Petition: Hold a referendum to bring the water industry into public ownership Hold a binding national referendum on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public sh...

Over 56,000 people demand water is put into public ownership, want a referendum if government won’t budge, and have signed this petition in under 2 weeks.

If it gets to 100,000 it has to be debated in Parliament.

82% of people want publicly owned water.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Anyone working in history of comedy/satire, television, modern British politics - there's a fully funded PhD to research the Spitting Image archive @theul.bsky.social, with supervision at Exeter Uni. All disciplines considered, pls do share widely.
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

The distribution of unearned income (capital investment) - even more concentrated than earned income (wages)

For too long, economic policy has rested on assumptions treated as facts: that markets self-correct, that governments should stand back, that growth will trickle down.

Today in Barcelona w/ Dep PM Carlos Cuerpo and the Gov of Spain we are launching the Global Council for a Common Good Economy.

My review of David Harvey’s ‘Story of Capital’ ..for the LSE Review of Books...
blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb...

📢How do we eradicate poverty without relying on economic growth?
Join us online on 22 April for the launch of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights ‘Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth’: www.neep-poverty.org/
#BeyondGrowthRoadmap / @deschuttero.bsky.social

Flyer with USF Logo for the 2026 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS of the International Fellowships on a Photo by Zeke Tucker

Flyer with USF Logo for the 2026 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS of the International Fellowships, on a blue background, with the following details: Open to early-to-mid-career urban scholars from the Global South; PhD must have been awarded within the last 10 years; Requires a Mentor at your chosen host university; deadline 6 July 2026 at 23:59 UTC +0; Apply online; This fully-funded program offers 3-9 month sabbatical research visits for urban scholars from the Global South.

📢 2026 USF International Fellowships - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

This fully-funded program offers 3-9 month sabbatical research visits for urban scholars from the Global South.

Deadline: 6 July 2026
Read more & apply : https://ow.ly/ezMb50YILbw

Listening to Jonathan Gray set the scene with a pretty clear argument:

Why human geography belongs at the heart of city planning — Vaere Social Cities are social systems, not just physical ones. Here's why human geography is the discipline planning needs most right now - and what it brings that infrastructure and economics alone can't.

"Decisions that look neutral rarely are. The framing matters. The data that gets centred matters. Who gets consulted, and how, matters. Human geography provides a way of understanding those dynamics"
www.vaeresocial.au/blog/why-hum...

🚨We are delighted to announce our 5th CEE conference is taking place 🌍 Poznan University of Economics And Business, Poland 🗓️ 14-16 September 2026 🚨

➡️ Resilience, Realignment, and Renaissance: Regional Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe

For detailed information:

🔗 bit.ly/4c3RyuY

😁 🔁

Wes Streeting: Trigger the break clause and get Palantir out of the NHS - Foxglove Wes Streeting: trigger the break clause and kick Palantir out of our NHS. ADD YOUR NAME NOW!

Ministers are exploring triggering the break clause in Palantir's NHS contract. I've signed the open letter to Wes Streeting calling on him to get Palantir out of the NHS. www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/we...

Viral Debt | The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability Challenging how social scientists, policymakers, legal scholars, and the public examine household debts and wellbeing, Viral Debt traces how debt moves within

Hot off the press - Viral Debt: The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability

This book shows how debt – like a contagion – works systematically across economic and social structures and geographies

This is a free, Open Access, book:

www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

2/2
It challenges their notions that work is the answer to all social ills (as seen in their approach to welfare reform).
And that local councils might have meaningful local control.

Conservatives vow to outlaw councils working four-day week South Cambridgeshire District Council is the only authority to offer four-day weeks for full pay.

BBC News - Conservatives vow to outlaw councils working four-day week - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I think its particularly telling that the Tories are so vexed by the (very successful) public sector experiment with the 4 day work week 1/2

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants The British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants are available to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. These awards, up to £10,000 in value and tenable for up to 24 mont...

