread trying to be clear-eyed about this.

I think that the worst thing about the "refugee tax" is that the high accommodation costs are caused by the Home Office, and in particular their inability to make fast AND accurate decisions, leaving people rotting in those grim places. Refugees are effectively being fined for HO incompetence.

NEW ANALYSIS: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time What's that you say? Something something demand, something something ZEV mandate? Take a look at the data: www.carbonbrief.org/...

Ecuador! Magic. Love that the manager is so animated, and wearing something I am fairly sure my mum knitted in 1974 - 3/4 sleeve and blouson waist 👍

I especially love this diagram.

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Same. I am from an immigrant family, marrying an immigrant, teaching immigrant students. It is *incredibly* hard for me not to see Mahmood's policies as a central and vicious betrayal of core values. This combined with Starmer's own rhetoric on the matter thoroughly disillusioned me on them.

open all borders. stop having them be closed 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿@dov.bsky.social · last mo.

As a migrant, I affirmatively do not care how much you spend on schools if you put Shabana Mahmood's immigration policies into practice. This is a logical and calculated stance that I am tired of pretending is somehow irrational.

“And then I’m gonna marry a beautiful woman and be the mayor of New York City and then the Knicks are gonna win the championship and then I’m gonna be in a big parade and we’re gonna make special Knicks colored trash cans” oooooookay little guy, let’s get you and your big imagination to bed

Incredibly important story by @maybulman.bsky.social and team at @lighthousereports.com with WIRED and The Independent. @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social @mattburgess1.bsky.social @hollybancroft.bsky.social Maddy Varner Sadly, the shape of things to come in the EU www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Asylum by Algorithm

The UK has turned to AI to determine the age of asylum seekers, and other countries are likely to follow suit. Our investigation finds the technology is deeply unreliable.

lighthousereports.com

We have to be very clear on this. This is what the advent of fascism in the European Parliament looks like. It was long in the making and the centre-right has paved the way. It is now out in the open, unabashed. We have to wake up - now. www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfe...

‘Send them back’ chants in EU Parliament after anti-migrant bill passes

‘Send them back’ chants in EU Parliament after anti-migrant bill passes.

aljazeera.com

Quite concerning developments in Sweden too. "Good behaviour laws" pushed through by the "centre right" in government, with the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats.

Sweden votes to back laws reinforcing its immigration crackdown

So-called ‘good behaviour’ legislation fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups

theguardian.com

Far-right activists are celebrating the European Parliament's approval to create deportation centres outside the EU, which tells you all you need to know about it. For them, it's a first step towards their goal of "remigration". Once again, supported by the "mainstream right".

European Parliament approves 'return hubs’ | Euractiv

‘Send them home,’ chanted nationalist and far-right MEPs

euractiv.com