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Holger Nehring

@holgernehring.bsky.social

Contemporary historian #ColdWar #diplomacy

1738 Posts1394 Follower1207 Folgt
Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · yesterday

I recall we had a period of time where the response of Starmer and Cooper to concerns about these groups was ‘I like flags’

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · yesterday

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

Flags on the Abingdon Road
Lisa O’Carroll@lisaocarroll.bsky.social · 3d ago

Exclusive: Some EU citizens in the UK have been contacted by the Home Office to say they were granted settlement status after Brexit "in error". If you know anyone this happened to contact me on lisa.ocarroll@theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

EU citizens in UK get letters telling them post-Brexit residency rights were given ‘in error’

After years of building lives in UK, potentially thousands of EU citizens could be told they have no right to remain

theguardian.com

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 4d ago

'rare books experts are increasingly worried that these artefacts may be under threat of destruction by generative AI companies seeking to feed their ravenous technology with new texts.' First they came for your monograph, then for rare books. Where next: wholesale destruction of archives?

‘More than just objects’: Australian booksellers raise alarm over ‘horrific’ destruction of rare titles to feed AI

Secondhand booksellers believe they may have been caught up in the AI supply chain that sees old books scanned then destroyed

theguardian.com

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 4d ago

Chemical dilemmas. Lean into automation and AI or continue to teach practical skills such as gas chromatography by hand as well? Or, in the wake of Chemistry closures, is the existential question one of teaching/having access to the subject at all?

Is chemistry teaching over-reliant on technology?

Expert fears students are too often passively observing vital processes without gaining practical understanding but others say discipline should lean in to modern approaches

timeshighereducation.com

Alan Allport@alanallport.bsky.social · 4d ago

The raid that demonstrated the need to control the Foggia airfields in Italy if a strategic bombing campaign in the Balkans was to continue.

Brian Dunn@briandunn.bsky.social‬@briandunn.bsky.social · 4d ago

On this day in 1943, 177 US B-24 bombers take off from their bases in Libya to attack oil refineries in Ploești, Romania. 53 bombers and 530 crewmen are lost in the attack which slows, but does not stop, oil production in the refineries. Only 88 of the planes return to Libya.

A B-24 flying a bombing run over the Astra Română refinery at Ploești during Operation Tidal Wave, August 1, 1944.
Nahel Belgherze@wxnb.bsky.social · 6d ago

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

Bild
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 6d ago

Hmmm. Many STEM scientists argue that science isn't and shouldn't be political, a view many in Humanities and Social Sciences view with great scepticism. Big literatures on this. But should we really be using Jodrell Bank to argue for a more politically-inflected science policy at UKRI? Really?

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 6d ago

The new UkGov "may be more willing to hold UKRI to account for its specific prioritisation decisions based on the reality that they are political choices with political consequences". 🤞 #SaveUKAstronomy #SaveJodrellBank

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 7d ago

In any other larger European country, cities the size of Sheffield, Nottingham, heck even Bristol if you look at the wider West of England, would have a philharmonic, opera and even a funded big band jazz ensemble

Holger Nehring@holgernehring.bsky.social · 7d ago

Sheffield Green Party which has declared a climate emergency [as a PR gimmick] condones the closure of a public swimming pool with ref to a lack of car parking, backed up by public health officials. No wonder people lose trust in politics, politicians & bureaucracy.

Colin Yeo@colinyeo.bsky.social · last wk.

1/2 This and similar incidents should be called out for what it is. A Home Office official manufactured country information to refuse an asylum case. Some lawyers have been doing the same to try to win their cases. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests

Upper tribunal unable to find document cited in case and claims it is ‘analogous to relying on bogus evidence’

theguardian.com

Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · last wk.

Belated spot of my letter to the FT published this weekend. Essentially, it's Ecclesiastes 1:9: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

As usual, Camilla Cavendish (“There is a gaping hole in British politics”, Opinion, June 27) makes many excellent points. But she also risks committing the besetting sin of commentators — namely, to assume that what we see today wasn’t also true of yesterday. It may well be the case that the UK is witnessing a crisis of trust in politicians. But the fact is that the British have never been particularly impressed with those they choose to represent them; it’s just that, as the polling industry has massively expanded over the years, we know far more about their attitudes, and in far more detail, than used to be the case. As for Labour politicians, I can assure your readers, having interviewed many former MPs for a PhD on the symbolic politics of the party’s welfare policies from the 1950s onwards, that they were fully aware of their constituents’ concerns with neighbours they saw as “scroungers”. Those same MPs had no illusions either about their voters’ opposition towards immigration. Such attitudes and anxieties are — both culturally and psychologically — deep-rooted. Sometimes they are merely latent; other times they are more manifest. Whether, though, they are best addressed by politicians banging on about benefit fraud and small boats is highly debatable.
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3w ago

“What will the Lovell Telescope discover/enable 20 yrs from now? I can’t tell you, and that’s the point. It will either be something extraordinary that none of us can yet predict, or we will defund it and leave Cheshire with a rusting monument to unfulfilled potential and discoveries never made.” 🔭🧪