an artist's impression of the global megacity of South Queensferry and/or Cupar, after the SNP have been forced by parliamentary arithmetic to pay off the Scottish Lib Dems for five years
Edinburgh West and North East Fife after a full term of the SNP having to bribe the Lib Dems to pass their Budgets:
QMUL is advertising an exciting opportunity: a fully funded PhD studentship, working on European politics, ideology, and political 'myths' with @karlpike.bsky.social and @timbale.bsky.social. Details below.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRB421/p...
Important read 👇
Given net negative population growth last year I guess Trump makes people want to migrate.
I have yet to dig into detail but it’s interesting to note that the same discipline, economics, has the highest reproducibility (does the code run?) and lowest replicability (does it work on different data?)
Are key aspects of the self-concept malleable or do they fluctuate around stable baselines? The authors find that changes in adolescence and the transition to adulthood persist over time but from around 30 to midlife changes are less durable. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
🗣️Thu 9:30 - 12:15 workshop 👇
What Europeans Think about Immigration and Why It Matters?
@andrewpgeddes.bsky.social @jamesrdennison.bsky.social @eui-eu.bsky.social
🖇️ link.europa.eu/hHBdfy
New study finds people tend to overestimate how negatively their political group will react if they change their mind, which makes them stay silent more often than necessary. Reminding people of their past loyalty to the group reduces this fear and encourages more open disagreement.
@DarriogMelanie on X: A top Trump official has been walking around with an electronic device gifted to him by senior foreign intelligence officials. Mar 14, 2026 Where are all of the “but, her emails,” Republicans on this one?
Officials are normally presented with ceremonial swords or paintings or whatever. But these guys are so fucking stupid that foreign intelligence agencies can literally give them an "Honorary Electronic Communications Device for a Very Special Boi" and they fall for it every time.
“I’ve reviewed over 50 sticky toffee puddings” is an incredibly powerful way to begin a video
I just wrote something that said both UK and EU agree they should in theory have close ties but neither can get there and here is an example of why not from the EU to go alongside others from the UK.
You can ask for anything in a trade deal, but you can also expect no at times.
Thanks Pavlos!
Mass psychopathy. They are laughing at committing war crime after war crime.
Disgusting.
Understand that this is the ELECTED leader of America. He is a reflection of the rot in the country's culture.
The Iran war should be a lesson for Keir Starmer's Government. If you take a clear line on an issue where the public agree with you then it's your opponents who end up having to back down, not you
Why do some people want to migrate while others don’t—even in similar conditions?🌍
My new #openaccess article in IMR shows how psychology🧠—notably values, risk tolerance, and personality—predict both aspiration and irregularity willingness.🔎🔓
journals.sagepub.com/eprint/XEJZT...
This is actually what I most wanted to highlight. I remember hearing a Labour MP argue that politics was ultimately just "a game of competitive storytelling", and then reflecting on just how disturbing the implications for democracy, accountability, and policymaking would be if that were wholly true
fuck, I’m sorry, I can’t compete with this
A watercolour study of parrot tulips
Watercolour of parrot tulips, a good subject to struggle with
#botanicalart #watercolour #watercolor
How do institutions communicate about #migration?
With @jamesrdennison.bsky.social & @mcduarte.bsky.social, we built a database of migration communication campaigns in Europe.
We’re expanding it now. Do you know a campaign? Please take this 1-min survey.
eui.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
The bad thing about this happening in a Labour seat is it gives the press a big excuse to ignore the fact Reform’s strategy is failing. They’ve now lost 3 in a row in 3 different countries to 3 different parties because their plan of coming through a split vote isn’t working. Their vote is too low
New evidence estimates that the Israeli military directly killed 75200 Gazans between Oct '23 and Jan '25. 22800 children were killed. Children, women, and the elderly were 56% of the killed. Non-violent deaths were also far higher than pre-"war". www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Amazing analysis of pub closures in the UK, by @laurenleek.eu, and the corporate interests behind them. Some important political and policy implications open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
Details of my book launch are now available - everyone welcome. It will be hybrid for those not in London and recorded.
www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/...
New at ESR!
Does moving often as a child weaken social capital later in life?
#RValente #MVacchiano find a more complex picture: childhood moves reduce place attachment, but can strengthen personal agency, supporting social capital in adulthood!
🔥 #OpenAccess: doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcag001
Congrats Leo, this looks excellent.
From context to congruence: Immigration salience and voter socialization Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2026 Leonardo Carella and Francesco Raffaelli This paper considers how issue salience environments affect long-term patterns of political choice via processes of political socialization. Drawing on the well-known ‘impressionable years’ hypothesis, we theorize that voters who grew up in high-immigration salience contexts subsequently exhibit higher levels of voter-party agreement on immigration (issue congruence). We find support for this hypothesis from two studies, which leverage cross-sectional variation within cohorts in exposure to immigration salience in voters’ formative years. The first employs congruence data from a survey of 10 European countries, linked to historical salience data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. The second is a within-country study, measuring salience and congruence from two long-running German public opinion survey series. The analysis suggests that growing up at times when immigration is high on the political agenda can have long-term consequences for the relationship between voters’ preferences on that issue and their political choices, shedding light on the mechanism behind ‘generational realignment’.
Really happy this work with @fraraffaelli.bsky.social found a home at EJPR. We show that growing up at times of high salience of immigration produces cohorts of voters who are more likely to vote for parties that they agree with specifically on immigration.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
It's a shame that in these anti-political times, Jenrick doing extremely lucrative planning favours for mega-rich donors is not something anyone bothers to mention about him
