Laurence Cooley
@lpcooley.bsky.social
Politics lecturer, University of Birmingham Work on the politics of deeply divided societies (mostly Northern Ireland these days), including power-sharing, demography and the census. Recently also thinking about Lough Neagh. UCU rep. #firstgen
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 · yesterdayLeaders 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.
"Kew Gardens has had a weather station since 1871. This July was, based on third party analysis of Met Office data collected at the site, the first calendar month on record where no rainfall was measured at Kew."
London's first month without rain
Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?
londoncentric.media
Across Spain, France, England, and much of Europe, this year has seen extreme wildfires. Why are flames erupting in this particular way, in this particular moment in time? www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
Why Is Europe Burning?
“This is a structural issue in society,” a Spanish firefighter said, about worsening wildfires across Europe. “We’ve turned our backs on the mountains, on nature—and cities have never been so affected by it.”
newyorker.com
PPR & Anaka activist Emily Humphreys wrote an article for @amnestyuk.bsky.social detailing her experience of the emergency solidarity response to the racist pogroms in July 💛 Read the full piece here 👉 www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...
#OtD 28 Jul 1907 soldiers were deployed to break escalating strike action by "unskilled" Protestant and Catholic workers, who had found solidarity in struggle, as part of the four-month long Belfast Dock Strike. Read more about the strike here: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1001...
Local ‘patriot’ flagging group Raise the Colours have been getting rather creative with their video edits 🤨 ✂️. But there days could well be numbered... Find out more in today's Monday Briefing 📖 www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk/raise-the-cu...
Raise the cutters!
The local flaggers have been getting creative with their edits as the council considers an injunction
birminghamdispatch.co.uk
Stirchley Coop Housing protest had a big turn out and a brilliant segment on BBC Midlands Today evening News which laid out the issues clearly.
Someone needs to do a PhD on this. These are comments under a local news story about a protest against the proposed McDonald's in Stirchley.
Alan Greene@alangreene.bsky.social · 2w agoThere's a proposal to build a McDonald's in Stirchely and it's amazing how it's being framed on local Facebook groups as a left-right issue. Being against McDs is woke apparently. And also, you probably hate flags. It's a microcosm of how antiwoke can advance the interests of billionaires.
Every once in a while, I remember that Birmingham decided to just not do any of this. If we had, by now drivers would be more accustomed to a city in which "traffic flow" wasn't the only planning principle, and everyone would be enjoying more mobility options. A sad wasted opportunity.
How a Belgian port city inspired Birmingham's car-free ambitions
Ghent’s overnight transformation produced shorter journeys, cleaner air and a cycling explosion
theguardian.com
A huge thank you to Hana Kitson, our Accessibility & Equality Lead, for speaking so powerfully to the BBC about the impact of pavement parking on disabled people. Everyone deserves pavements that are safe, accessible and free from obstruction. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...
Should pavement parking be banned?
Half of all councils in England actively encourage parking on pavements through marked bays or signage, BBC research has found.
bbc.co.uk
ICYMI - Guardian editorial which quotes @britishacademy.bsky.social research on cuts to the social sciences, humanities and arts www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial
Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed
theguardian.com
🚨Just received copies of my new book Performing Paramilitarism, a deep dive into loyalist ideology via its song scene which speaks to some of the events happening in N. Ireland over the last few weeks. 📚It lists at £12.45 on google books, £19.16 on Kindle and £22.99 in paperback.
42% of UK garden space has been paved over & that's building urban heat, robbing wildlife of homes + surging runoff into drains, increasing flood risk + sewage discharge. De-pave Your Garden says even just using planting strips on your drive can make a huge difference. share.google/Dkb3FOi35hqp...
How the trend for turning front gardens into driveways is adding to night-time heat
There’s a growing trend to pave over front gardens.
share.google
'Scientists are appealing to birders to limit their use of AI when editing images over fears that it could undermine the credibility of popular citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist and Macaulay Library, which are routinely used in scientific research to monitor species’ habitat range.'
AI-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk
Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists
theguardian.com
I'll be honest: academics and university peeps making these comparisons arent particularly helping themselves.
David Henig@davidheniguk.bsky.social · 3w agoWhich is more important to the UK, steel or universities? bsky.app/profile/plas...
Things aren’t going back to normal any time soon, lads.
Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 3w agoThe State Department has just put out a tender, offering funding of up to $3 million to European organizations who want to fight against "Supra-national institutions" - presumably the EU - and governments who seek to regulate the internet and end Western Civilization. www.state.gov/drl-nofo-dev...
It is mad that we have, somehow, allowed net zero - a policy common to all major parties under 5 years ago and supported by a majority of the public - to become a synoym for mad radicalism. It is doubly mad that we've allowed this to happen during the hottest summer on record.
Jo Michell@jomichell.bsky.social · 3w agoI’m sorry, but what is ‘radical’ about the policies pursued by Miliband?
🔴 NEW: Northern Ireland Turned Into ‘Sacrifice Zone’ to Feed UK’s Appetite for Meat Nearly two thirds of country’s pig & poultry farms leach polluting manure into lough supplying half region’s drinking water, latest research finds. 📝 @shaunacorr.bsky.social👇 www.desmog.com/2026/07/08/n...
Northern Ireland Turned Into 'Sacrifice Zone’ to Feed UK’s Appetite for Meat, New Report Finds
A version of this article also appeared on investigative site The Detail Northern Ireland’s largest source of drinking water is besieged by toxic pollution linked to a government drive to accelerate p...
desmog.com
Why is Lough Neagh still green? Some of the answers are here… Read the story via @desmog.com and @thedetailtv.bsky.social You can also get the full @friends-earth.bsky.social report here 👇 lnkd.in/eGCQ2PeG
This was Emma’s last project. She gave it her everything, working out of hospitals in very difficult circumstances. In the end she ran out of time and life. I then spent the next 18 months doing my best to complete the project as Emma had envisaged it. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
As someone who comes from a country that actually did do a civil war, what I find fascinating about these people is that their idea of a civil war seems to come entirely from movies. They just don’t know what a civil war is.
Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · 3w agoFor example. Many such cases...
Photos from Ravenhill bonfire added to that Eleventh Night page now. brendanjharkin.myportfolio.com/eleventh-nig...
The Ghost Limb is on RTÉ radio tonight! A four part documentary series, about the story of the book and its afterlife. Hopefully on the Docs on One podcast in due course. A labour of love from producer Dónall Ó Maolfabhail from Scun Scan Productions. www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...
The Ghost Limb - RTÉ Radio 1
Northern Ireland Protestant author, Claire Mitchell, frustrated at having no place to call home, embarks on a historical and magical journey, to heal what she calls her Ghost Limb.
rte.ie
Claire Mitchell@clairemitchell.bsky.social · 2y agoI've been doing that Irish thing of being too embarrassed to say hello, would you like my book? It's The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798. A tribe of 20 modern day northern dissenters go walking around the sites of 1798, asking what this politics could mean for today.
The same characters and networks involved in organising/amplifying the pogroms in NI now being being used to try and rally people to a threatened riot to defend Moygashel bonfire
