Bitey fighty long legs

At a moment when there are some of the highest levels of anti-Jewish hate incidents in the UK, the Conservative Party need to have a word with themselves. www.reuters.com/world/uk/ant...

Antisemitism in UK remains near record levels, charity says

Antisemitism in Britain remains close to record levels, a charity which provides security for Jewish communities said on Wednesday, with almost 2,000 incidents ​recorded in the first six months of the...

reuters.com

After all, when did a little light criminal conviction, silly youthful Nazism and accidental antiSemitism stand in the way of being a Tory?

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 3d ago

The UK Conservatives want Jewish groups to meet their new Neo-Nazi ex-con candidate.

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

Posting puppy pics because I can and you need this

This Rod Liddle? Credit for image and alt text: @snig.bsky.social

Ben Goldacre@bengoldacre.bsky.social · 5d ago

Sad to see people posting on social media negatively about Rod Liddle, who died yesterday. If I have disagreed with you very strongly in life - and you die - I hope I'll be either silent, or kind.

This shit is global. And we ignore it at our peril.

The New Arab@thenewarab.bsky.social · 5d ago

Spanish far-right activist María Isabel Peralta has sparked outrage after footage circulated showing her performing a Nazi salute outside the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid.

Pupdate Day 4: the Staffordshire side eye is developing well in this one

The sleeping puppy: absolute perfection (despite needle teeth)

New from 404 Media: Google Earth has introduced an AI feature that lets anyone fabricate completely bullshit satellite images. In our own tests, we added a “bomb blast and crater” to an area of Los Angeles. This is a misinformation time bomb, will 100% be abused www.404media.co/google-earth...

If you think your subject is safe because we need graduates wth those skills, think again.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last wk.

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

The world is on fire, but we’ve got a new puppy, called Mozzie, and he’s the loveliest little creature. A #TinyJoy amongst a lot of awfulness

I live c.12 miles inland from Dunwich and you can smell the wildfire smoke on the air from here. This is heartbreaking

This is terrible news. Dunwich Heath is a beautiful place and an important habitat for rare species. I saw Dartford Warblers there earlier this year. And it is right next to the iconic RSPB Minsmere reserve. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Major incident declared in Suffolk as 90 firefighters tackle wildfire on heathland

Several people evacuated after ‘large-scale, wind-driven’ fire breaks out at Dunwich Heath near Leiston

theguardian.com

The remains of what is believed to be an ancient mammoth were revealed in northern Bulgaria, after the Danube River water levels receded to a record low level, the BTA news agency reported, citing historians. reut.rs/4x7NEJ3

One strand of modern small c conservative thought on immigration is that as long as you can imagine a single race-neutral rationale then a racist outcome guided by racist desires is just fine. You get bonus points if that race-neutral rationale is really just a proxy for race.

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · last wk.

Peak Goodhart: literally the first citation in this is to Matt Goodwin's discredited "Great Replacement" fantasy. If you're trying to push your sanitised "non-racist" preference/ethnonationalism, perhaps don't start by linking to a far-right racist grifter? www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07...

Is this all just part of a plan to return to the days of polytechnics/teacher training colleges for vocational education, and the RG universities lean even further into elitism? There’s something of the class war about all this call for vocational education

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Thomas Cheney @thomascheney.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm all in favour of technical education* but I worry about streams, especially in English education as it is currently constituted - what safeguards are there going to be to ensure that the 'technical stream' doesn't just become the dumping ground of the weak and troublesome students?

Local jobs here = chicken factory, bottle factory, care work, hair & beauty, construction & lucky few in offshore energy. Horizons will shrink even further & wtaf does ‘working in AI’ even look like?

aidThompsin (live, fridays @ 19:30)@aidthompsin.bsky.social · 2w ago

You're going to hear a LOT today about kids being trained up at school for local jobs, "vocational" work (building, scaffolding, security, care home staff) Just remember they're talking about YOUR kids. Not theirs. THEIR kids will absolutely still be going to University.

Will this include a reassessment of the biggest group of benefit-recipients in this country, those on a triple-locked state pension?

Andy Burnham vows to use his ‘political capital’ to fix social care system

PM says that without rapid action the NHS could effectively collapse, in first full interview since entering No 10

theguardian.com

Hummingbird Hawk-moth getting involved with my lavender this morning, a #TinyJoy if ever there was one

2/2 The once respected magazine has destroyed its reputation in recent years, especially since far right propagandist Paul Marshall took ownership & appointed Michael Gove editor: alanlester.co.uk/blog/teachin...

Teaching the British Empire: Experts Versus The Spectator

Alan Lester The Spectator’s owner Paul Marshall and its editor Michael Gove are afraid of William Dalrymple. His sequence of books on colonial India that have sold millions, his Empire podcast with…

alanlester.co.uk

I wrote this the other day arguing AI means the humanities become even more important in an age where AI can solve questions that are defined and data rich, leaving the wicked issues where we can’t even agree on the nature of the problem… www.ft.com/content/fbde...

🟡 Print Edition: ‘There’s a Value in What We Produce Because We Feel – and an AI Chatbot Can’t Feel’ Hardeep Matharu meets Kate Devlin, Professor of AI & Society at King’s College London, to explore how relationships with AI companions aren’t particularly new, why… Read the full story below.

‘There’s a Value in What We Produce Because We Feel – and an AI Chatbot Can’t Feel’

Hardeep Matharu meets Kate Devlin, Professor of AI & Society at King’s College London, to explore how relationships with AI companions aren’t particularly new, why she believes the under-16s social media ban is flawed…

subscribe.bylinetimes.com

This has been normal at our gaff since 2023. There is no stability in HE, every August we wait, anxious for the news

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every academic outside of a small inner core of universities should consider themselves permanently at risk of redundancy. The sector will operate a rolling redundancy wave from about this point on. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/nuclear...

Gingerly raises head above parapet 😅 Ethics and Digital Archaeology doi.org/10.1093/9780... (green OA version: doi.org/10.17613/c0q...) #digitalarchaeology

Ethics and Digital Archaeology

Abstract. This chapter investigates the development and current state of digital ethics in archaeology. It argues that there is limited demonstration and r

doi.org

This country will be representative only when we have No 10 Norwich

Worsening finances push English HE into ‘future nobody planned’ www.timeshighereducation.com/news/worseni...

Worsening finances push English HE into ‘future nobody planned’

With financial pressures intensifying and income sources drying up, new report argues for more differentiated sector to avert worst-case scenario

timeshighereducation.com

Bungay’s “Black Shuck” is a good example of manufactured folklore, invented to refocus the towns economy towards heritage tourism after WW1 & the decline of river trade & agricultural work. The town mayor/archaeologist was terrified of communism taking hold amongst the local unemployed veterans

Duncan Mackay@theduncanmackay.bsky.social · 2w ago

A friend just gave me these from a day in Bungay ahead of the Black Shuck festival at the end of the month. Bloody love that sticker. Shuck thinks they’re edible. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?🐺🙄 #Shuck #BlackShuck

'Defining questions for higher education are emerging at a time when universities are structurally under-resourced to answer them.' (page 19) Grim but important reading of the tea leaves.

New choices: Revisiting futures for higher education in England - HEPI

English universities face ‘unstable hybrid’ future as funding model collapses faster than predicted, warns new report. English higher education is heading into a future nobody planned, according to a ...

hepi.ac.uk