Brilliant and far-reaching new investigation into George Cottrell and former Reform treasurer Mehrtash A’zami by @nafeez.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/07/23/p...

‘Posh George’, Two Passports, and a Fraudulent Identity: Convicted Fraudster and Nigel Farage Funder's Connections to Reform UK’s Murky Financial Structures

Why did Reform UK change from being a privately-owned company to a non-profit company limited by guarantee in 2025? Nafeez Ahmed investigates a fraudulent identity used by George Cottrell – and how hi...

bylinetimes.com

I know it's only a PCC election with low turnout but 11% for a party that happily accepts neo-Nazis as members is really bad.

Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 3w ago

Norfolk Police & Crime Commissioner By-Election Result: ➡️ RFM: 26.7% (New) 🌳 CON: 15.0% (-18.9) 🌍 GRN: 13.8% (-2.0) 🙋 Ind: 13.4% (New) 🌹 LAB: 11.6% (-23.6) ◼️ RES: 10.9% (New) 🔶 LDM: 8.6% (-6.5) Reform UK GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2024.

"I am the most physically and verbally attacked public figure or politician of modern times" is a quite a thing for Nigel Farage to say when two MPs have been murdered in the last decade, Stephen Timms was stabbed twice in the stomach in 2010 and there was a plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper

Nothing says 'man of the people' quite like a politician calling a by-election at public expense on the issue of whether or not he should have the right to secretly take donations from Thai-based crypto billionaires and a convicted fraudster

There is too much news, and Hallvard Moe and I wrote a book about it. Our analysis of news saturation, doomscrolling and information overload will be published this fall with @brisunipress.bsky.social, open access supported by @unibergen.bsky.social Check out the contents and cover here! #CommSky

Too Much News

Too Much News - Understanding News Saturation; Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Overwhelmed by the news? You're not alone. This book explores why news saturation is reshaping...

bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

55 short articles on everything you could ever want to know about the Scottish election! - academics from all over Scotland (& some from England & Wales) contributed to our election analysis report Please read and share Also has cute dog, Rio, on the cover 😍 www.electionanalysis.uk

Scottish Election Analysis 2026 - UK Election Analysis

Report featuring more than 100 contributions from leading UK academics, with snap analysis and early research insights on the 2024 UK General Election.

electionanalysis.uk

Another comparative study by @harm365.bsky.social & @rosalynd.bsky.social examines how UK women politicians are received by social media audiences using replies. They find platform effects around incivility, insults and gendered othering and offer a generative framework for equity-focused research.

Twitter to Yell at Them, Facebook to Ask Questions and Instagram to Show Support? Exploring Platform Effects in Responses to Women Politicians On Social Media

Previous research has shown that women politicians are often subject to more incivility, hate speech, and sexualized abuse on social media. Until now, studies tend to analyze one platform, and ther...

tandfonline.com

🚨We are so incredibly thrilled to announce that our Multi-Platform Research Special Issue in Political Communication is out now at www.tandfonline.com/toc/upcp20/4...! Special Issue Team: @meredithpruden.bsky.social @yunkangyang.bsky.social @jiyoun-suk.bsky.social Wei Zhong and me!!! 🎉

Political Communication

SI-Multi-Platform Research. Volume 43, Issue 2 of Political Communication

tandfonline.com

£53m in donations. £8.4bn in public contracts. Entirely legal. But is it what the public think is happening? @eastangliabylines.co.uk

How political parties lost members but gained millionaires

Has politics evolved into a transaction where democracy is the product and the public is not getting a cut?

eastangliabylines.co.uk

TEASER! A new @thenerve.news has dropped into your favourite NHS contractor that’s also involved in blowing up schools in Iran. Any guesses which?

When Angela Rayner underpaid £40,000 in stamp duty, Richard Tice said it was "morally completely indefensible” and she should resign if she had “any moral decency”. Now we learn he set up four shell companies that let him avoid paying £100,000 he owed in tax and to then transfer the cash to Reform

This is a really odd argument because I think at the heart of it, there is a deep misunderstanding about what writing is for. I write to communicate my thoughts and ideas, and to bring people along with me, which AI cannot do for me because it isn't me.

Dr Francis Young@drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Perhaps the darkest argument I’ve heard in favour of writing with AI is that there’s no point writing without it; we’ll all be consuming so much AI-generated content unwittingly that it will re-programme our writing styles and thought patterns. Humans who write without AI will sound like AI anyway.

Reform UK's energy prize winners, Wigan-based Raymond and June Dibble "are the very same couple who nominated Lee Moffitt to become the Wigan branch chair of Reform UK." Moffitt appears in the publicity video posted by Farage of their miraculous win. Fancy that! bylinetimes.com/2026/04/13/r....

Reform UK Energy Prize Winners Had Nominated Party's Own Branch Chair

As Greater Manchester Police confirm they are reviewing a complaint into the prize draw, Byline Times can reveal that the party's Wigan branch chair – nominated by the winners – was present at the doo...

bylinetimes.com

Auspicious day to post this so here it is! 'Memes and politics in the UK: from piggate to partygate and beyond' is out now! link.springer.com/book/10.1007... I loved writing this and I hope you'll all love reading it. Check out the cover, description and endorsements here! 📖 Buy it!! 😅

Why every woman can see herself in the story of a German celebrity couple’s split | Fatma Aydemir

Why every woman can see herself in the story of a German celebrity couple’s split | Fatma Aydemir

Many will recognise their own experiences of digital abuse in Collien Fernandes’s allegations – the sense that technology offers perps both tools and cover, says Guardian Europe columnist Fatma Aydemir

theguardian.com

Fellow UK politics politics nerds, you're going to want to read this incredibly important book by the brilliant @rosalynd.bsky.social tracing how memes became a fundamemtal part of mainstream political communication for citizens and politicians alike!

Communication & Media at the University of Liverpool@commmedia.bsky.social · 5mo ago

@rosalynd.bsky.social just published her book, Memes and Politics in the UK: From Piggage to Partygate and Beyond! 👏 link.springer.com/book/9783032...

Starting day 2 with a fab panel on Fashion, Late Night Talk Shows and Memes :-) @rosalynd.bsky.social is talking memes, and how parties and politicians deployed them in GE2014. Ros has just published a book! link.springer.com/book/9783032...

AMAZING presentation by @psuwantawit.bsky.social at the @psampg.bsky.social panel! Such important work based on her thesis which is brilliant. Can't wait to see this published 🙌

NEW: Two senior MOD whistleblowers with inside knowledge of Palantir's systems have come forward to @thenerve.news to say government ministers are ignorant of the grave national security risks the technology poses. Hugely important by @charlienotold.bsky.social www.thenerve.news/p/palantir-t...

‘It beggars belief’: MoD sources warn Palantir’s role at heart of government is a threat to UK’s security

Experts say that claims UK data remains under government ownership miss the point that the company has the capability to build its own detailed picture of the British population, and even infer state ...

thenerve.news

It was proper dark arts of PR stuff. Commission your own report and make sure it includes a Russian hacking claim. Don't bother with evidence or any expert consultancy. Don't need them. Pass that report to GCHQ. Then you say GCHQ are looking into claims of Russian involvement. You made sure of it.

Samira Shackle@samirashackle.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Truly whacko behaviour from Josh Simons and Labour Together. Trying to get the intelligence services to investigate critical journalists! He's got to go www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university?

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university?

When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degrees

theguardian.com

NEW: NEW: Standards commissioner finds Nigel Farage committed seventeen breaches of MPs code of conduct. He failed to declare £333,000 in outside interests (more than 3x MPs annual salary)…

We're recruiting! Please do spread the news far and wide. We're excited by the prospect of being joined by another great new colleague!

UCL Constitution Unit@conunitucl.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Join and help to lead the Constitution Unit! @uclspp.bsky.social is looking for a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics who will also join our senior team and contribute to our research and impact activities. Applicants must have, or be near to finishing, a PhD. Apply 👇

New publication in Political Communication by department members Dr. Emily Harmer and Dr. Rosalynd Southern! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

“Twitter to Yell at Them, Facebook to Ask Questions and Instagram to Show Support?” Exploring Platform Effects in Responses to Women Politicians On Social Media

Previous research has shown that women politicians are often subject to more incivility, hate speech, and sexualized abuse on social media. Until now, studies tend to analyze one platform, and ther...

tandfonline.com

All the supposedly progressive people saying 'Nigel Farage's racism doesn't matter. His fans love it'. It matters whether the leader of the party leading all the opinion polls is an outright racist. It matters if he called black people 'wogs' and said 'gas them' to Jews. Not everything is a game

Dear colleagues, we are delighted to invite you to our DigiPol research seminar given by DigiPol visiting fellow Tomás Dodds. Wednesday 3.30pm to 5pm School of the Arts Library or email rsouth@liverpool.ac.uk to join online. Abstract below. Please re skeet!

When benefits are denied by data not humans: In a botched 'crackdown' on benefit fraud, a woman who booked a flight from London to Oslo but never got on the plane had her child benefit stopped by the UK government - because she didn't 'return'. HMRC told her their records showed she had emigrated!

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 9mo ago

UK woman who booked Oslo flight but did not fly loses child benefit ‘because she emigrated’

For anyone in the Liverpool area, we are hosting a conversation and hands-on workshop on abortion rights and creative methods as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science - come join us! Sign up here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/claire-piers... @livunihss.bsky.social @livunipol.bsky.social

New publication from faculty members Dr. Rudi Palmieri and Dr. Ekaterina Balabanova! link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Framing and Argumentative Strategies in Modern Slavery Statements: Debating Sustainability or Avoiding Responsibility?

This chapter develops an analysis of the linguistic content of modern slavery statements by UK-based businesses, which represent a genre of sustainability communication that has emerged in recent year...

link.springer.com

If any Government can just snatch basic human rights away from any section of society when it pleases then none of us has rights – just privileges that can be taken away by people in power whenever they want

Peter Stefanovic@peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans to change how judges interpret the European Convention on Human Rights – a move that risks weakening everyone’s protections.   The ECHR has become a convenient scapegoat for challenges around migration and sovereignty. WE MUST PROTECT IT youtu.be/Lmad4kujRhQ?...