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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 4d

Indeed. Also hard to believe this is Art 11 compatible. Not that this government has a good record on heeding the law, especially the action-guiding function of international law.

Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 4d

Pol profs (follow e.g. @benansell.bsky.social, @drjennings.bsky.social, @profjanegreen.bsky.social) doing sterling work trying to show Labour why its electoral strategy won’t work and thereby defending universities. HE’s future increasingly seems to turn on shifting Labour’s electoral calculus.

Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 4d

To say that democracy needs to be more responsive—as well as more responsible—is surely correct: people shout more loudly when they feel the government isn’t listening. But it’s unclear whether the emphasis on “efficiency” is the right way to address a lack of effectiveness. 3/3

Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 4d

Further, rather problematically he is quick to ascribe blame to digital platforms in promoting this brouhaha (undoubtedly true) but without acknowledging the role of what Plutarch might have called the “windeggs” of the political class, including his own mainstreaming of far-right ideas. 2/3

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 4d

I’m struck by the aural metaphors in Macron’s speech on the “degeneration of our democracies” to mark the Tag der Deutschen Einheit, especially in this passage. One cannot ignore that the distinction between noise and logos is both colonialist and reminiscent of Plato’s critique of democracy. 1/3

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 6d

7am this morning in my little piece of heaven on earth before returning to the real world

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 6d

I didn’t even find his calling out very effective. Damage to private property came before inciting racial violence and hatred, as if it were more deplorable. And he excuses the Oldham woman using one of the lamest defences in the book: she can’t be racist because she has a friend of colour.

David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 7d

They think they're going to win back millions of progressive voters by flagrantly insulting their intelligence.

Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 7d

Starmer on Tuesday: "We must stand against racism"
Starmer on Wednesday: "Human rights laws are stopping us sending people to face torture so we need to rethink them."

Labour on Tuesday: "Labour is the party of working people"
Labour on Wednesday: "If your boss mistreats you, tough shit"

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 7d

Let’s not mince our words. This is class war from the party founded to represent the working classes, and yet Labourism has always been an obstacle to that.

At the same time, it wouldn’t hurt, if we claim the humanities are essential to UK or global challenges, to demonstrate that in our curricula.

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 8d

'Graeme Atherton, head of the Ruskin Institute for Social Equity (Rise) at the University of West London, said the policy “is giving with one hand and taking with another” and will “exacerbate” the problems being faced by humanities and arts departments and disadvantaged students.'

Maintenance grants only for priority courses ‘deeply concerning’

Using financial incentives to influence student choice risk undermining Labour’s widening access goals, critics fear

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 8d

Let’s see if he’s really listening! Still this weird obsession with tarting up things with a fresh lick of paint, as he once put it to me when mistaking my question about the role of precarious work in socializing petty bourgeois voting habits for a question about towns?

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Jane Green @profjanegreen.bsky.social · 11d

NEW!
In Liverpool for Labour Conference...

Starmer is concentrating on Reform but Labour shouldn't mistake their threat on the right, even in Leave voting heartlands.

Our new analysis w/ @martamiori.bsky.social explains:

politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Article - Nuffield Politics Research Centre

politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 11d

Ha! I recall being so inspired by this that I tried to imitate it (badly no doubt) for a piece of creative writing homework at primary school and being devastated when it got a C, losing any confidence in my ability to write. No wonder I eventually became an academic! 😂

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 11d

“I don’t see why a man should take thirty pages to describe how he turns over in his bed before he goes to sleep.”

A publisher rejecting Proust.

Every academic - “Can you really do that properly in a mere 30 pages?”

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 12d

In Thomas Guggeis’s debut with the Berlin Philharmoniker performing Also sprach Zarathustra, Tout un monde lointain… (with Maximilian Hornung), and Daphnis and Chloe Suite no. 2 the sound of the orchestra was utterly gorgeous and glorious, with a luster and voluptuousness as if from times past.

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Janina Dill @janinadill.bsky.social · 13d

In this post @tomdannenbaum.bsky.social & I trace how the Starmer Government's repeatedly misconstrues its obligations under the Genocide Convention in #Gaza, hiding behind a Court judgement that is years away with a position that we call "legally illiterate" and "morally indefensible".

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 14d

The educational effect on political attitudes and values has been overstated. As the paper below demonstrates, the education effect largely disappears when cohort differences, i.e. *age*, is take into account.

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Jonathan Basile @jonothingeb.bsky.social · 19d

From @auralflaneur.bsky.social - what can Foucault's prison activism and Derrida's anti-Apartheid advocacy tell us about lived experience testimony in the fight to abolish modern day slavery? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/19/l...

Lived Experience Testimony and Engaged Intellectuals - The OLR Supplement

Re-thinks the practice and policy surrounding lived experience testimony, drawing on Foucault and Derrida's activism

olrsupplement.com

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 22d

Now that was the way things were when we had trust in journalism!

Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 22d

Embodying the belief in justice, truth, and integrity with which I grew up

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 22d

When journalism was cool. And risked everything to challenge power.

Robert Redford on the phone, plus Dustin Hoffman. From All the President’s Men

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 22d

Misty watercolour memories… thinking a lot about my mum who was a huge fan and with whom I watched every film he was in many times over—laughing, swooning, crying, saluting, reciting all the lines, eating Galaxy Minstrels with tea. Who knows, maybe she gets a shot now at a romance (made) in heaven?!

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 23d

My impression is that university and sector leadership is by and large aiming their comments at the Labour right. My fear is that they will fail to cut through to the extent they adopt the same framings. Unis might usefully focus their efforts on supporting popular education within communities.

Higher Education Policy Institute @hepi-news.bsky.social · 23d

New Post: Return of the expert www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/09/16/r...

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 24d

"They are legitimising the extreme right by letting them dictate the terms of politics, and in so doing are paving the way for them ... This is appeasement pure and simple. It didn't stop fascism in the 1930s. And it will not work today."

Chamberlain Labour

Approximately 100,000 on a far right march in London. A grim new milestone in post-war political history, and one conventional politics has ...

averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · 26d

I’m so sorry and angry to hear about this.

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · Sep 9

Does David Lammy not understand the action-guiding ex ante function of international law? He should read this paper by @janinadill.bsky.social and @tomdannenbaum.bsky.social: www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/news/new-leg...

New Legal Research on Gaza War Urges Immediate Action

A new paper by Professorial Fellow Janina Dill argues international community must refocus on restraining Gaza war in the present, not just debating whether the thresholds for war crimes have been met...

www.trinity.ox.ac.uk

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Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · Sep 9

The guidance also generously features reference to a thought piece I wrote for @advancehe.bsky.social in October 2023 and which had been cited in earlier guidance.

advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hu...

Naomi Waltham-Smith @auralflaneur.bsky.social · Sep 9

Grateful to @advancehe.bsky.social for the special thanks in their guidance on embedding freedom of speech and academic freedom in EDI, released last week to coincide with the UUK conference. It was, as always, a pleasure to offer my thoughts and exchange ideas with the ever-thoughtful David Bass.

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Reposted by Naomi Waltham-Smith

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · Sep 3

Exeter and Leicester at the top of the list of universities (and regions) that would be harmed by the levy, together with the government's growth agenda, new report suggest. 1/2

With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers: on.ft.com/45O7zly

Levy on overseas students will hit towns outside South East England, report says

Research on local economies suggests Labour’s higher education policy is at odds with growth agenda

www.ft.com

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