🚨 Job Alert: AsstProf International Peace & Security in Amsterdam (VUA)🚨
workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/as...

This is key: Focusing on Trump's "contradictions" tends to perpetuate the idea that he doesn't have any actual convictions. It's true he doesn't care about specific policy positions.

But underneath that "flexibility" lies a very consistent worldview of grievance, domination, and hierarchies.

Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s Home Claims He Was Following ChatGPT Recipe For Risotto

Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s Home Claims He Was Following ChatGPT Recipe For Risotto theonion.com/man-who-threw-molotov-co...

Very glad to see this article out in the world. In it, I argue for a critical reading of realism's political history, in terms of exile and how realists historically experienced it. /1

How we gave up on forgiveness What was once seen as a virtue is now viewed as a moral weakness — leaving a society mired in toxicity

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Interesting piece in the FT on the virtue of forgiveness.

Global After-Maths: Justice, Accountability, and Transformative Futures Abstract. With the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Russian–Ukrainian War and the recent bombings of Iran, the political significance of the concept of “the a

academic.oup.com/isagsq/artic...

Everyone knows you’ve got to do your war crimes with a soupçon of liberalism, a sprinkling of human rights promotion, and topped with a garni of white saviourism.

The issue as ever with Trump
is decorum

Have written about the politics of how we see the Grenfell Tower fire - including seeing the fire as a “tragedy” - and the flawed role the Inquiry played in producing an authoritative account.

doi.org/10.1111/jols...

Nancy Fraser | After Habermas My ties to Habermas were multi-layered. He was an inspiration and a role model; a mentor and an antagonist; a figure who...

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

🚨Job alert🚨

We are looking for two lecturers/assistant professors in environmental politics (permanent!)

www.bath.ac.uk/jobs/Vacancy...

Trump’s war in Iran exposes US’s shift from a global guardian to an arbiter of chaos The US is recklessly spreading economic havoc among global friends and foes while suffering little harm itself

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

I must have missed the first bit…

Hillsborough campaigners accuse Starmer of ‘insult’ after failing to introduce promised law Government sources said new amendment to bill being worked on that would ensure duty of candour applies to individuals working for security services Families whose relatives were killed in disasters and who have suffered state injustice have written to Keir Starmer, accusing the government of an “insult” for failing to introduce the promised Hillsborough law in this session of parliament. Labour has promised for almost a decade to implement the law, which will impose a “duty of candour” on the police and public authorities, but the government pulled the bill in January during its passage through parliament. Continue reading...

Hillsborough campaigners accuse Starmer of ‘insult’ after failing to introduce promised law

Other stories of the Grenfell Tower fire can and should be heard.

If not through the Inquiry then it poses the question of when we will do justice to the lessons that need to be learned from the fire.

Yet, what we find so alarming in this study, is how the inquiry itself is “prefigured” at a series of stages in its investigation.

Effectively, the inquiry has a set of decisions, terms of reference, and methodologies that condition and delimit the kind of truth it can find…

A lot of faith and trust is placed in public inquiries to act as the authoritative and impartial mechanisms to produce a truthful account, however uncomfortable…

I think you’re right to say that we process and interpret traumatic events through our pre-existing values, assumptions, and understandings. Unscripted events are often read through social scripts like tragedy, scandal, or crisis…

Almost a decade after Grenfell, my flat still isn't safe As MSPs vote on proposals to fund repairs to unsafe claddings, residents say they are still waiting for action.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

New paper out now witten with my brilliant collaborators @jamcjo.bsky.social and @drowendthomas.bsky.social. Hard to write given the topic and ongoing injustice but hope it proves useful to others.

The paper is part of a longer-term collaborative project (with @victoriambasham.bsky.social and @drowendthomas.bsky.social) on how liberal societies make sense of violence, harm and disorder in global politics.

As the Grenfell United survivors’ group have argued, ‘[t]here's a reading of the inquiry hiding in plain sight… the system isn't broken, it was built this way’.

Our purpose in this article is to show how such an understanding is omitted and disparaged through the official workings of the Inquiry.

In the end, the Inquiry renders the fire legible through the logic of methodological individualism: as a consequence of individual (in)actions, intentions and knowledge

A more systemic account of the fire is possible. Such an account would relocate the fire within a wider socio-economic context

Through a series of decisions, assumptions, and omissions, the Inquiry PRODUCES, rather than UNCOVERS, the truth of the fire

We describe this as a process of PREFIGURATION, which refers to the ways in which the organisation of the Inquiry's investigation circumscribes and foreshadows its findings.

By contrast, we argue that the Inquiry is not a value-free instrument.

We demonstrate how the Inquiry is repeatedly defined by a set of methodological and epistemological commitments that limit the scope of its investigation and predispose it towards particular findings

It is into this conflict that the Inquiry was introduced

The Inquiry promised to 'leave no stone left unturned' in its pursuit of the truth

Through the Inquiry, an official and authoritative account of events could be reached and responsible parties could be identified and held accountable...

A cartoon by Dave Brown for the Independent that depicts the Grenfell Tower as a burning question mark. This cartoon captures the state of public understanding at the time, marked by uncertainty and disagreement over the meaning and significance of the fire.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, public discourse was marked by conflict over its meaning

For some, it was a national tragedy: an unforeseen accident

For others, it was a scandal: a consequence of criminal wrongdoing

For others still, it was a symptom of a wider crisis in UK society...

I've got a new open access paper out in the Journal of Law and Society that interrogates the truth-seeking and truth-producing function of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. 🧵

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

From The Times last Saturday. Starmer's ministry provides empirical proof of the fact that (contrary to what the Labour leadership has believed for many years) you can't govern without an ideology: something organising your outlook and mobilising people to action.

www.thetimes.com/article/2cb4...

The White House posts about the Iran War.

Dear Shabana, I notice today that you referred to me in your speech on immigration at the IPPR think tank. You said: “A party leader should not be on the beaches of France encouraging people to make a perilous crossing on small boats.” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised especially after the hateful Labour campaign in Gorton and Denton, but this is just the latest in a string of lies peddled by a discredited Government who intentionally fan the flames of racism and division. When I went to Calais, I was not there to encourage people to travel to the UK. I was there to see at first hand the suffering your Government and successive Governments have done in demonising migrants in a pathetic bid to pander to the base instincts of Reform and the flawed strategy of Morgan McSweeney. As you will know, if you even bothered to research my visit instead of taking Reform talking points, I was there to witness the brutality of families living in tents in freezing temperatures. I filled water tanks and picked up litter. What that visit did do is confirm my belief that if we are to smash the boat gangs and stop the boats, we need to offer safer and managed routes for migrants to come to this country. Showing compassion as a politician is not a crime. In fact, we need to see much more of it. It reminded me of a young MP who in October 2015 spent three days in Lesbos helping migrants fleeing war-torn Syria. She posted videos on X, talked about handing out water and croissants to refugees and food parcels. When she returned to the UK, she wrote a very moving piece in the New Statesman. She said “we have to work with our European partners and create new, safe, and legal routes for refugees to get to Europe. We cannot abandon them to their fate, left as prey for smugglers whilst risking death on the seas.” She said “maybe we can make ourselves feel better by saying no-one is making them get on the boats. And again, the Home Secretary is not entirely wrong when …

Dear Shabana,

Let's clear some things up around migration and remember we're talking about people's lives.