The EHRC’s Code of Practice comes into force today — a dark day for trans people in the UK. For last month’s @leftlion.bsky.social column, I wrote about why this new guidance is so deeply harmful and where I think we go from here.

Nadia on… the new guidance on single-sex spaces

Labour MP for Nottingham East Nadia Whittome discusses the Government's latest guidance on single sex spaces

leftlion.co.uk

If you were confused about what happened in Ceuta last week read this piece by @lizcarolan.com who's looking at how it blew up online and who's behind it... www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Liz Carolan: Migrants pay a deadly price in Ceuta disinformation disaster

All the layers of neglected dysfunction in our information environment have come together into one deadly, toxic mess for Moroccans in Ceuta, writes Liz Carolan

irishexaminer.com

CFP: edited volume: Water in Culture and Nature: Tangibility, Intangibility, Liminality, Confluence in Heritage networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

It’s the conventionality of “extraordinary achievement after overcoming extraordinary difficulties” that the intimate public becomes attached to because of their emotional knowledge and personal embodied experience.

Should we stop believing in it, or should we insist “extraordinary achievement” shouldn’t be the prerequisite for recognizing the humanity, dignity, and worth of people who are different from us.

A youth-led uprising in India has stirred hopes of greater solidarity among Indian Dubliners. Late last month, a small group gathered on O'Connell Street to support the "cockroaches" movement that had taken to the streets in their country of birth.

A youth-led uprising in India stirs hopes of greater solidarity among Indian Dubliners

Late last month, a small group gathered on O'Connell Street to support the "cockroaches" movement that had taken to the streets in their country of birth.

dublininquirer.com

A mother dolphin in Western Australia has been carrying the body of her 2-week-old calf through an estuary. Researchers say the behavior is believed to reflect a period of mourning that has been documented in dolphins before the mother eventually lets go to feed and survive.

Scottish Government is #hiring #social #researchers. B2 is our entry level grade, for masters or PhD with an interest in applied social research. 2x 4yr posts initially, but with a reserve list. Apply by 20/08/2026 Pls share to folks! fa-evxn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Social Researcher

Want to help shape Scotland’s Census, informing the decisions that improve public services and capture the story of Scotland for generations to come?

fa-evxn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com

Unusually hot & dry conditions worldwide have fueled a deadly wildfire season, costing lives and destroying communities. “If these infernos don’t bring policymakers to their senses and force necessary changes to grapple with the fossil fueled climate crisis, what will?” writes UCS's Rachel Cleetus:

A World Ablaze: The Climate Future We Feared is Here - Union of Concerned Scientists

Unusually hot, dry conditions across many parts of the world—including in Algeria, Canada, France, Greece, Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, and the western United States—have set the stage for the catastrophic wildfire season underway now. Just over this weekend, rapidly spreading wildfires have exploded around Spokane, Washington, forcing nearly 65,000 people to evacuate thus far. Unrelenting hot dry weather, supercharged by climate change, is contributing to the dangerous conditions causing these fires.

blog.ucs.org

Getting the OfS involved in PhD examination would be an incredible, disatrous and egregious assault on academic independence.

Emma Yeomans@yeomans.bsky.social · yesterday

Calls for the Office for Students to investigate Liverpool John Moores University, after it passed Jason Arday's PhD thesis despite plagiarism and the thesis being 38,000 words over word count. He says received just one supervision in 2.5 years. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

“Here’s a radical thought: what if migration is only a problem to those who want it to be? What if we started seeing the mass movement of people less as an existential threat and more as a simple inevitability of human existence?”

Ceuta was a carnival of anti-migrant content for hateful opportunists on the right – and a lesson for the left | Jonathan Liew

It was framed as a perfect storm because nativists dearly wanted it to be. Looking on, progressives failed to meet the moment too, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

theguardian.com

Oh dear. Predictably, it now seems to be open season on all academics of colour, especially black academics.

The Arday scandal opened the doors to every crank demanding the state defund academia, then list their grievances and pet projects. Denham attacks Diane Abbot, pushes the Boghossian/Lindsay/Pluckrose ‘grievance studies’ hoax, says economics is a science while social science is ‘incomprehensibility’

Certainly in my field (of the humanities) this has already been the result of the imposition/infiltration of a capitalist, industrialist "productivity" model on academic research: contemplation and free inquiry time as see as waste in this model, to the detriment of curiosity and innovation.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

12. Here's the key insight though: as labor-augmenting technologies LLMs make researchers more productive and therefore they *raise the opportunity cost of researcher time*. As a result researchers will have incentives to invest less time in polishing a current project before moving on to a new one.

