Well this is interesting! Some needs to do an analysis of names with the steepest social gradient

Owen Boswarva@owenboswarva.bsky.social · last wk.

Baby names by National Statistics Socio-economic Classification, England and Wales, births registered in 2025 www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... ad hoc ONS release of counts of baby names for boys and girls in seven NS-SEC Analytic Classes #babynames #opendata

The day I will pay attention to politicians guffing about "parity of esteem" is the day one of their children goes to an FE college.

New books on the to read pile - some of which I’m overdue catching up on! Excited to read @suzannerblack.bsky.social, @sjartt.bsky.social, @shannonvallor.bsky.social, @ruha9.bsky.social, Shoshana Zuboff, and the new edition of @drdaveobrien.bsky.social, @orianbrook.bsky.social & Mark Taylor’s books!

‘Homer’s original’ 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I will never understand why anyone ever mistook Musk for a genius. The man has the intellect of a towel rack.

Ok, talking about class in vox pops is now banned until it starts making any sense.

Week 2 of the Couch to 5k for reading is here! open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...

reading instead of scrolling will make you happier

'couch to 5k' for reading, week 2: some lovely readers have made us *trackers*! and: how has it gone?! how are you enjoying it?

open.substack.com

No.10 North is a good example of a symbol: it works literally and figuratively at once. As I wrote last week: "Perhaps Burnham the English Lit graduate grasps that politics needs to be conducted in metaphors and symbols as well as metrics & stats." www.newstatesman.com/comment/2026...

Jane Green@profjanegreen.bsky.social · last mo.

Number 10 North is strategic, policy-wise, but I think it will probably be more important for its ‘symbolic politics’. Making voters in the north feel more represented because of a tangible, high profile political symbol. These symbols emphasised by @ffaucher.bsky.social.

I'm stepping down to a new role in the autumn to try to get a bit more "life" in the "work - life balance" thing, so there's a vacancy to do my job: overseeing the research and policy output of RF. What a fab job for someone.

Ruth Curtice@ruthcurtice.bsky.social · last mo.

Lots of jobs changing at the moment - but let's focus on the most important. I am recruiting for a new partner in crime. Take a look, and get in touch if you want to help us deliver higher living standards across the UK, with an incredible team. www.resolutionfoundation.org/director/

It's rare that a newspaper says this out loud.

Liz Tamny@etamny.bsky.social · last mo.

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/04/m...

My main worry is that we’re banning social media for kids but not AI. So you can’t speak to real people online anymore, kids, but you sure can talk to your fake artificial friend who weirdly loves to talk about taking your own life!

I love giving talks and standing up and talking off the cuff from my own brain (usually with a few planned bullet points). I cant imagine anything worse than reading out a talk written for you by AI. I did wonder during covid if my skillset was redundant, if we'd ever have audiences again. We do!

Crystal Fleming クリスタル@alwaystheself.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +

90% of MPs went to University compared to 19% of the working age population. It is real time that MPs started acknowledging the role that Education has played in their career success. www.suttontrust.com/our-research...

Parliamentary Privilege 2024 - The Sutton Trust

What are the educational backgrounds of the new MPs elected to the House of Commons?

suttontrust.com

Something's up with Google Scholar - related to ChatGPT? The following article has recently been added to my profile but it .. doesn't exist. Not slightly wrong, or wrong authorship, the entire article is made up by GS says it has 80 citations..

Job! Creative Manchester Research Associate (Maternity Leave Cover) www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRV865/c...

