With each passing week the impact of the summer heatwaves on deaths becomes clearer. The chart shows deaths occurring in each week of 2025 and 2026 in dark blue. I've added an estimate of deaths which have not yet been registered in lighter blue, and marked heatwave weeks with red borders. 1/4

Watched @nebriefing.bsky.social at Llandaff Cathedral last night. The clear presentation of evidence, reasons to be hopeful and opportunity to discuss how to respond with my community was genuinely inspiring. If you can, find a screening (or screen it yourself!). www.nebriefing.org/screening-map

National Emergency Briefing

Find a People's Emergency Briefing screening near you, or spot a gap that you can fill by hosting a screening.

nebriefing.org

Plug-in solar panels are coming to the UK from August 27th! It's been in the pipeline for a while & it's already common in Germany. But it's BRILLIANT because it opens up these technologies to renters & ppl w/o their own roof. Plugs into a normal socket & supplies ~ 10-20% of household needs. ☀️🎉

UK households free to install plug-in balcony solar panels from end of August

Law change means renters and flat owners may be able to cut bills as energy costs soar amid Iran war

theguardian.com

💭 Why is there a divide between health and social care? We explore what the health and social care interface looks like in practice, highlighting the experiences of people stuck in the ‘no man’s land’ of where the two sectors meet. Read the full long read here: https://bit.ly/4ewYeSj

POV: you fell asleep reading philosophy and your brain decided to make a group chat out of it. What a fever dream. The dead humanist philosophers WhatsApp group is relentless... Sisyphean, if you will.

Woke up in West Cardiff thinking the house was on fire, but the smoke is coming from a wildfire more than 30 miles away. Find myself thinking about the Giddens’ paradox a lot at the moment.

Waking in Cardiff to the same smell of smoke as yesterday and realising it's from the wildfires near Blaenavon, 30 miles away. Just another day on a planet in crisis.

Obviously this is excellent, detailed, and in many ways pretty terrifying - essential reading for anyone with even a passing concern for literature, thought, learning etc. I would only add that there is an even broader crisis here around attention. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

The End of Reading Is Here

Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.

theatlantic.com

In case you were wondering (from when David Davis quit to fight a byelection in his own seat, 2008) www.theguardian.com/politics/200...

David Davis: Other MPs who resigned to fight byelections

David Davis's decision to resign as an MP and fight again for his own seat in a byelection is unusual, but not unprecedented

theguardian.com

Here’s that question answered. Not impossible we end up with two by-elections in Clacton within a year. One now, then another following Parliamentary sanction triggering a recall petition bsky.app/profile/ruth...

Ruth Fox@ruthfox.bsky.social · 4w ago

🧵 Amid all the speculation about Nigel Farage's 2pm statement, it's worth noting paragraph 40 of the Procedural Protocol to the MPs' Code of Conduct. If he announces he's resigning and seeking a by-election, that would not automatically end the investigation into whether he breached the Code in...

"Women have always had children without any help" The NHS was founded after WW2 See the stark difference Before WW2 - over 400 deaths per 100,000 In the 2000's - around 9 deaths per 100,000

Dr Kat Day (she/her) 🌖@chronicleflask.katday.com · 2y ago

This graph is astonishing. The people that bang on about “natural birth” and “women have been doing this forever without help” need to be forced to stare at this until their eyes water.

'Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds' 🤯 🐔 A trend that's fuelling ecological destruction from the Amazon (rainforests cut down to grow soy feed for chickens) to the River Wye (full of chicken shit): www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds

UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising

theguardian.com

Ok this is a truly great tweet

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 New Blog 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 A short piece on how the new Senedd voting system worked! How many votes did it take to win a seat? Was it proportional? Who benefitted? Where did parties win support? And what would it take to win one more seat? If you're interested: blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal... 🧵👇

All change! The 2026 Senedd Election

Showcasing current research, comments and analysis on the law, politics, history, culture, government and political economy of Wales from the Wales Governance Centre.

blogs.cardiff.ac.uk

What's happening is we're moving to a European party system but without PR.

Helene von Bismarck@helenebismarck.bsky.social · 3mo ago

To anyone emphasizing the fragmentation of Britain’s politics and the division of the country, I would point out that 1) this is true 2) it is also entirely consistent with many EU countries. Polarisation and disunity and the rise of populism (in various costumes) are not just a British phenomenon.

I’ve long supported PR but the system for this Senedd election feels like it hollowed out local democracy and representation. From 40 to 16 constituencies severs the local link. The list system encourages blind party allegiance. Wads of generic leaflets but not one person knocked on our door.

