I vaguely recall the Tory communications chief in the Think of It being a parody of Steve Hilton.

On the one hand I'm glad Scottish universities are not subject to this kind of policy, but worry that even without this formal threat HE leaders in Scotland will comply in advance to restrict protest either because they fear it coming in any case, or they actually like a bit of authoritarianism.

Or we could just not create ‘dangerously capable AI’ so we don’t then have to create ‘super smart babies’ to save the world. Personally, I find the idea of super smart babies far more terrifying than AI.

I'm not sure I'd be that optimistic given Farage fans and GB news viewers don't live in the same reality as the rest of us, and so the fascists will deny the facts, claim even a handful of crossings is far too much, or just double down on regular migration.

I'm starting to think most of our current economic and political crises are being driven or exasperated by the fact our leaders simply don't understand systems. As someone who has spent 20+ years studying and writing about systems, this is very depressing.

The Strategic Defence Review, which Robertson spearheaded, came out in September 2025, as I was writing the last chapter of my book, which is focused on foreign policy and strategy. I read that entire document and interviewed a number of experts about it. A few thoughts. 🧵

Capital flight may happen well before they actually get into government. The year approaching the election is going to be very turbulent if there is a whisker's chance Reform could form a government.

Yes, they constantly banged on about wanting the 'brightest and the best' from accross the world, not just EU. What I think they meant was they wanted high skilled North Americans and Australians, and don't like the fact that lots of non-Europeans were needed quickly to fill labour shortages

The Innovation Delusion by Lee Vinsel, Andrew L. Russell: 9780525575689 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books “Innovation” is the hottest buzzword in business. But what if our obsession with finding the next big thing has distracted us from the work that matters most? “The...

This is much broader phenomenon, which is beautifully captured in Vinsel and Russell's 2020 book 'The innovation delusion', which is all about the marginalisation or neglect of maintainance. Highly recommend. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576816...

this post reminded me of one of my fellow PhD students who did his thesis on bootlegging and the sociology of copyright. I was always a little envious that he was working on something so cool. Really interesting area. I’ve just learned he turned it into a book in 2005 sk.sagepub.com/book/mono/bo...

Keir Starmer’s unrealistic goal to build a country where “people are not at the mercy of events abroad” suggests governments are still not willing to be open with the public about the UK’s place in the world.

I wrote in my book about how politicians infantilise voters:

linktr.ee/whateveryone...

The tragedy is that many HE leaders who should know better seem perfectly happy to genuflect to unpredictable market forces and are incapable of thinking long-term about the broader education system and its sustainability.

Yeah, it’s motion smoothing that makes it look fake. Thankfully you can turn off that function.

well, if he is arguing for 'viewpoint diversity', I'm going to guess he wants the School to recruit a bunch of crazy right-wing political scientists. Matt Goodwin might have actually achieved his dream of becoming an Oxbridge don if he hadn't made himself so unpopular even on the right.

Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy Podcast Episode · Peoples & Things · March 30 · 1h 1m

Great interview with my brilliant colleague @susansegfault.bsky.social about his excellent book on Tor-Dark Web. highly recommend both the interview and the book, which is available free at MIT press direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

I don’t see much virtue in donating to an already incredibly wealthy and elitist institution. I can think of a million more worthy causes for obscenely rich people to fund, and also don’t think it’s good for academic disciplines to have to rely on the benevolence of morally bankrupt billionaires.

I wonder if the ‘radical thinking’ will extend to considering whether the very existence of billionaires is a danger to our societies, and reliance on their donations a possible threat to the academic mission. I do wonder what counts as radical at a deeply conservative institution like Cambridge.

Given he’s trashing his legacy, maybe it’s just the money? So disappointing, as one of my highlights last year was seeing him on stage brilliantly portray Roald Dahl’s descent into antisemitism in Giant. I doubt he’d argue Dahl’s words were twisted and misrepresented.

Well it certainly isn’t good news for people whose lives will be devastated by another global recession and possible depression. The case for an accelerated energy transition is obviously strengthened by this, but that doesn’t mean any of this is good news.

Really informative interview, but perhaps not something to listen to if you’re looking for Monday morning optimism.

It looked like he had power issues as Russell closed up easily to him on the straights but couldn’t with Leclerc.

‘module choice is contracting at exactly the moment our research shows that restricted choice is one of the drivers of disengaged AI use.’ A sobering read as we hear repeatedly from HE ‘leaders’ that students don’t actually want choice and we provide too many options for them.

When people talk of nations 'declining', it's usually all very vague and anecdotal.

This is what decline looks like. Tangible, measurable regression: a society making a choice to roll back its progress and reduce its future possibilities of success.

It's also very, very avoidable. Heartbreaking.

Excellent piece, and nice to see the racialised aspect of this also acknowledged.

Even if the UK hadn't been so desperate to sign any deal, it was never going to be able to negotiate an equal or better deal than a large trading bloc like the EU. Sensible people said this during the Referendum, but were ignored by the cakeists. Now we're all paying for the latter's delusions.

The relentless march of the omniscalers Tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, Alibaba and Huawei are commanding enormous global resources

Have been writing for some time about the way the modern economy benefits the largest companies, and how this is a drag on growth. Now others are catching up, maybe also start thinking as to how to solve one of the biggest challenges in the emerging economic order? www.ft.com/content/0eaa...

The credulity of HE leaders who sign off these deals should, in any normal world, elicit deep shame and embarassment. But Edtech developers just laugh their way to the bank as they strike off another easy mark.

I think Kent needs to rethink its 'honorary status' policy, as this is the first time I've heard of a university automatically granting this status to ex employees, and not having any behaviour expectations built into it.

That’s good to hear, and I fully agree with you. Policies that allow relationships so long as they’re declared aren’t going far enough to protect students.

Post from Andrew A.N. Deloucas @aandeloucas.com: In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University: Nine majors "sunsetting": • Classical civilization • Classics (Greek and Latin) • Digital humanities • Fine arts • German • Latino-Latin American studies • Middle Eastern studies • Modern Jewish studies • Russian ALT

The First University in the Nation to Build a Center Dedicated to the Creator Economy Syracuse University is creating something that doesn't exist anywhere else in higher education. The Center for the Creator Economy is the first academic center of its kind on a U.S. college campus. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin). Whitman School of Management, the center reinforces Syracuse University's commitment to bold, forward-looking academic leadership. By aligning strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics and digital infrastructure, the University is charting how higher education can prepare students for the 21st-century economy.

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone