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Charlotte Lydia Riley

@lottelydia.bsky.social

25K followers 1.2K following 5.3K posts

Historian. Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin, 2023). Is Free Speech Under Threat? (2024). Work stuff here: https://linktr.ee/charlottelydiariley repped by Carrie Plitt @ FBA pronouns are she/her and views are my own 💫

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · Sep 1

anyway if you want to find out more about empire, migration and British culture, BUY MY BOOK

Imperial Island

Imperial Island shows how empire, its disintegration and its ever-present aftermath have profoundly shaped the British people, their culture, society and politics, throughout the last seventy years. ...

www.penguin.co.uk

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 4m

Am also renewing my fury for people who use the wide gates when they don’t need them. At least the lift is laziness. What possible benefit does someone derive from making me wait to exit the station?!

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 6m

Toddler demands have nothing on pop star riders. My toddler just demanded that I go through the alphabet cereal to serve him a bowl comprising only the letters from his name.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 10h

I agree: went there for a work thing several years ago and felt like I was comfortable in the city almost on my first jet lag stroll? I’ve spent a lot of time in the US and it’s always taken much longer to warm up to a city.

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Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 18h

By me this week - the happiest thing I've got to report of late, with a glorious trip over the summer to Montreal

"Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport."

www.economist.com/internationa...

Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport

Pedal power is booming, spinning up a new culture war

www.economist.com

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 13h

as someone born in 1985 — the true internet sweet spot — I can confirm this is the correct policy

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 13h

after careful study, I believe only people born between 1975 and 1995 should be allowed to use the internet

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 13h

The advice I give young people on choice of degree programme. Choose something you love. You’ve got the rest of your life to be frustrated and miserable.

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Ellie Chowns MP @elliechowns.bsky.social · 18h

I'm proud to support #HospiceCareWeek, celebrating how hospices do #MoreThanYouThink – delivering care on the wards, in homes, & the community.

With proper funding, they could do even more. Learn more about vital role they play here:
www.hospiceuk.org/our-campaign...

Hospice Care Week

From 6 - 12 October 2025, help us celebrate hospice care across the UK along with our 200+ hospice members. This year's theme is: hospice care is more than you think.

www.hospiceuk.org

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Carla Denyer @carladenyer.bsky.social · 18h

Govt promised to help Palestinians get to UK to study- but I'm in touch with 7 young Palestinians with scholarships at
@bristoluni.bsky.social
who are trapped in Gaza because the Home Office isn't doing what was promised
Shocking neglect putting lives at risk
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Accepted but trapped: Why won’t the UK evacuate its students from Gaza?

Palestinian students in Gaza who earned places at top UK universities are being stranded by political indifference.

www.aljazeera.com

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

Would love to claim it’s just one of many great jokes in the book but uh it might be the only one

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

Yes!! Short-selling is a more worthy than caring for preschoolers, apparently.

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

Right? I mean also famously when women move into a sector, the pay lowers. There’s no way of forcing all A level students into employment that raises “productivity”.

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Schools and colleges will retain the freedom to decide what programmes of study to offer regardless of these changes, which are aimed at prioritising subjects we know lead to good jobs and drive economic growth”. This is really terrible!

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

“In the letter, the government said it would be “reprioritising” the funding of post-16 education in England to focus on “larger than normal maths and high-value A-level programmes to support the pipeline of students for priority sectors””. Grim.

Labour cuts funding for state school IB diplomas

The sudden decision may mean the IB program is only available in private schools

observer.co.uk

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

(Obviously I am lying and I have indeed looked up my book on goodreads but tbh this is the only review there I care about)

A screengrab of a 4/5 review on good reads of my book imperial island by Garret Giblin saying: "Where we're going we don't need Rhodes" - excellent title for the concluding chapter

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

you can also review it on goodreads but it is simply not my business what goes on over there x

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 1d

I recently got a really lovely review on Amazon. If you have read and enjoyed my book — even if you didn’t buy it on Amazon! — please do consider leaving a review…

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · Sep 1

anyway if you want to find out more about empire, migration and British culture, BUY MY BOOK

Imperial Island

www.penguin.co.uk

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Reposted by Charlotte Lydia Riley

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 1d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Lea Ypi @leaypi.bsky.social · 2d

no words

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

www.theguardian.com

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.

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Tony Clark @anthonyclark.bsky.social · 8d

BREAKING: sources say NARA has forced out Dr. Todd Arrington, the federal director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, after he declined to allow the Trump administration to remove a sword from the library for a gift to King Charles

lastcampaign.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

EXCLUSIVE: NARA Ousts Eisenhower Library Director Over Proposed Trump Gift to King Charles

The director, a historian and Army veteran, declined to allow the Trump administration to remove a priceless artifact from the library's permanent collection

lastcampaign.substack.com

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Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · 7d

a great Gilles Peress photo in NYT: Throwing stones at a British armored vehicle in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1972

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

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Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 2d

*Calling PhD students of modern British and imperial history in London*

The @ihrbritainseminar.bsky.social's first session this Thursday (9 Oct.) is dedicated to PhDs, at any stage, for elevator pitches and meet-and-greet. Do come along! Details in the link.

www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

New PhD Student Session

For the first session of term we will be hosting a meet and greet at the IHR for all PhD students in modern British and imperial history.

www.history.ac.uk

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 2d

All these protections for newts and bats and snails — does Reeves really not think for a second about why, ecologically, they might be in place?

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 2d

There’s somehow been absorbed into the Labour Party a sense that every single limit on planning exists to… I’m not actually sure. Support NIMBYism, I guess? Rather than because it is actually necessary economically, infrastructurally, geographically, etc.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 2d

This is depressing in and of itself — property developers are capitalists who only care about profit! Why are you helping them??? — but it’s also depressing because of the complete lack of curiosity it seems to betray. No sense of *why* these elements of the planning system might exist.

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 2d

I don't want to get all Chesterton's Fence here, but if you don't understand that a "microscopic snail" is an indicator species that's protected for the health of the entire ecosystem, you probably shouldn't be forming "good relationships" with developers
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Rachel Reeves clears planning blockage amid ‘good relationship’ with developer

Exclusive: Chancellor says 20,000 homes were being held up due to ‘some snails that are a protected species or something’

www.theguardian.com

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