Getting to lecture on Nordic Culture, Politics, and Society at LJMU has been amazing this semester. Never thought my interest in the Nordic region would come in This useful.

Contract is almost over though. If anyone wants a Comparative, Nordic, British etc politics lecturer hire/pay/inform me

I got to teach about Icelandic politics yesterday. Particularly party system change after the economic crash. This is something I've wanted to do for (a lot of)years. I got to bring in work by ICENES & used Laxness as a way in which to observe political change in Iceland

a bird is sitting in a hole with the words blue planet ii on the bottom ALT: a bird is sitting in a hole with the words blue planet ii on the bottom

Me: Trying to finish writing a lecture on post-crash politics in Iceland for next week

Iceland: puts forward a 'motion for resolution proposing to hold a referendum on 29 August 2026 on whether to resume accession negotiations with the European Union'.

me and the current president of iceland halla tomasdottir taking a selfie

Fun fact.
Over 50% of all the people that have been President of Iceland are still alive.

If you take a selfie with the current president of Iceland, you will have taken a selfie with ~15% of all Icelandic presidents.

I'm part way through and I am engrossed

It's great work, Ralph. We've all known there's been an horrid downturn in jobs in what was already a sector lacking in consistency and security. It is good seeing some of it explained. Plus, it'll be, oddly, reassuring to many of us PolSci PhDs who are about be back in the May-Sept jobless void

New postdoc vacancy in political science/ CSS at Uni Saarland

Please share widely/ consider applying

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a DM or find me at the @comptext.bsky.social conference in a few weeks

Many of us have over 100k worth of words due to be marked in a short space of time. Universities need to decide if they want work marked well or marked on time.

Best article by one of the best of us.
Massive well done to @ralphscott.bsky.social

Equally surprised and delighted to win this!

a cartoon badger is standing in a grassy field with the word badger written on the bottom ALT: a cartoon badger is standing in a grassy field with the word badger written on the bottom

From within the nightmares of Ed Davey (hatred of mushrooms tbc)

At a time when Labour cannot get anything right they at least have Kemi Badenoch to help them

'Starmerism' is being unbothered by such trivial concerns as 'is that even true, though?' or even follow-up questions like 'is this lie even a useful one for us to tell?'

I'm now clinically fed up with post-by-election analysis telling Labour that it has to choose between middle-class cosmopolitan liberals (Gorton) and the white working class (Denton). This is cobblers because it's based on the misconception that there is only one ideological dimension.

Beyond Forecasting: Using MRP (multi-level regression with post-stratification) to investigate minority political behaviour at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Beyond Forecasting: Using MRP (multi-level regression with post-stratification) to investigate minority political behaviour at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com

*Academics of Bluesky:* Do you know a great UG/PG student with excellent quants skills?

@nspmartin.bsky.social and I are advertising a great fully-funded PhD on MRP and minority voting with our friends at Ipsos, so send them our way! ✌️

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

We (@lawrencemckay.bsky.social @williamlallen.bsky.social) have data on this stretching back to 2012 for a forthcoming report on the current academic job market in Politics - and let me just say it's unprecedentedly bad at the moment!

Met four people from my PGR dept this past week who have recently had to leave academia. Each one brilliant, hard working, and efficient in both research and teaching. This means nothing in the field now.

Given the precarity and how it only looks like getting worse more of us will leave very soon

Good enough to be an Oxford Reference and a lecturer one minute

Not good enough to be paid TA pay by The University of Manchester the next

The life of an Early Career Academic summed up in one morning:
Sending off a reference to Oxford for an exceptional student who wanted you as a ref

Sending screenshots to UoM HR of you accepting your TA hours over a month ago after they accuse you of not doing so as a reason for not paying you

The Labour Party decided to convince itself this campaign that she was someone she wasn't so badly that they convinced themselves that this living room marked her out as abnormal

Great to speak with @meganekenyon.bsky.social of @newstatesman1913.bsky.social on location about the result in Gorton and Denton, including the role of party blocs!

Clipped my bit below, but you can watch the whole video here (bonus, there is a cat!):
youtu.be/dUh_1XuAg-g?...

a close up of a man 's face with the word woo written below him ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the word woo written below him

My more talented colleagues are already doing a great job on the professional takes on the Gorton and Denton by-election. I feel it is my place to simply add:

WOO! 'Ave that, Matt, you weapons grade bellend!

Peace out

A lot of us have been saying this for a while, however, this may be as close as we get to a slogan

[Scene is KEIR STARMER as FATHER CHRISTMAS in his factory, with RACHEL REEVES as an awkward-looking Head Elf] 1 FATHER KEIR: Well, well, well! [Elf Reeves is holding an enormous sack of letters] 2 FATHER KEIR: Look at all these letters of membership cancellation! ELF REEVES: More than ever this year 3 [Father Keir reads one out:] “Dear Father Keir I am writing to cancel my Labour Party membership…” Awww how sweet 4 “I have truly believed for 40 years, but now I’ve had enough.” 5 “Please please please this year can you deliver some policies that aren’t craven right wing bullshit?” 6 FATHER KEIR: Well, I think we know what to give this good boy don’t we? Elf Mahmood! 7 [Show SHABANA MAHMOOD as an elf poking her head round a doorway to afactory full of busy elves, above the door is a wooden sign reading CRAVEN RIGHTWING BULLSHIT FACTORY] ELF MAHMOOD: What. 8 FATHER KEIR: Do we have any performatively cruel immigration stuff left? 9 ELF MAHMOOD: We've got ‘stealing their belongings and a 20-year wait for settled status’…? 10 FATHER KEIR: In the sack, please! [Elves Mahmood and Reeves push the big sack into the sleigh as father Keir climbs in the driver’s seat] 11 And off we goooo! [He wooshes off into the snowy polar night] 12 [Cut to a person’s LIVING ROOM - a man and a woman are looking in their stockings - the man looks disappointed] WOMAN: Is it not what you wanted MAN: Not really, no [Ends]

Forgot to post this one

So I've got Reform telling me my family and friends are actually not British after all and Labour telling me that I, despite 35+ years here, do not know about British values.

Maybe the 'British values' were the friends I made along the way? 🤷‍♂️

Heard "Finish him" from Mortal Kombat whilst reading this

Democratic theorists hold that voting contributes to some political good: individual and collective autonomy, equality, justice, pluralism, stability, better policies, and many others. But elections are common under authoritarianism, and empirical research finds that holding elections can stabilize authoritarian regimes. This creates what we term the democrat’s dilemma, where citizens who vote in authoritarian elections may bolster the regimes they wish to unseat, even when they cast a vote for the opposition. We identify three major ways of thinking about the democratic value of electoral participation—justice-based, epistemic, and proceduralist approaches—and use them to examine the complex moral considerations that confront voters in authoritarian regimes. We contend that authoritarian elections’ residual democratic value can justify voting, even when doing so could further entrench the autocrat. Our argument also implies that the democratic principles that justify voting in authoritarian elections oblige citizens to choose the most democratic alternative.

You should vote, even if your vote won't change the outcome, because this is how we uphold the democratic principles that underlie our republican ideals.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Did somebody say Just Treat? 🎶