It was always likely that the Tories' decision to give full embrace to Islamophobia would eventually lead to those with other prejudices, less comfortable for the leadership, entering their party. But they will never stop this while their leader herself remains a particularly aggressive Islamophobe.

“‘Manchester’ has been a metonym at least twice in the last two hundred years, escaping the orbit of a more generalised ‘North’.” I explore the achievements and failures of the current Manchester model.

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2d ago

‘Between 2015 and 2024, nearly a billion pounds of public money was lent on favourable terms to developers who built almost no affordable housing – almost two-thirds of it to one company.’ @harrystopes.bsky.social on Manchester, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/au...

One day we'll have overcome their smug smiles and platitudes. Onwards!

Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 8h ago

Our code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx

Related to current discourse about academic practice in the UK, can I recommend, if your institution subscribes, that you engage with the UK Research Integrity Office. From my experience, they're really good at helping you think through some of these dilemmas: ukrio.org

If you have a sincere, good-faith concern about Antisemitism on the Left, treating an account of far-Right Antisemitism as somehow the fault of the Left is the absolute worst choice to make for your own cause.

The Tories have selected a convicted former Neo-Nazi as a councillor. Here's why that reflects very poorly on Jeremy Corbyn.

Incidentally last year I had to teach a de Beauvoir text inspired by related aspects of her life with Sartre and dealing with that real-life backdrop was not much fun tbh.

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 23h ago

de beauvoir and sartre were both monsters ('very young' here means 16 or 17) www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

My new book, An Injury to All, traces the history of The Unmaking of the British Working Class. Thanks very much to @demleftscotland.bsky.social for publicising An Injury to All as it goes out for pre-order. Full details below🔽 www.democratic-left.scot/post/an-inju...

An injury to all - New book on the 'unmaking of the working class'

Ewan Gibbs, the Glasgow-based historian who is author of Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland will be known to many Democratic Left Scotland members. Ewan’s ...

democratic-left.scot

I have no knowledge of military specifics, so this probably reflects naivety, but I must confess to being a bit surprised that the US has managed to burn through most of its stockpile in just a few months.

CNBC@cnbc.com · yesterday

U.S. has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war: Reuters

The *great minds* of New Atheism solved this a decade ago.

CNN@cnn.com · 2d ago

The request from a senior officer at the US military command carrying out President Trump’s war with Iran came in an email: We need ideas. https://cnn.it/4xcYdul

I too am not a fan of any "it's 'just' a..." discourse. Am not saying it needs to heralded as some sort of religious text, but surely all art, all objects, all places, are more than "just" the sum of their parts. And if everything like it was so meaningless, then what the f**k is our job about?

Dominic Dean@drdominicdean.bsky.social · 2d ago

Lots of different takes on The Odyssey, clearly, but I really do not understand Humanities scholars saying ‘it’s just a film’ or variants thereof.

Striking given that, as far as I can see, all of middle England are talking about how their gardens are dying and are starting to get genuinely worried about the drought. Now is the time!

Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 2d ago

We are in the third drought in five years. We have the National Trust and NFU - those radical types - sounding the alarm on unprecedented temperatures. But so little from any single figure in politics talking about the climate crisis.

When someone is described as "often controversial, never boring" in 2026 it just means: full nazi but also part of the establishment.

I think resistance to taking hero’s journey blockbusters seriously has always been around, but Nolan in particular seems to trigger it. Easier to claim it’s not serious than engage with its dichotomies. It’s a subset of snobbery, devalue the media to preserve the value of the source, maybe?

Lots of different takes on The Odyssey, clearly, but I really do not understand Humanities scholars saying ‘it’s just a film’ or variants thereof.

People in the replies talking about how spending more than 50 quid on a watch makes you a scumbag, so that’s my Bluesky telling-off for the day…

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3d ago

‘£5,800 on a watch?!’ What happened when five couples kept separate money diaries – then revealed all to their partners?

A bottom-up demand for climate mitigation measures: A sign of how the politics of climate change will likely involve quite different dynamics in the next few years to those we’ve been used to. A chance here to make the Right pay for their denialism, if their opponents can make the case aggressively.

I had my PhD graduation yesterday - I was very lucky to have my family with me and to graduate alongside friends.

I tend to agree with this (a lot of bad stuff went on - all the locking students into halls to secure their rent was particularly egregious) and I suspect the bad feelings created are a background contributor to lack of greater public support during the current crisis.

Thomas Cheney @thomascheney.bsky.social · 4d ago

similar issue with universities -i did at the time wonder if we should have been furloughed like everyone else and students could have resumed their studies afterwards and given the lawsuits about online learning probably whatll happen if theres ever a next time

the first time I heard of this rule after moving here, I thought it was a joke!

Dominic Dean@drdominicdean.bsky.social · 3d ago

Agree with this - imo the kids are almost always going to get more out of a week or two weeks away than they are from the same time in school, particularly in primary and at the lower stages of secondary school. And rigid school holiday times are an effective extra tax on the less well off.

People in the replies talking about how spending more than 50 quid on a watch makes you a scumbag, so that’s my Bluesky telling-off for the day…

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3d ago

‘£5,800 on a watch?!’ What happened when five couples kept separate money diaries – then revealed all to their partners?

Agree with this - imo the kids are almost always going to get more out of a week or two weeks away than they are from the same time in school, particularly in primary and at the lower stages of secondary school. And rigid school holiday times are an effective extra tax on the less well off.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3d ago

I’m all for the nanny state – but we should abolish fines for holidays in term time | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

A lot of people I really respect have been working hard for a long time to make this style of engagement *not* be the norm in academia. None of the people I am around do this (and would never valorize it) because it is the worst thing about the academy.

Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 4d ago

I don’t really want to get into this with people who feel this way, but i don’t think this is a good thing! We don’t need to behave this way! It’s not healthy to approach academic discourse as an exercise in harshness!

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented so far! It's great to see this resonated with quite a few people.

Dominic Dean@drdominicdean.bsky.social · 6d ago

I've written up some thoughts on Emily Wilson's review of The Odyssey; a little on what she got right, a lot on what I think she missed, and why it matters. dominicdean.wordpress.com/2026/07/30/o...

Incidentally the Brighton large street bins have signs on them telling people not to sleep in there; I wonder whether this is unique to us?

Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️@jgbollard.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is it boys, the platonic "New York can never get better" piece www.archpaper.com/2026/07/litt...

This is like the business card scene in AMERICAN PSYCHO but everyone’s whipping out their PhD in Literature.

Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social · 4d ago

Dying. It continues. SUSAN ORLEAN

Since I posted about English town decline, if anyone is interested in a literary depiction of this, the best I know is in Hollinghurst's Our Evenings; it's beautifully handled, an elegy for twentieth- and twenty-first century small-town England that is truthful, sometimes ugly, profoundly moving.

Just catching up with the news from my childhood hometown, and the big story is that the former BHS building (one of the biggest retail buildings in town, prominent central location) has now been derelict (and looks it) for a whole decade. This in a generally fairly prosperous town.

Now I understand why people romanticise the cavalry's role.

Peter Moore@petejmoore.bsky.social · 2w ago

Saw a Waymo defeated by horse shit from the Household Cavalry on South Carriage Drive. Every pile it approached it would slam on the brakes thinking it was an emergency, and proceeded to do this a dozen times down the road.

Friends, my book—No Place for Home: Terror and Race in Literature After 9/11—has a cover! I’m so pleased with what Rachel Moeller and the design team at @uminnpress.bsky.social came up with! The book will be out in Spring 2027 and that I’ll post a pre-order link once it’s available! 1/2