James Chalmers
@jameschalmers.bsky.social
Regius Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. Nothing should be inferred from the absence of unnecessary disclaimers on this profile.
Reposted by James Chalmers
The wonderful @scotunipress.bsky.social has some vacancies on the Editorial Board, which I chair - if you care about Open Access scholarship, academic accessibility and not-for-profit academic publishing, come and join us. T&Cs, details and processes 👇
#OpenAccess
#OpenAccess
Looking for a new challenge in 2026?
Join SUP and support not-for-profit academic publishing.
We have three vacancies for editorial board members.
Submit your application by Monday 2 February 2026
https://www.sup.ac.uk/news/editorial-board-vacancies
Join SUP and support not-for-profit academic publishing.
We have three vacancies for editorial board members.
Submit your application by Monday 2 February 2026
https://www.sup.ac.uk/news/editorial-board-vacancies
January 28, 2026 at 4:38 PM
The wonderful @scotunipress.bsky.social has some vacancies on the Editorial Board, which I chair - if you care about Open Access scholarship, academic accessibility and not-for-profit academic publishing, come and join us. T&Cs, details and processes 👇
#OpenAccess
#OpenAccess
Reposted by James Chalmers
NEW: Nobody in Britain is going to see the new Melania movie – I've crunched the data to prove it (FREE TO READ)
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/i-really-d...
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/i-really-d...
Nobody in Britain is going to see the new Melania movie – I've crunched the data to prove it
I really don't care, do u?
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk
January 27, 2026 at 3:15 PM
NEW: Nobody in Britain is going to see the new Melania movie – I've crunched the data to prove it (FREE TO READ)
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/i-really-d...
takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/i-really-d...
Reposted by James Chalmers
My Twitter account had the gold-standard explanation of why WASPI women enrage.
Definitionally they cannot produce a sympathetic case study. Follow along with me:
> The supposed injustice and grounds for their campaigning are that they were not informed, not the change in age itself. So:
Definitionally they cannot produce a sympathetic case study. Follow along with me:
> The supposed injustice and grounds for their campaigning are that they were not informed, not the change in age itself. So:
November 12, 2025 at 4:55 PM
My Twitter account had the gold-standard explanation of why WASPI women enrage.
Definitionally they cannot produce a sympathetic case study. Follow along with me:
> The supposed injustice and grounds for their campaigning are that they were not informed, not the change in age itself. So:
Definitionally they cannot produce a sympathetic case study. Follow along with me:
> The supposed injustice and grounds for their campaigning are that they were not informed, not the change in age itself. So:
What is going on here? If Vue had a policy of showing 99% of BBFC approved films I would be delighted but I do not believe it does. That’s well over 1000 films a year!
![Richards told the Telegraph he had received a considerable number of emails from the public criticising Vue’s decision to screen the film. “I have told everyone that, regardless of how we feel about the movie, if it is BBFC [British Board of Film Classification] approved we look at them and 99% of the time we will show it,” he said. “We do not play judge and jury to censor movies.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kc4iodwrwf3vsopm6lx6xktg/bafkreigtrvji3ytou64f24zs67g4pf5kb7msgvwf7hiy5a4nur5wmape44@jpeg)
January 26, 2026 at 7:48 PM
What is going on here? If Vue had a policy of showing 99% of BBFC approved films I would be delighted but I do not believe it does. That’s well over 1000 films a year!
I do not say this lightly when I tell you, as a proud Scot, that this is the funniest thing Keir Starmer has ever done.
January 26, 2026 at 6:47 PM
I do not say this lightly when I tell you, as a proud Scot, that this is the funniest thing Keir Starmer has ever done.
I have no problem with the idea that Burnham might be better than Starmer but everything about this was stupid: forcing a mayoral by-election; turning the Gorton by-election into a psychodrama (and possibly losing Labour both); implausible claims about wanting to back the government by doing this.
**** Labour’s NEC blocks Andy Burnham from standing in Gorton by-election**^^
January 25, 2026 at 12:02 PM
I have no problem with the idea that Burnham might be better than Starmer but everything about this was stupid: forcing a mayoral by-election; turning the Gorton by-election into a psychodrama (and possibly losing Labour both); implausible claims about wanting to back the government by doing this.
Ok, this is bad if you know what it’s referring to but what on *earth* would you make of that graphic if you didn’t?
Reform UK:
Demonises migrants seeking work as an “invasion”.
Celebrates threat of an actual military invasion of a NATO ally.
