small, single corridor shopping centre in Stevenage Old Town. Called the 'Magnet centre' after the family that owned the land. odd nik-nak and dress shops... ...and in the mid-90s briefly, hidden at the back, the town's first comic shop. we discovered it as teens. it was like finding heaven /1

ashley fairbanks@ziibiing.com · yesterday

tell me about your town’s weird mall

Ed Davey has cared for his mother, his grandmother, and now his son. As cross-party talks on social care begin, he argues it can be fixed by finally putting the millions of unpaid family carers at the heart of any deal.

Great news! "Erasmus+ is an EU programme that provides grant funding for placements and projects for organisations working in education, training, youth and sport". The UK and the EU have agreed for the UK to associate to the Erasmus+ programme from 2027. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Overview of the Erasmus+ programme

gov.uk

We may well see more media headlines once the first boat arrivals come under the new government. That can be a partisan press choice. The public service broadcaster should be looking to inform the broad public of a significant, unknown shift + to explore what it means and does not mean

Summary of Cabinet Changes that doesn't require you to read a whole article behind a paywall :)

RIP Kevin Keegan. So many iconic eras over 3 decades as player + manager with Scunthorpe Liverpool, Hamburg, Southampton, Newcastle, Man City & England on and off the pitch (Superstars!). I indelibly associate him with the first World Cup that I remember, when he battled with injury to play Spain

Exeter University confuses Higher Education Academy and British Academy. It's just too telling in the context of the redundancy announcements.

Historians awarded Fellowships of the Higher Education Academy

A pair of world-renowned history scholars have been recognised for their work after being elected Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. Professor Jane Whittle and Professor Mark Jackson were among ...

news.exeter.ac.uk

"A closed country will be poorer. A country that underinvests will not grow. A state that refuses to reform tax will ration ambition. And a Labour government afraid to say these things will discover once again that caution, too, has costs." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Burnham must learn from Starmer’s mistakes: Labour was elected to transform the economy, not just stabilise it | Jonathan Portes

Devolution, tax, the EU and immigration: these are all opportunities for growth if Burnham abandons the excessive caution of the past few years, says economist Jonathan Portes

theguardian.com

Stamp duty and council tax are terrible taxes. Land value tax could replace both - and Andy Burnham has backed it for 16 years. Who wins? Who loses? What happens to house prices? LVT could drive growth. But it isn’t easy. Our model shows its promise - and its problems.

Bold move, Spain. Though calling it ESF is a bit disappointing when "PURSE — Pan-European Union Resource for Sovereign Expenditure" or even "BRAVE — Borrowing and Refinancing for a Viable Europe" was there for the taking. Needs work. www.politico.eu/article/spai...

Spain’s mega EU debt proposal sets up showdown with northern European countries

Madrid is pitching its proposal to increase joint EU borrowing as a cost-saving measure.

politico.eu

Was chatting about the relative invisibility of Birmingham compared to Manchester yesterday. Theories: -Lack of top flight football and music scene -Lack of defining visuals -Made bad bet on wrong kind of urbanism -Midlands identity just gets lost in north/south duality -Relative economic decline

On this topic and immigration, the current Labour government has been steering in the rear view mirror. When immigration plummets and hits OBR estimates and they have to bail out Russell Group universities it might finally dawn on them.

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · last mo.

Higher education policy under the last few UK governments seems to be shaping up into an experiment in how you sustain a knowledge economy without knowledge

I don't have anything profound to say about the 10-year anniversary of the Brexit vote. Brexit was always going to be shit, was shit, and now continues to be shit. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

This is a good thread. I think fundamentally, support for Brexit tended to be based on one of two things.Unreality - which ignored many of the wants were mutually exclusive, believed all the good could be retained without the bad, and ignored many of the forces of economic gravity. Or...

SpinningHugo@spinninghugo.bsky.social · last mo.

Lessons of Brexit (with cynical reflections about the judiciary). First, negotiations to leave taught us that an intermediate position between full membership and where we are now is almost unobtainable. If you hear politicians claiming it is you know they're lying or stupid. /1

Exactly. From what I've heard, what most alarmed bond traders about Truss was her & Kwarteng braking and accelerating at the same time. The idea that doing anything beyond what's happening now = Immediate CaTrusstrophe is an example of what Robert Jay Lifton called the thought-terminating cliché.

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · last mo.

[Fine to criticise EM's on energy/net zero. But Truss introduced massive and unaffordable tax cuts and universal energy subsidies at the same time as trashing the Bank, HMT and the OBR. Miliband was a Treasury Special Advisor to Gordon Brown...]

Reform have now lost six by-elections in a row in England, Scotland and Wales. Their national poll rating is 26% – below Labour in 1983 – and Farage’s approval rating is -37. They’re very far from the voice of the people and need to stop being treated as such.

It starts today!!!

My favourite Hattersley quotes From 1987: “For too long the mainstream of the Labour Party believed that it was possible to combat bad ideas by opposing ideas in general.” On Tony Blair: “Since the prime minister believes in the Third Way, it is important for him to find out what it is."