May I interest you in £10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June.

We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

Want to know capitalism’s endgame? Just look at private equity – it has captured our everyday lives | Hettie O'Brien These companies now own everything from nurseries to care homes, squeezing vital services for profit while we foot the bill, says Hettie O’Brien, author of The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned C...

Excellent piece on the spread of the private equity model into public services by
@hettieobrien.bluesky

Where private extravagance is the flipside of public austerity.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Unemployment has increased for U.S.-born workers in the face of mass deportations: Trump’s draconian immigration enforcement is harming all workers During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance promised that mass deportations and a crackdown on immigration would open up jobs for unemployed U.S. citizens. The theory was simple: remove immi...

Increased immigration enforcement harms everyone in the labour market -- EPI's dive into US unemployment data.

www.epi.org/blog/unemplo...

Me too, Diane. The orange is so vibrant.

The transformation of Paris is extraordinary - it's so much greener, saner, and more welcoming. A great example of change at the city level.

Come and shape the future of the Nuffield Foundation.

A new & key leadership role at the UK’s leading independent funder of social & economic research.

We fund evidence, back innovation & support pioneering practice. Join a great team at an exciting moment.

roles.saxbam.com/advert-detai...

That is fantastic.

Fewer evictions, more owed | 7 | New rental debt problems during the p Some policymakers saw the rapid rise of debts coming and tried to stop it. One critical space for intervention was in housing, where missed rent or mortgage

During the pandemic, eviction moratoria helped avert at least 2.9 million eviction cases nationwide. But rent obligations didn’t disappear.

New research shows what happened to those arrears.

Viral Debt | The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability Challenging how social scientists, policymakers, legal scholars, and the public examine household debts and wellbeing, Viral Debt traces how debt moves within

Hot off the press - Viral Debt: The Production and Reproduction of Economic Vulnerability

This book shows how debt – like a contagion – works systematically across economic and social structures and geographies

This is a free, Open Access, book:

www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

Good to see this -- clear and jargon-free.

A group photo in the University Challenge television studio. The Darwin College team — Lewis Strachan, Ruth Ní Mhuircheartaigh, Louis Cameron, and Jon White — sit together with BBC presenter Amol Rajan standing behind them. They are positioned in front of the iconic stainless steel set and neon-lit backdrops. All are smiling at the camera in a professional yet friendly group pose.

University Challenge! Wishing the best of luck to Darwin Team @darwincollegecam.bsky.social in the final quarter-final this Monday at 8.30pm on BBC2! Shout-out to Geography PhD student Jon White, supervised by @mia-gray.bsky.social. The team takes on Merton College, Oxford for a spot in the semis.

Two-child limit scrapped as historic Bill to lift 450,000 children out of poverty becomes law Historic legislation to end the two-child limit has become law, putting 450,000 children on a pathway out of poverty in the final year of this Parliament.

Fantastic to see the end of the two child limit.

This really is an important step in efforts to drive down poverty rates in the UK.

See press release below:

www.gov.uk/government/n...

Foreign investment screening mechanisms and emergent geographies of (post)globalization - Ilias Alami, 2026 Technologically advanced states and large emerging economies increasingly use foreign investment screening mechanisms (FISM) to block inward foreign investment ...

The piece I wrote on foreign investment screening mechanisms now has a journal issue
"Foreign investment screening mechanisms and emergent geographies of (post)globalization"
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🌟 Early Bird rate ends soon for #RSA26 🌟

Join the RSA community in Gothenburg in June.

🔶 Regions as Arenas in a Changing World
📆 15-18 June 2026

Normal fees apply from 1st April. For more info & to register:

🔗 bit.ly/4atPUlH

😊 🔁

Great to be co-hosting this 👇

Some good news here -- on the reduction of pollution (both PM2.5 and NO2) in major cities from 2010 to 2024.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.

Great to see.