Charlotte Lydia Riley
@lottelydia.bsky.social
Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin 2023)/An Alternative History of the British Empire (HUP 2024). Is Free Speech Under Threat? (2024).
https://linktr.ee/charlottelydiariley
repped by Carrie Plitt @FBA
views are all mine 💫
https://linktr.ee/charlottelydiariley
repped by Carrie Plitt @FBA
views are all mine 💫
Pinned
We’re thrilled to celebrate our colleague @lottelydia.bsky.social, whose book Imperial Island (Harvard University Press, 2024) has just been awarded the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize by the American Historical Association! This prestigious award acknowledges Charlotte’s thought-provoking work.
American Historical Association Announces 2025 Prize Winners – AHA
The American Historical Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2025 prizes.
www.historians.org
🥳
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
The Secretary of Defense, ladies and gentlemen
November 25, 2025 at 1:23 PM
The Secretary of Defense, ladies and gentlemen
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
Jimmy Cliff was touring the clubs of Wolverhampton in the year Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech. 50 years later artists Anand Chhabra, Jagdish Patel and Vanley Burke responded with the exhibition Many Rivers to Cross, the title of Cliff's 1969 track. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9Q...
Many rivers to cross - Jimmy Cliff
YouTube video by TheSunAnge
www.youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Jimmy Cliff was touring the clubs of Wolverhampton in the year Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech. 50 years later artists Anand Chhabra, Jagdish Patel and Vanley Burke responded with the exhibition Many Rivers to Cross, the title of Cliff's 1969 track. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9Q...
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
More than 2,000 children who have been trafficked or who arrived in the UK to claim asylum disappeared from social services’ care last year.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
More than 2,000 trafficked children and lone child asylum seekers missing from UK councils’ care
Charities say vulnerable young people are being failed by local authorities, the police and central government
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
More than 2,000 children who have been trafficked or who arrived in the UK to claim asylum disappeared from social services’ care last year.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
Or when the Mail published the story about his dad, a Jewish refugee who served in the Royal Navy during WW2, entitled ‘The Man Who Hated Britain’.
You know the bacon sandwich thing. There was a weird sort of antisemitic subtext to that right?
Miliband as next PM continues to be really under-priced
November 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Or when the Mail published the story about his dad, a Jewish refugee who served in the Royal Navy during WW2, entitled ‘The Man Who Hated Britain’.
The second problem with this — after the fact that it will bankrupt a bunch of institutions — is that the government doesn’t seem to know if it wants to a) raise lots of money from intentional students or b) discourage universities from relying on international students. You can’t have both!!
These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
November 24, 2025 at 11:06 AM
The second problem with this — after the fact that it will bankrupt a bunch of institutions — is that the government doesn’t seem to know if it wants to a) raise lots of money from intentional students or b) discourage universities from relying on international students. You can’t have both!!
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
University managers are already declaring that they can't have the optics of pushing this levy onto international fees (would be nice if they thought about the students themselves but 🤷) and that they will seek the money in operational costs.
ie: government is further cutting into what makes unis.
ie: government is further cutting into what makes unis.
These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
November 24, 2025 at 10:52 AM
University managers are already declaring that they can't have the optics of pushing this levy onto international fees (would be nice if they thought about the students themselves but 🤷) and that they will seek the money in operational costs.
ie: government is further cutting into what makes unis.
ie: government is further cutting into what makes unis.
Great to read this table, the week after my institution announces a voluntary severance programme, to see the government introducing a policy that will cost us an extra *£13 million*
These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
November 24, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Great to read this table, the week after my institution announces a voluntary severance programme, to see the government introducing a policy that will cost us an extra *£13 million*
“Eton boys cheered Farage’s “worst comments on migrants and Covid” and subjected visiting girls to “racial slurs” & “misogynistic comments”…The college said it had apologised “unreservedly” for the “totally unacceptable” behaviour, but it is difficult to understand what other outcome they expected.”
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... - my new article, if of interest please share.
I endured an English public school. But that’s not the only reason I’m unsurprised about the Farage allegations |
Let’s put aside the schooldays accusations and look, instead, at the Reform leader’s path since then. I think a pretty clear picture of the man emerges, says author and podcaster Musa Okwonga
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:45 AM
“Eton boys cheered Farage’s “worst comments on migrants and Covid” and subjected visiting girls to “racial slurs” & “misogynistic comments”…The college said it had apologised “unreservedly” for the “totally unacceptable” behaviour, but it is difficult to understand what other outcome they expected.”
