Andrew Green
@drandrewjgreen.bsky.social
I write about music and musicians, activism, climate + environmental crisis, México. Lecturer in the Anthropology of Music @KCL. Nie wszystko co pozytywne jest realne
Well this is a teeny big frightening
Amy Borrett@amyborrett.ft.com · 5h agoBritain’s state-owned electricity system operator has awarded Palantir a £21mn contract without inviting rival bids, arguing critical processes are too reliant on its tech to run a competitive procurement process Latest for @financialtimes.com: as.ft.com/r/7fe6c0b7-2...
Anyone working in the sector already knows, but still good to see it in black & white. Professional services *people*--not just interchangeable hubs of administration--are essential to a good university. Their institutional knowledge has been consistently undervalued & their loss is catastrophic.
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 5h ago'The need to outsource services following redundancy programmes may be increasing universities’ costs rather than lowering them, as well as impacting staff productivity, a report warns.'
As someone who works in a university music department: it is such a tragedy that we have a generation of state school-educated kids many of whom have never had the choice to study music. So key to human connection for everyone, but especially for children who are growing up, changing, exploring
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2d ago'The number of students taking A-level music is at a record low: under 5,000, a drop of nearly half from 15 years ago....Music GCSE entries have also fallen. It has the widest attainment gap for disadvantaged students of any subject.'
As the head of a university music dept, we're at the sharp end of this. Gove's EBacc is to blame. Pupils no longer encouraged to take music GCSE -> drop in A Level + drop in teacher recruitment -> drop in university entrance -> fewer teachers trained -> schools not offering A Level or GCSE music 1/2
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2d ago'The number of students taking A-level music is at a record low: under 5,000, a drop of nearly half from 15 years ago....Music GCSE entries have also fallen. It has the widest attainment gap for disadvantaged students of any subject.'
Trying to get my head around the extent of the mollycoddling this man has experienced in his childhood and adult life that he's never learned to make an excuse better than this (yes I am envious) www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
‘I wasn’t even listening,’ Farage says of donations scandal meeting
Reform UK leader maintains innocence in overseas funding controversy on last day of party conference
theguardian.com
Undercover footage verified by Channel 4 News reveals a secret plot by senior Reform UK figures to break the law on party donations. A leading legal expert is now calling for a criminal investigation. 🔗 Read the exclusive story on Substack:
Exclusive: Nigel Farage filmed undercover celebrating secret new foreign donations
Undercover footage verified by Channel 4 News reveals a secret plot by senior Reform UK figures to break the law on party donations. A leading legal expert is now calling for a criminal investigation.
channel4news.substack.com
Channel 4 documentary on Reform party donations - www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXut...
Undercover: Exposing Reform's secret donations plot
YouTube video by Channel 4 News
youtube.com
Reform UK Conference Ban List Michael Crick Anna Isaac - Guardian Peter Geoghegan - Democracy for Sale Ethan Shone - Open Democracy Isabella Link - Politics UK Ed Campbell - The Nerve Imran Mulla - Middle Eastern Eye Will Hayward - Guardian There’s a reported 50 journalists banned.
As honoured as I am to see that The Times has picked up my Chagos article practically *word for word*, including my hard-gotten quotes, I’d prefer some credit — or for everyone to read my original FT piece! free link to read the evidently enviable article below (cheaper than a Times sub!) 🌴
Officially, the water industry in England is regulated. Practically, it's unregulated. There's no difference between what it does under the eye of the Environment Agency and what it would do if the EA did not exist. The EA is completely useless, by design. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Dry weather sewage discharges soar as water companies face scrutiny
Exclusive: 7,280 suspected illegal spills in rivers and sea recorded in first five months of 2026
theguardian.com
Today's the day I realized that I am quite a bit older than Anne Bancroft when she played Mrs Robinson in The Graduate
Zack Polanski demands "wildfire tax" on oil companies, as BP profits soar past £4bn www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/zac...