Very good in @politylk.bsky.social on the struggle for reform to animal welfare laws in Sri Lanka. polity.lk/a-duty-of-ca...

Kasun Kavishka | A ‘Duty of Care’ to Animals: Two Decades of Struggle for Law Reform in Sri Lanka

Kasun Kavishka is an undergraduate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo. | In late April 2026, Sri Lanka welcomed Aloka, an Indian stray dog who walked along with US-based Buddhists monk...

polity.lk

New journal article on working-class women telling stories of economic and social change. Gillian Murray, Janet Greenlees and I recorded interviews with women in deindustrialising Lanarkshire who had diverging narratives of survival 'getting by' and social mobility - 'getting on'.

My suspicion is not at all – legions of professors would have inherited their positions on the basis of class and status – in other words, their “identity characteristics”.

When they talk about appointment not on merit but on “identity characteristics”, isn’t that true of half the upper-class graduates of Eton & Harrow appointed to the faculty over the last several centuries?

Young protesters in India achieved a rare political victory by forcing the resignation of a cabinet minister. Read how India’s Gen Z movement of 'Cockroaches' dented Modi's political image.

How India’s Gen Z movement of 'Cockroaches' dented Modi's political image

Young protesters in India achieved a rare political victory by forcing the resignation of a cabinet minister.

bit.ly

People need to stop saying at least Andy Burnham will stem the rise of fascism even if he's very bad on race and immigration, civil liberties, and higher education. You know how you hollow out institutions to prime them for fascism? Be very bad on race and immigration, civil liberties, and higher ed

I’m continue to seek support for Amir’s terrible situation. His phone’s still broken, so can we please urgently replace it? He needs it to survive. We just had a terrifying moment & I actually shed tears as he played sound of the roaring Israeli gunfire around him fearing they were his last moments.

Chantal James@chantalalive.blacksky.app · 4d ago

Guys you know our friend Amir that @britculpsapp.bsky.social hurt by making fun of when he reached out? His mom & brother are sick. He reaches out to me in heartbreak saying his only phone broke & he can’t get on bluesky for connection. Can we replace his phone? chuffed.org/project/help...

🚨 Cardiff (south wales) based and looking to adopt, please consider custard .He is FIV positive, unchipped and un neutered and needs to be indoors only. He will be PTS if they don't find him a home. Please I had an FIV boy and they are the best! Deets in the GFM : www.gofundme.com/f/help-custa...

Donate to Help Custard Have Hope, organized by Alisia Leeson

Hi everyone, I’ve been looking after this sweet little boy who has been straying in my … Alisia Leeson needs your support for Help Custard Have Hope

gofundme.com

Goodbye and thank you to Betye Saar, a giant and a favorite www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/a...

Betye Saar, Artist Who Upended Black Stereotypes, Dies at 99 (Gift Article)

Working with dolls, family photographs, fabric scraps and other found objects, she became a leading figure in assemblage art.

nytimes.com

I'm calling on Jim O'Callaghan to approve visas for students from Gaza who have been granted scholarships to Irish universities my.uplift.ie/petitions/vi... @sistersofpeace.bsky.social @peace-campaigns.quaker.org.uk @indcatholicnews.bsky.social @afarr.bsky.social @forpeacemaker.bsky.social

Visa for Gaza students

I'm calling on Jim O'Callaghan to approve visas for students from Gaza who have been granted scholarships to Irish universities. Will you add your name to the petition now?

my.uplift.ie

Glastonbury will return in 2027. Rod Liddle, won't

So let me get this straight - in the eyes of gender critical activists, a trans woman using a toilet/changing room, like we do in every liberal democracy in the industrialised world are irredeemable predators, but an (alleged) domestic abuser who is also homophobic and misogynistic is somehow ok?

Libby@captainlibatron.bsky.social · 2d ago

Dear god

Christopher Hitchens said of Jerry Falwell: “If you gave him an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.” So anyway, Rod Liddle is dead.

📢 Only a few weeks left to apply! The application deadline for the IEG Doctoral Fellowships is 15 August 2026. Doctoral researchers from Germany and abroad are invited to apply for a 6–12 month research stay at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz. 👉 More information:

IEG Fellowships for Doctoral Students

bewerbung.ieg-mainz.de

The reason Israel blew up the 900 year old Beaufort Castle in Lebanon is (1) they have to fake their nationalist archaeological ancestry and can't bear any other regional history; (2) they were ignominiously defeated at Beaufort by PLO in their 1980s invasion of Lebanon & want to erase the memory.