Demonises migrants seeking work as an “invasion”.
Celebrates threat of an actual military invasion of a NATO ally.
January 25, 2026 at 11:58 AM
Ok, this is bad if you know what it’s referring to but what on *earth* would you make of that graphic if you didn’t?
Wondering whether glasses with very thin/minimal wire rims will become de rigueur in future years as people try to reassure those around them that they’re not being filmed. (Possibly not; for all that people are rightly worried about these products on here I suspect the wider public may just shrug.)
January 24, 2026 at 12:00 PM
Wondering whether glasses with very thin/minimal wire rims will become de rigueur in future years as people try to reassure those around them that they’re not being filmed. (Possibly not; for all that people are rightly worried about these products on here I suspect the wider public may just shrug.)
Reposted by James Chalmers
During the 2015 Labour leadership contest I did a series of posts where the candidates reacted to the news of the day and given AB is back in the running I'll re-up a couple here.
Cecil The Lion
Cecil The Lion
January 23, 2026 at 11:34 AM
During the 2015 Labour leadership contest I did a series of posts where the candidates reacted to the news of the day and given AB is back in the running I'll re-up a couple here.
Cecil The Lion
Cecil The Lion
This is a fun thread, and I particularly agree with this: I am very sceptical of gifts which are effectively a request that the recipient use their time in a particular way which may not actually be of interest to them.
- Books make for terrible gifts
Easy, this one. When you give someone a book you are implicitly demanding they spend many hours doing something *you* think is interesting (ie reading that book). It is incredibly imposing. Or should they offend you by not reading it?
Recommend books, don't give them
Easy, this one. When you give someone a book you are implicitly demanding they spend many hours doing something *you* think is interesting (ie reading that book). It is incredibly imposing. Or should they offend you by not reading it?
Recommend books, don't give them
January 23, 2026 at 11:26 AM
This is a fun thread, and I particularly agree with this: I am very sceptical of gifts which are effectively a request that the recipient use their time in a particular way which may not actually be of interest to them.
The bit about running 1.5 miles reminds me of this fact I stumbled across yesterday: in investigating the JFK assassination the Warren Commission felt the need explicitly to record that 0.9 miles was the sort of distance that a person, or at least one specific person, could manage to walk.
![The Warren Commission concluded that at approximately 1:15 p.m., Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit drove up in his patrol car alongside Oswald, presumably because Oswald resembled the broadcast description of the man seen by witness Howard Brennan firing shots at Kennedy's motorcade. He encountered Oswald near the corner of East 10th Street and North Patton Avenue.[199][200] This location is about nine-tenths of a mile (1.4 km) southeast of Oswald's rooming house – a distance that the Warren Commission concluded "Oswald could have easily walked".](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kc4iodwrwf3vsopm6lx6xktg/bafkreihpqo22mnunjsszyx24xhybpapho547cpgns7umttsouvcf73xl4q@jpeg)
January 23, 2026 at 10:22 AM
The bit about running 1.5 miles reminds me of this fact I stumbled across yesterday: in investigating the JFK assassination the Warren Commission felt the need explicitly to record that 0.9 miles was the sort of distance that a person, or at least one specific person, could manage to walk.
Reposted by James Chalmers
and once again: you can pre order here www.amazon.co.uk/No-Second-Ch...
January 22, 2026 at 2:35 PM
and once again: you can pre order here www.amazon.co.uk/No-Second-Ch...
Just came across proceedings in the Scottish Parliament years ago where an MSP felt the need to tell colleagues that “Even Professor Chalmers would accept that taking an action that ends another person’s life is already illegal”, as if trying to reassure colleagues about my planned reign of terror.
January 22, 2026 at 11:31 AM
Just came across proceedings in the Scottish Parliament years ago where an MSP felt the need to tell colleagues that “Even Professor Chalmers would accept that taking an action that ends another person’s life is already illegal”, as if trying to reassure colleagues about my planned reign of terror.
One reason for not allowing world leaders to publish statements directly on their own social media sites is that a civil servant might have discreetly edited out “consummated” here.
January 21, 2026 at 7:40 PM
One reason for not allowing world leaders to publish statements directly on their own social media sites is that a civil servant might have discreetly edited out “consummated” here.
He’s clearly just not taking proper advantage of Iceland if he thinks that.
January 21, 2026 at 6:46 PM
He’s clearly just not taking proper advantage of Iceland if he thinks that.