Zack Polanski demands 'wildfire tax' on oil companies, as BP profits soar past £4bn
Green Party leader Zack Polanski is of the view that, if we're all going to burn on this planet, those doing the damage should pay for it.
thelondoneconomic.com
Donations are one thing. This is something else.
ben smoke@bencsmoke.bsky.social · 4w agoNEW: Housing Sec Angela Rayner took £20,000 in speaker fee from an anti-rent controls lobbying group just weeks before ruling out a rent freeze in what campaigners from London Renters Union have called a conflict of interest. Read all about it here: wefightthegoodfight.substack.com/p/rayner-tak...
Weird watching the right-wing columnist cohort try to collectively pull the handbrake on ethnonationalism. Like the world's biggest hotdog man convention.
HK@hkesvani.bsky.social · 4w agoBritish columnists love getting everything they wanted and still moaning about it
www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-mas...
The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate
Thinking we have time left to address climate change, or that “Net Zero by 2050” will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperat...
currentaffairs.org
Paul Marshall, the co-owner of GB News, has tripled his hedge fund investments in fossil fuel companies in the first quarter of 2026 to £2.1bn. They're a propaganda channel cashing in on destroying our future. Always follow the money.
Total insanity at a time wildfires intensified by climate change are ripping across the UK www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Gatwick airport to open second runway after legal challenge fails
£2.2bn project will allow about 100,000 more flights a year to use Britain’s second busiest airport
theguardian.com
❗️Zelensky: Today, many were shocked by another video of the Russian drone safari against people in Kherson. The man was injured by the explosion. The world must see this. It must see every fact that Russia has gone mad, and every fact that the Russian military enjoys killing and mocking people.
Btw, just in case you had any illusions left that Trump’s promise of a license for Ukraine to was genuine, the US NATO ambassador just said nothing can happen until winter at the earliest. It was all a cruel joke to weaken Ukraine by the USA. www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/202...
US ambassador to NATO believes agreement on joint production of interceptors for Patriot systems is unlikely before winter
US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker has said that talks on the joint production of interceptors for Patriot air defence systems with Ukraine and European partners are ongoing, but that an agreement...
pravda.com.ua
View of wildfire on Middlewick Ranges in Colchester
Every commentator saying too many kids go to university has to tell their own kid to not do a degree
Latest free piece is out. Praising a racist, conspiracist, anti-democratic, Trump-worshipper because she takes one position you like is a dangerous move and is to be regretted. The struggle is basically the same in the US and Ukraine. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...
It Is All One
Because a Racist, Conspiracist, Anti-Democrat, Oppression-Supporting, Trump-Worshipper Takes One Good Position, Does Not Make Her Worthy Of Praise
open.substack.com
Post a perfect album from the 90’s that isn’t Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice In Chains
Matthew Cortland (they)@matthewcort.land · last mo.Post a perfect album from the 90’s that isn’t Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice In Chains
Not the point and not going to sway anyone, but as someone who has a degree in (among other things) biological anthropology, I just want to point out that the argument that there is only a gender binary is complete and utter bunk, the sort of thing that gets demolished in a 101 course on this stuff.
"Don't comply in advance" includes not telling everyone around you that things are only going to get worse and that there's no hope for anything. Cynicism is complicity.
🥹 "I didn't recognize you." A border guard released from captivity saw his son for the first time in a long time
Burnham’s new chief of staff was chief executive of lobbying firm Flint It’s like the British political elite is addicted to conflicts of interest www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Andy Burnham picks former Blair minister James Purnell as chief of staff
Decision is one of Makerfield MP’s most significant since his Westminster return as he builds his team for government
theguardian.com
"AI whoops" of the week www.newscientist.com/article/2531...
People training new AI models admit they just get chatbots to do it
The next generation of AI models are meant to be trained by people paid to have conversations with them, but several of these workers have admitted to New Scientist that they simply get chatbots to do...
newscientist.com