Tom Clark@tom-clark.bsky.social · 2mo ago

RIP Roy Hattersley. A pragmatic style of politics in unswerving service of radical, egalitarian ends. A rare blend then, which would be rarer still today. www.thenewworld.co.uk/matt-kelly-r...

Exciting opportunity: Professor/Associate Professor post, part of Mental Health Research Group. Come to work with us in the beautiful South West of the UK! Please circulate to anyone who might be interested. hrservices.plymouth.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

The deadline for this opportunity has been extended! Can still apply up to the 22nd June. #phd #phdposition #sciencejobs #neuroskyence #neurojobs

Eddy Rhodes@eddycurrents.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Recruiting a #PhD researcher for my new lab at the University of Liverpool 🧠 The PINT Lab: temporal interference stimulation, real-time EEG, and closed-loop neuromodulation, clinical translation to Parkinson's, depression and stroke rehab. Details: tinyurl.com/3cn5knhp #neuroskyence #neurojobs 🧵

France and Germany want to gut the EEAS, but dismantling the EU's diplomatic service won't fix EU foreign policy. The problem is structural. www.frenchdispatch.eu/p/eeas-refor...

The EEAS Isn't Broken. The System Is.

France and Germany want to gut the EEAS. But dismantling the EU's diplomatic service won't fix EU foreign policy. The problem is structural.

frenchdispatch.eu

Sensible in part, but culminates in a blatant falsehood - the ECHR does not prevent all deportations

John Rentoul@rentouljohn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Shock breaking news. Common sense from Kemi Badenoch: "The Common Travel Area is not the problem" (on @lbc.co.uk )

Some news: 🇺🇦 Next month I'm driving to Ukraine. 🇺🇦 I'll be delivering an evacuation vehicle, specially modified for saving lives in areas of the highest danger. But that's only possible if I can fundraise enough - £3,500. I'd be so grateful for any support you can give. donorbox.org/johnoxleydu

Support John's Mission: Buy and Drive an Evacuation Vehicle to Ukraine 🇺🇦 | Driving Ukraine (Powered by Donorbox)

Help John to Drive and Deliver a Life-Saving Evacuation Vehicle to Ukraine 🇺🇦In July 2026 John Oxley will drive 1,318 miles across Europe in 3 days to deliver an evacuation vehicle to Ukraine, where i...

donorbox.org

We need leaders who can spell out what's happening clearly and with force.

You have to conclude that the big social media platforms are happy to promote violence - gleefully in Musk’s case, complacently in Zuck’s. They are very dangerous people

fife4europe #FBPE #RejoinEU@fife4europe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

From explicit calls for murder to sexual harassment, violent threats targeting US lawmakers on Facebook rocketed after tech giant Meta rolled back key content moderation policies last year.

One of the obvious problems with a under-16 social media ban is that it won't work. (60%+ of Australian under-16s are still using these platforms). But it will make people feel like something has been done so they won't tackle the content, which is the real issue.

61% of all political donations in the last quarter came from just 14 people Reform took in £9.3m from a handful of super rich donors British democracy is being bought. We urgently need action to take the money out of our politics

Steve Goodrich@stevejgoodrich.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Some quick thoughts on Q1 2026 donations data from @electoralcommission.org.uk 🧵 HEADLINE STATS Total: £20.7m (excl. public funds) Biggest recipient: Reform £9.3m Biggest donor: Ben Delo £4m to Reform Donors giving £1m+: £9.2m (44%) from 3 donors Donors giving £250k+: £12.7m (61%) from 14 donors

Always chuffed to get a spot in one of the world's great papers, the @financialtimes.com, not least when I'm writing about something I really care about. But while I'm a long-term advocate for electoral reform, I do think we need to be realistic (and principled) about what, when and how.

Electoral reform for the UK? Don’t bet on it

Fractured party politics and enthusiasm from Labour’s hopefuls are not a sign of imminent proportional voting

ft.com

A reminder that crypto is an almost entirely parasitic industry, enabling crime, wasting the money of retail investors, energy and resources. We definitely do not need a national crypto reserve, the effect of which will be to tranfser taxpayers' £ to those already heavily invested in crypto.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'm sure this has nothing to do with Farage promising to deregulate crypto and create a national crypto reserve. Those are just the policies the people of Makerfield want.

PS Not keen on the way this is spun as Labour 'losing the working class': a) union members aren't all working class, b) today's working class isn't what many imagine it to be), and c) the rise of the far right isn't all down to direct desertion. PPS Only 14% of 2024 TU Lab voters now say Reform.

Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Interesting; but I can't help taking with a pinch of salt its suggestion that 29% of UCU (University & College Union) members are now Reform UK voters (see www.jlpartners.co.uk/polling-resu... for deets). I don't want to stereotype my sectoral colleagues as a bunch of typical liberal-lefties but....