“We obviously want to ask him about Greenland” is the logical journalistic approach but: you’re not going to learn anything and you may just provoke him into a 300% tariff on some random product, so I wonder whether there’s a case for “we’re just going to ask him what his favourite breed of dog is”.
January 20, 2026 at 7:05 PM
“We obviously want to ask him about Greenland” is the logical journalistic approach but: you’re not going to learn anything and you may just provoke him into a 300% tariff on some random product, so I wonder whether there’s a case for “we’re just going to ask him what his favourite breed of dog is”.
Reposted by James Chalmers
Letter in Times today
January 20, 2026 at 11:54 AM
Letter in Times today
Is this the approach they took to winning the 2024 election?
Susanna Reid asks Darren Jones what British companies who export to the US should do to prepare for a possible increase in tariffs.
Darren Jones replies: "you shouldn't prepare for a hypothetical"
Darren Jones replies: "you shouldn't prepare for a hypothetical"
January 20, 2026 at 11:13 AM
Is this the approach they took to winning the 2024 election?
One blackly comic aspect of this is that the literal President of the United States is trying to prove how important he is by showing that world leaders send him text messages and getting a small country he doesn’t respect to give him a shiny medal. It’s ok! You’re the President! That’s a big deal!
BREAKING
President Trump has posted what appears to be a private message from President Macron of France where Macron says:
“I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”
President Trump has posted what appears to be a private message from President Macron of France where Macron says:
“I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”
January 20, 2026 at 9:43 AM
One blackly comic aspect of this is that the literal President of the United States is trying to prove how important he is by showing that world leaders send him text messages and getting a small country he doesn’t respect to give him a shiny medal. It’s ok! You’re the President! That’s a big deal!
Reposted by James Chalmers
right let’s see what’s happening on bl— oh lord
January 19, 2026 at 6:19 PM
right let’s see what’s happening on bl— oh lord
“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.”
January 19, 2026 at 6:36 PM
“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.”
Sometimes I think people can be quick to call for the EU/UK to do X without thinking about the costs (not to say we shouldn’t but you should recognise why politicians are cautious), and then I realise I have no idea what the costs of actions actually *are* because this whole situation is so mad.
A serious deterioration in US-UK relations will be a cost of living issue. This is not bizarre at all.
Starmer framing Greenland as a Costa Livin issue. Rail fares! The price of groceries! Bizarre segue.
January 19, 2026 at 9:55 AM
Sometimes I think people can be quick to call for the EU/UK to do X without thinking about the costs (not to say we shouldn’t but you should recognise why politicians are cautious), and then I realise I have no idea what the costs of actions actually *are* because this whole situation is so mad.
Some of this is welcome but the general approach of members of Congress is as frustrating as ever: “this is a terrible idea about which I am very concerned, but I don’t want to rush headlong into anything radical like voting against it”.
January 18, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Some of this is welcome but the general approach of members of Congress is as frustrating as ever: “this is a terrible idea about which I am very concerned, but I don’t want to rush headlong into anything radical like voting against it”.
Reposted by James Chalmers
Nine years ago a Twitter user was sending poetry to Sadiq Khan about London’s many cultural identities. A decade on, Reform UK’s mayoral candidate doesn’t dispute it was her old account - so what’s changed?
Our profile of Laila Cunningham: www.londoncentric.media/p/laila-cunn...
Our profile of Laila Cunningham: www.londoncentric.media/p/laila-cunn...
January 18, 2026 at 7:32 AM
Nine years ago a Twitter user was sending poetry to Sadiq Khan about London’s many cultural identities. A decade on, Reform UK’s mayoral candidate doesn’t dispute it was her old account - so what’s changed?
Our profile of Laila Cunningham: www.londoncentric.media/p/laila-cunn...
Our profile of Laila Cunningham: www.londoncentric.media/p/laila-cunn...
Presumably a decent chunk of people will use this feature out of curiosity because it sounds so mad, wind up ordering pretty much the same thing they would have ordered anyway, and then someone will be able to say “our AI feature sold XXX pizzas!” omitting the words “that we would have sold anyway”.
at last we will be free from the backbreaking drudgery of ordering pizza from a menu and even counting how many people the pizza is for www.theverge.com/tech/863365/...
January 17, 2026 at 12:21 PM
Presumably a decent chunk of people will use this feature out of curiosity because it sounds so mad, wind up ordering pretty much the same thing they would have ordered anyway, and then someone will be able to say “our AI feature sold XXX pizzas!” omitting the words “that we would have sold anyway”.