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
The Royal Historical Society has published a very helpful guide to its various membership categories, including the Fellowship. If you're engaged in History study, research or teaching (including in public history, journalism & GLAM) & keen to support the discipline, do have a look. #Skystorians
Joining the Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society: a brief guide if you’re considering an application | Historical Transactions
blog.royalhistsoc.org
November 24, 2025 at 10:07 AM
The Royal Historical Society has published a very helpful guide to its various membership categories, including the Fellowship. If you're engaged in History study, research or teaching (including in public history, journalism & GLAM) & keen to support the discipline, do have a look. #Skystorians
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
University managers were already saying that if the levy comes through, they can’t put the cost onto international students because it’s bad optics (YOU WOULD THINK THEY’D BE CONCERNED BY THE BAD MORALS OF IT), and that they will cut in operational costs and staff costs.
Thanks, Rachel.
Thanks, Rachel.
universities got a tiny fee rise that was immediately wiped out by the national insurance raises. they used international student fees to subsidise capped domestic fees and now that’s going to be taken away too. universities are going to collapse and thousands of jobs will go with each collapse.
November 23, 2025 at 11:12 PM
University managers were already saying that if the levy comes through, they can’t put the cost onto international students because it’s bad optics (YOU WOULD THINK THEY’D BE CONCERNED BY THE BAD MORALS OF IT), and that they will cut in operational costs and staff costs.
Thanks, Rachel.
Thanks, Rachel.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
the thing that scares me about Labour HE policy is that because I work in the sector I can see how absolutely insane it is, which makes me wonder just how terrible their policies are in all the other sectors I’m in less of a position to engage with critically out of lack of knowledge.
November 23, 2025 at 11:08 PM
the thing that scares me about Labour HE policy is that because I work in the sector I can see how absolutely insane it is, which makes me wonder just how terrible their policies are in all the other sectors I’m in less of a position to engage with critically out of lack of knowledge.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
Alongside mooted restrictions on salary sacrifice - which universities make a lot of use of to pay for pensions - this is not shaping up to be a great budget for a sector already mired in cutbacks and redundancies.
i: Reeves to unveil £600m raid on foreign student
university fees #TomorrowsPapersToday
university fees #TomorrowsPapersToday
November 23, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Alongside mooted restrictions on salary sacrifice - which universities make a lot of use of to pay for pensions - this is not shaping up to be a great budget for a sector already mired in cutbacks and redundancies.
*pinches bridge of nose* Rachel explain to me again how the university funding model works
i: Reeves to unveil £600m raid on foreign student
university fees #TomorrowsPapersToday
university fees #TomorrowsPapersToday
November 23, 2025 at 10:59 PM
*pinches bridge of nose* Rachel explain to me again how the university funding model works
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
To add to this - it's not like the public is being well served by broadcast news moving at the pace of 24 hour scrolling and the politically obsessed - it just means every election large numbers of people end up googling 'what is austerity?' 'What is brownfield?' etc. etc.
This is bizarre. Like the editor of the guardian or mail or any other paper complaining repeatedly about the front page lead they decided to run with.
Very good example of what's wrong with broadcast news - they've given up deciding for themselves what is or isn't news and what the priorities are
Very good example of what's wrong with broadcast news - they've given up deciding for themselves what is or isn't news and what the priorities are
It’s a sign of how insane the news cycle is these days that this historic failure of government policy got just one day of news coverage this week.
Not saying that’s right or wrong, but it’s astonishing how quickly the agenda moves on these days.
Not saying that’s right or wrong, but it’s astonishing how quickly the agenda moves on these days.
November 23, 2025 at 12:33 PM
To add to this - it's not like the public is being well served by broadcast news moving at the pace of 24 hour scrolling and the politically obsessed - it just means every election large numbers of people end up googling 'what is austerity?' 'What is brownfield?' etc. etc.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
Good morning to my posh friends who order those veggie boxes! Here’s something to do with cabbage if you‘re stuck for ideas:
Used to hate cabbage as a child because we used to eat it ALL THE TIME but now one of my favourite foods. Cooking it in same way my mum (and countless other Bangladeshi mums) cooked it.
November 23, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Good morning to my posh friends who order those veggie boxes! Here’s something to do with cabbage if you‘re stuck for ideas:
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
'It is notable that in the last Research Excellence Framework exercise the Department of American Studies at Nottingham was ranked third in the Area Studies unit of assessment and was one of the top-performing units across the whole of the University of Nottingham.' 1/2
RED ALERT: the University of Nottingham is threatening to close its Department of American Studies, putting all staff at risk of redundancy, and ending any American specialist knowledge in the Faculty of Arts.
Sign the petition here to save jobs:
www.change.org/p/save-ameri...
Sign the petition here to save jobs:
www.change.org/p/save-ameri...
Sign the Petition
SAVE AMERICAN STUDIES TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
www.change.org
November 23, 2025 at 1:38 PM
'It is notable that in the last Research Excellence Framework exercise the Department of American Studies at Nottingham was ranked third in the Area Studies unit of assessment and was one of the top-performing units across the whole of the University of Nottingham.' 1/2
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
"Reform would be worse" is both entirely correct and entirely irrelevant until polling day 2029. What matters right now is that Labour's approach is morally repugnant on its own terms, *and is empowering Reform*. As things stand today, its not Labour or Reform. Its Labour *then* Reform.
