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Reposted by Peter Whitewood

David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 16h

Sorry, but if you're saying those implausible and shallow Kemi Badenoch announcements constitute a good speech then you're part of the UK's political problem.

Same half-baked "tax cut good / international commitments bad" bearing no resemblance to well formed policy.

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 21h

Didn’t Michael Gove, Badenoch’s ‘mentor’ do an English degree?

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 1d

Calling English a 'rip-off degree' is one of the most blatant exhibitions of personal barbarism I've ever seen. You've demonstrated nothing but the poverty of your own mind.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 21h

Good to see the Conservative Party committed to keeping the deficit down by *checks notes* spending £2 billion giving tax breaks for private education, creating a massive new deportation force and pledging to maintain pensioner benefits.

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 1d

David Runciman · Down the Rabbit Hole: Britain’s Europe Problem

From Macmillan to Wilson to Heath to Thatcher to Major to Blair to Cameron, a succession of prime ministers persuaded...

www.lrb.co.uk

Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 1d

A good opener from David Runciman

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

The UAE is an authoritarian autocracy, a petro-state with no income tax for citizens, to bribe them for the lack of democratic voice or free speech

It is 85% migrant, a segregated society with a ban on integration in principle and practice, few rights, equal opportunities, nor voice for incomers

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 2d

Not a serious person. Zero mention of what this would mean for the over a million British citizens whose own access to welfare in the EU is protected by the withdrawal agreement.

EU citizens living in UK shouldn’t be allowed welfare benefits, says Tory rising star

Katie Lam — who is earning plaudits on the Conservative right — calls for Brexit withdrawal agreement to be reopened.

www.politico.eu

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 3d

Barely a fortnight has passed since Kemi Badenoch’s reflexive and incredibly OTT hostility to the government’s proposals for digital ID.

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 3d

Just noticed the Conservatives’ British ICE proposal also involves using mass deployment of facial ID – still an unproven and unreliable technology that particularly struggles with non-white faces – to enable deportations.

Which would inevitably mean false positives leading to detention of citizens

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Reposted by Peter Whitewood

Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 4d

"Polarisation may be an unhelpful term .... It implies that both sides are becoming equally extreme. Arguably the real dynamic is that elements of the right have hardened, embracing positions that would have been unacceptable a decade ago" on.ft.com/46TGRHs by @henrymance.ft.com 1/

How polarised is Britain?

Behind media perceptions of a sharpening political divide is a more complicated picture

on.ft.com

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 5d

If a university thinks it’s the ‘best’ it should take people with low or no prior attainment and prove it. Otherwise it’s just cherry-picking and claiming unearned credit.

Patrick Dunleavy @patrickdunleavy.bsky.social · 6d

Elite school students end up in better universities than expected, based on their grades blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Elite school students end up in better universities than expected, based on their grades | British Politics and Policy at LSE

Students of private and grammar schools are over-represented in elite universities, but only part of that is explained by better grades.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 8d

Can someone ask Farage or Zia Yusuf why, if they're so concerned about incitement to violence, they had Lucy Connolly as a guest star at their conference?

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 9d

What would Douglas Carswell actually have to say for the Telegraph to stop publishing him?

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Warwick History Post-Doc Club @post-doc-club.bsky.social · 9d

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 9d

Pleased to see the return of maintenance grants. Sorry they won’t probably cover most of humanities & social sciences (although let’s see). But most of all intrigued as to how they will manage a very complex funding stream. If fewer international students in a given year does that mean fewer grants?

Andrew Sparrow @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social · 9d

Bridget Phillipson says poorest students will get maintenance grants for some courses, funded by international student levy - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

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Reposted by Peter Whitewood

Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 9d

I have a new piece with The Guardian where I look into the history of aerial confrontations going back to the Cold War. I argue that intruding Russian aircraft must be shot down as a prophylactic measure. There will not be a nuclear war. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Russia’s provocations are menacing Nato. The cold war shows how it needs to respond | Sergey Radchenko

Despite the cost of shooting down fighter jets and drones, small skirmishes remind both sides of the dangers of escalation, says academic Sergey Radchenko

www.theguardian.com

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 11d

A sentence actually uttered in the TalkTV segment on the malevolent Fabian conspiracy:

‘Quite literally, they changed
that emblem to a turtle. Again, this
idea that, you know, slowly slowly won't suspect us of anything.’

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 11d

‘In general, Americans have seemed to accept the idea that government is their representative, not a thing apart, so they don’t feel so bad about telling the authorities something the authorities should know.’

Sheila Fitzpatrick on the politics of denunciation: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Sheila Fitzpatrick · Diary: Two Cultures of Denunciation

Among the difficulties of talking about denunciation is that there are so many words for it, along with sharply opposed...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 12d

this is an extraordinary canary in the coal mine

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 12d

Nathan Gill, Reform's leader in Wales at the last Welsh parliament election, has pled guilty to 8 bribery charges, taking Russian cash while he was one of Nigel Farage’s MEPs to speak in favour of Putin's Russia in that parliament
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Reform UK’s ex-leader in Wales Nathan Gill pleads guilty to bribery charges

Gill admits to eight counts of bribery relating to pro-Russia statements made in the European parliament and articles

www.theguardian.com

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 13d

In a way, it’s remarkable that Grover Furr still ploughs on with his ‘Stalin was totally innocent’ thing. From two weeks ago - the Katyn massacre, the Great Terror, nothing to do with Stalin!

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 16d

Is teaching Judith Butler more than Plato evidence of universities failing a ‘basic function’? apparently yes…

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 16d

Staggeringly high sums being spent on agent fees for international recruitment in HE

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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 16d

There should be a high bar for politicians attacking the media, but maybe Ed Davey has half a point here?

For example, the first three paragraphs of this BBC story repeat Reform's £243bn figure without saying that the thinktank behind the estimate now disowns it. (This is mentioned in paragraph 35)

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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 17d

That Farage is treated seriously shows how degraded the politics in the UK habe become.
Barring absolute far right racists, anyone with half a brain cell can see this latest raft of proposals would utterly destroy the UK, as well as the lives of migrants. 1/
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Farage vows to axe indefinite leave to remain and ban migrants’ benefits access

The Reform UK leader will outline a planned crackdown on legal immigration at a Monday press conference.

www.independent.co.uk

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Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 17d

This by @jamesomalley.co.uk is good.

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off

Anti-racism norms are good and should be socially enforced

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 19d

New post just out:

"Three seconds"

What links Charlie Kirk, the overthrow of the Nepalese government, the US-China trade deal, and the trial of a Romanian Presidential candidate?

TikTok.

Here's why it's changing politics and what that means.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

Three seconds

TikTok and the future of politics

open.substack.com

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