The Road to 1945 (and what we can learn) - new episode of Culture, Power, Politics. Search in any podcast app or find it here: culturepowerpolitics.org/2026/10/06/t...

The Road to 1945 (and what we can learn)

What historical lessons can we learn from the UK’s one experience of a truly transformative progressive government?

culturepowerpolitics.org

Some brief thoughts from me on age-based divides in politics, and why they might be particularly acute in Britain and similar countries joshgoddard.substack.com/p/its-the-ec...

It’s the economy, grandad

How might we explain differences in age-based voting divides across countries?

joshgoddard.substack.com

The turn against Turnitin in UK HE is gaining momentum, with Cambridge U the latest to cancel its contract over its proposal to use student essays to train AI. I imagine more unis will now follow. TII will surely be going into crisis management now. Good piece on it here wonkhe.com/blogs/a-supp...

A supplier shouldn’t be able to rewrite who owns students’ essays

Sam Dickinson looks at Turnitin’s paused plan to put student essays to work on AI – and finds that neither anonymisation nor university regulations answer the copyright question

wonkhe.com

The evidence is clear: countries with lower NEET rates than the UK get there almost entirely through higher rates of post-18 education. In these countries, more young people stay in education for longer and often combine it with work.

'Green' and 'class' politics are often viewed as mutually hostile to each other. My research explores how British miners, electricity workers and builders articulated a distinctive working-class environmental politics in the 1970s and 80s. You can read my new article here.

‘The true conservationists’: British trade union environmental politics in the late twentieth century

This article demonstrates British energy trade unionists engaged intently with environmental debates during the 1970s and 1980s. These findings challenge dominant interpretations of the emergence o...

tandfonline.com

The final part of my series on making #Edinburgh a cycling city: a 10 point manifesto in four parts. The Alternative. The Carrot & the Stick. The Mechanism. #CarFreeDay @spokes.org.uk @livingstreetsedi.bsky.social @cyclingscotland.bsky.social @wwctrustscot.bsky.social #ActiveTravel #Cycling

How we could turn Edinburgh into a real cycling city

Award-winning sustainable travel engineer Corey Boyle lays out a manifesto for the future of the active transport

edinburghinquirer.co.uk

Is this legal?

University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · 2w ago

University of Brighton management has given notice to terminate its recognition agreement with UCU alongside collective agreements covering key terms and conditions. This isn't just about Brighton. What happens here could have implications for branches across the UK.

Such a fascinating range of projects funded through our small grants including looking at who voters blame for inflation, evaluating implementation of UK security/defence reviews and how geopolitics is impacting the UK semiconductor sector www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

The brutal reality of universities' suppression of wages (in KPMG's report for DfE on cost of undergraduate provision in England) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6aabfa...

New substack: You can marginalize Marxism, but you cannot marginalize the facts. chrisdillow.substack.com/p/marx-on-ai

Marx on AI

Technical change is an issue of what capitalism does to workers.

chrisdillow.substack.com

DWP has just published a flurry of new data on how PIP and UC-Health assessments are carried out (face-to-face or via phone, video or paper) and whether this impacts who gets awarded health-related benefits. Five takeaways 🧵

📷 If you are looking for a weekend plan in Edinburgh, go check out the exhibition "Sandra George: Start from the Level" to see a portrait of real community power. edinburghartfestival.com/event/sandra...

Sandra George: Start from the Level - Edinburgh Art Festival

Photographer Sandra George devoted her life to working with communities, documenting and developing vital social-action projects in Edinburgh for over thirty years. The legacy she has left is a first-...

edinburghartfestival.com

So much of what is presented as differences by ethnicity, with the white working-class falling behind, is actually a case of place-based differences. In terms of social mobility there are significant advantages to living in London regardless of class or ethnicity. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

Ministers to put white working-class people in UK at heart of new equalities unit

Bridget Phillipson to announce creation of unit which will make class a key part of its equalities agenda

theguardian.com

📣Call for Papers The Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 📍South East Technological University (Waterford Campus) 🗓️6th – 7th May 2027 Sociology, Technology, and the Future of ‘the Republic’ lnkd.in/dDM57-ud

A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.

We've now posted ISRF's newest in its series, Dispatches: Experiencing Academic Decline, this from a union rep for academic staff at a large UK research university. Read this chilling portrait of the post-professional university and its post-cognitive management. isrf.org/blog/negotia...

Negotiating the cuts: Reflections on a University Statutory Redundancy Consultation

isrf.org

This is slide 4 of the first lecture of my sociology of work module. ✊🔹🔸🔹

This looks like a European holiday destination It’s actually the Cowgate without cars Edinburgh needs more vision in its planning @stephenjenkinson.bsky.social

North Bridge/Nicolson St. Pedestrians spilling out onto the road and a "cyclists dismount and use footpath" while there are four lanes of road, two of which are full of parked wankpanzers blocking buses 🫠

He’s been prime minister for five minutes and he’s already playing with the emergency alert.

Bro. People are cool as fuck.

This newly re-done junction at Summerhall puts cyclists at serious risk of left-hooks The desireline for people on bikes is straight on, but for cars it’s turning left Suitable for ages 8 to 80 ??? - We think not Edinburgh’s roads designers are morally bankrupt!

Five years ago, young kids could ride themselves through (small) parts of central Edinburgh, until the council got cold feet. This kid will grow up and have their own kids before this street gets back to 2021. Why are other UK cities leaving Edinburgh so far behind?

New from me: Britain’s graduate earnings premium is falling, cue “too many go to university!” But non-university outcomes are also bad, cue “we must reform vocational routes!” Both miss the point: people used to think education drove economic outcomes, but the economy drives educational outcomes.

I think it's useful to remember that managers call in consultants to justify a decision they've already made.

Alex Prichard@profalexp.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The government has effectively outsourced HE policy to consultants, including Nous, KPMG and others. At Exeter it’s Nous www.theferret.scot/consultancy-...

The government has effectively outsourced HE policy to consultants, including Nous, KPMG and others. At Exeter it’s Nous www.theferret.scot/consultancy-...

‘Nousferatu’: the notorious consultancy advising Edinburgh uni amid 'huge' cuts

Scotland’s largest university has turned to Nous Group at the same time as it is making savings that could lead to nearly 2,000 job losses. Staff say they were misled about the extent of its work.

theferret.scot

I've finally read this working paper properly & it's v interesting about spotting 'critical junctures'. But one could certainly no longer use the Times as reliable source text in future, so thought needed about the best corpus to use: drive.google.com/file/d/1bGrd...

Everywhere: *is on fire* University of Surrey: The environment? Who needs to learn about _that_?

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Recruitment suspended on UG environment & sustainability, mathematics and physics. At postgraduate level, suspended courses include international corporate finance, water & environmental engineering and environmental strategy. If you think your subject is safe because not Humanities, rethink. 1/2

Make the most of our #SummerSale with 50% off every title. ⏰ Browse our collection in the format that suits you best, from hardcovers and paperbacks to convenient eBooks (EPUB) and audiobooks. #BookSale Use code BUP07 before 31 July. 🌞 https://ow.ly/me4u50ZifzS

Time, Welfare and Society is now published!! We talk a lot about money in welfare debates — but far less about time. Yet time is the resource people lose first: waiting, repeating, proving, recovering. This book asks: What if welfare began with time instead? www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/tim...