While it feels like I'm repeatedly slamming my head against a brick wall repeating this massively simple concept. Saying "Reform would be worse" doesn't make what Labour is doing better. Labour is now the most anti-immigration, anti-any marginalised group, government we have seen in decades. 1/
Very long thread: As with many of Labour's anti-immigration policies, this isn't new. British police have been stationed in other countries for this purpose for a long time
It does however show how Labour is pushing more on anti-immigration than previous governments. 1/
www.lbc.co.uk/article/shab...
It does however show how Labour is pushing more on anti-immigration than previous governments. 1/
www.lbc.co.uk/article/shab...
November 22, 2025 at 10:03 AM
"Reform would be worse" is both entirely correct and entirely irrelevant until polling day 2029. What matters right now is that Labour's approach is morally repugnant on its own terms, *and is empowering Reform*. As things stand today, its not Labour or Reform. Its Labour *then* Reform.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
The Artist's Sister in Law in a Striped Dress, 1917
https://botfrens.com/collections/88/contents/25953
https://botfrens.com/collections/88/contents/25953
November 21, 2025 at 3:31 AM
The Artist's Sister in Law in a Striped Dress, 1917
https://botfrens.com/collections/88/contents/25953
https://botfrens.com/collections/88/contents/25953
I can’t bring myself to read this, but one day I hope there is as much time and energy devoted to the problem of the online radicalisation of vulnerable pregnant people and parents, as there is to the online radicalisation of young white men.
This might be one of the most disturbing pieces I’ve ever read. Staggering investigative work from Sirin Kale and Lucy Osbourne www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors
www.theguardian.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I can’t bring myself to read this, but one day I hope there is as much time and energy devoted to the problem of the online radicalisation of vulnerable pregnant people and parents, as there is to the online radicalisation of young white men.
the “ban on gender selection” has always been objectionable and unworkable anyway. sorry but either pregnant people have a right to abortion or they do not. you don’t get to decide why someone might choose to terminate a pregnancy, nor do they have to tell anyone the “real” reason.
Good people of Bluesky, I know you will be as shocked, confused and discombobulated as I am to see a “gender critical” parroting religious right, anti-abortion talking points. I am shooketh I tell you!
WHY DID NOBODY WARN US?
Narrator: trans people & allies have been warning us for years…
WHY DID NOBODY WARN US?
Narrator: trans people & allies have been warning us for years…
November 20, 2025 at 10:37 PM
the “ban on gender selection” has always been objectionable and unworkable anyway. sorry but either pregnant people have a right to abortion or they do not. you don’t get to decide why someone might choose to terminate a pregnancy, nor do they have to tell anyone the “real” reason.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
There is something intensely bleak about students using gAI in an assignment asking them to respond to a text about enslaved people--so sad.
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
November 20, 2025 at 9:03 PM
There is something intensely bleak about students using gAI in an assignment asking them to respond to a text about enslaved people--so sad.
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
Ok but this is totally something Charlotte Church would do
Just realised this is referring to a church in North Carolina and not the Welsh singer
November 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Ok but this is totally something Charlotte Church would do
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
The Valley Girl’s prayer
make me ready, Lord, for whatever
November 20, 2025 at 8:37 AM
The Valley Girl’s prayer
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
The whole problem with current Labour is encapsulated right here in this paragraph. One hand tries to ameliorate child poverty while the other hand makes it worse.
Some of us think immigrants and their children count. That they, too, are people. Some of us don’t.
Some of us think immigrants and their children count. That they, too, are people. Some of us don’t.
November 20, 2025 at 8:44 AM
The whole problem with current Labour is encapsulated right here in this paragraph. One hand tries to ameliorate child poverty while the other hand makes it worse.
Some of us think immigrants and their children count. That they, too, are people. Some of us don’t.
Some of us think immigrants and their children count. That they, too, are people. Some of us don’t.
Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley
I find these cash-grab pastiches particularly pointless in the case of Wodehouse. He wrote 71 novels and 200+ short stories! There's almost certainly some Wodehouse you haven't read yet!
Jeeves Again review – new Jeeves and Wooster stories by celebrity fans
Jeeves Again review – new Jeeves and Wooster stories by celebrity fans
This collection of new short stories about Bertie and his valet pays homage to the genius of PG Wodehouse – just in time for Christmas
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 8:36 AM
I find these cash-grab pastiches particularly pointless in the case of Wodehouse. He wrote 71 novels and 200+ short stories! There's almost certainly some Wodehouse you haven't read yet!