Fascinating read, with a political side-note: once again we see a regulator falling apart due to funding cuts in the 2010s, and the government not paying attention after 2016 because the focus is elsewhere.

Hettie O’Brien@hettieobrien.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I’m thrilled that the Guardian Saturday magazine has excerpted one of my favourite chapters from THE ASSET CLASS this weekend: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

New poll in Wales, this time with constituency level estimates from YouGov(🥳). Polling in Wales has been pretty noisy over the last 24 months with some big house effects, but the general vote intention trend is clear - May 2026 is a two-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform

Wales Governance Centre | Canolfan Llywodraethiant Cymru@walesgovernance.bsky.social · 4mo ago

“Plaid Cymru remain in the strongest position - Reform faces far greater constraints, yet there should be no mistake: winning a third of seats would represent a remarkable result.” - @jaclarner.bsky.social #Senedd26 #Wales #Cymru www.itv.com/news/wales/2...

Imagine trust in polling being at an all time low and then doing “polls” where a quarter of respondents are AI agents hallucinating answers based on exit polling.

Polling USA@usapolling.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Presidential Polling: 🔵 Newsom: 46% 🔴 Vance: 36% 🔵 Newsom: 47% 🔴 Rubio: 36% 🔵 Newsom: 43% 🔴 Carlson: 26% TPSI / March 20, 2026

Healthcare assistants play an important, often overlooked role in community pall & end of life care. This study (brilliantly led by @kpatynowska.bsky.social) explores what affects their wellbeing and intention to leave - and vitally, how orgs can address this. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

‘You’re a human being and not a robot that goes out to work’: A qualitative study exploring factors impacting on wellbeing and intention to leave among lone working healthcare assistants providing pal...

Background: Healthcare assistants (paid nursing support workers without professional qualifications) provide care for terminally ill patients but remain underst...

journals.sagepub.com

Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:

"If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?" Education workers reveal a growing crisis on campus and off

AI Killed My Job: Educators.

bloodinthemachine.com

Bold ambitions in the new Neighbourhood Health Framework for England. Including a ‘fundamental reimagining of roles and skills’ in the workforce over the next 10 years www.gov.uk/government/publications/neighbourhood-health-framework/neighbourhood-health-framework

Neighbourhood health framework

gov.uk

#ntsummit The divide between what is counted as "Health" or "Social Care" is defined by professionals and policy makers but is not apparent to or understood by the general public who see it as a continuum based on need, not on who pays, how it is paid for, which organisation is responsible

Health and social care is a major priority for the Welsh public ahead of the Senedd election - second only to cost of living. It’s especially a priority for older voters. Fascinating that the NHS doesn’t even get a nod in Reform’s core pledges for Wales… www.reformparty.uk/welsh-manife...

Does anyone think that this - effectively describing people who came here at *our* invitation to work in care homes as would-be parasites on the welfare state - is what she meant?

PoliticsHome@politicshome.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Labour chair Anna Turley has privately warned her party it must tackle immigration – but only “in a way that stays true to our values” In remarks to campaigners following the Gorton & Denton by-election, obtained by PolHome, she said her party must find "the right language" to combat the Greens

Please share. All welcome 💜 #RunningPunks #Cardiff @senedd.wales

This is good. Working in the open feels like a crucial easy win. On the NHS, Wales publishes far less data & fewer programme updates than England. Unclear why. Openness isn’t just good for accountability. It’s a key innovation driver - ask any researcher or policy analyst keen to get hold of it!

Transform Wales@transform.wales · 6mo ago

The FM told @willhaycardiff.bsky.social she's frustrated with the pace of digital transformation. We are too. The problem is systemic - we have an environment where it is easier to talk about change than to actually do it. Read our response, and how to fix it.

Arguably more significant than defections, internal party politics and the Beckhams… In 2024 there were around 3,600 suspected cases of measles. We need to challenge the nonsense spread by anti vaxxers and ensure children are protected. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... news.sky.com/story/uk-los...

UK loses measles elimination status, warns WHO

Vaccination rates in 2024-25 among five-year-olds who had received both MMR jabs hit the lowest level in 15 years.

news.sky.com

New post just out: "On the edge" On my unexpected week in hospital and five things I learnt about the state of the NHS. (Free to read) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/o...

On the edge

My week in the NHS

open.substack.com

The face of a dog who was so happy to see us when we got back from holiday that he sprained his tail from wagging too much. Poor boy.