Creative Manchester Research Associate (Maternity Leave Cover) at The University of Manchester

Apply for the Creative Manchester Research Associate (Maternity Leave Cover) role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

jobs.ac.uk

Funding! An amazing UKRI Policy Fellowship at Department for Culture, Media and Sport: Freelance careers in the creative industries fellowship. Info here www.ukri.org/wp-content/u... and the general scheme to apply is here www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

Reform UK civil service plan ‘would sack more planning officers than exist’

Reform UK civil service plan ‘would sack more planning officers than exist’

Analysis of party’s proposed cuts also suggests it would get rid of two-thirds of psychologists who support prison staff A Reform UK plan to cut the size of the civil service would involve sacking more planning officers than exist and getting rid of at least two-thirds of the psychologists who support prison officers’ welfare, it has emerged. The policy paper, led by the Reform MP Danny Kruger and published in December, promises to save more than £5bn a year by cutting civil service roles, with the full-time-equivalent (FTE) headcount falling by 13%. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

Despite the headline, this is the third paragraph in this article: “There is no consensus among the broader scientific community that screen time overall is harmful to children.” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Social media as bad for young people as smoking, top doctors say

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges says doctors should routinely check on screen time and social media use when seeing younger patients.

bbc.co.uk

Not sure which is worse: "He later sought to contextualise the remarks via LinkedIn..."

Brynley Heaven@brynleyheaven.bsky.social · 2mo ago

When I described our staff as scum, what I really meant was I respect their skills, loyalty and, above all, their dispensability www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Struggling today. Everything seems so broken. Everyone is over capacity, miserable. It was confirmed today that our contracted research time at @edinburghuni.bsky.social is being cut because we can get a sabbatical. But we are not guaranteed sabbaticals. So they squeeze staff even more. Well done. 😿

Crush Lemon

ALT: Crush Lemon

static.klipy.com

I think it's worth people knowing that Enfield has a Labour MP and a Conservative councillor who are *both* called Bambos Charalambous.

👌

anil oza@aniloza.bsky.social · 3mo ago

wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖

Live webinar: What just happened?📢📊📝 Join us on Monday to reflect on the election results and what happens next. 🗓️ 11 May, 1pm - 2pm With @kezdugdale.bsky.social, @profnicolamcewen.bsky.social @markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social and @cjcarman.bsky.social 🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/what-just-...

Huge thanks to Bespoken Media - Podcasts Scotland for recording these. This is the final instalment. All podcasts were made possible by funding from the Scottish Council on Global Affairs. Thanks for listening. workersobservatory.org/news/new-pod...

New podcast exploring policies to support gig and migrant workers

Gig Workers' Guide to the Scottish Election will take listeners through five policies to transform gig work in Scotland.

workersobservatory.org

AI produces MORE editorial labor, not less. “[To weed out slop] the journal doubled its deputy editors from 6 to 11 & nearly doubled its sr editors from roughly 30 to 60. All of this is volunteer labor, unpaid academics donating time to maintain scientific quality.“ www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

AI Slop Is Flooding Academic Journals. A Top Journal Measured It

A top management journal measured AI’s impact on submissions and reviews. Submissions rose 42%, writing quality declined and AI reviews proved uninformative to editors.

forbes.com

"The Department of Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology seeks to appoint one permanent Lecturer post with expertise relevant to criminology and/or critical social policy to join our department in the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool." www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRJ047/l...

Lecturer – Grade 7/8 at University of Liverpool

Discover an exciting academic career path as a Lecturer – Grade 7/8 at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

jobs.ac.uk

It's so irritating that for all the money we're spending cosplaying as Germany we could be having a Higher Education boom as we scoop up all the researchers and students that the Americans don't want any more. But fewer chances for politicians to pose in hard hats I guess

Carsten Timmermann@ctimmermann.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This puts it in perspective: the importance of higher education for the economy of a place like Manchester.

It turns out that prospective students don’t want to attend an institution that has removed loads of talented educators, closed lots of significant departments and generally treated its staff terribly.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3mo ago

'The south-east London university, known for its teaching of the creative arts, has announced plans to cut a further £22 million from its budget, the third major restructure since 2019.' Student numbers have dropped by more than 25% in the past 5 years. Great work external consultants! 1/2

Priceless post from the official White House social media

Creative PEC's flagship State of the Nations research series has been shortlisted for the @artsprofessional.co.uk Awards, in the category Excellent Research or Policy Intervention. View the full shortlist: shorturl.at/mbN7x And find out more about the State of the Nations series: shorturl.at/lnOeq