15 minutes; no questions; tells you enough about how staff is valued at universities in the UK.

In yet more shocking news: the University forgot to give us our pay uplift for this year (which they had already unilaterally deferred to February).

Hundreds of staff have applied for voluntary redundancy, and had their redundancy pay confirmed based on their salary. What does this mean for them?

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

"When we ask what is at stake if academic freedom is not
protected, the answer is not only vital knowledge and democracy itself. The untruthful language marking universities as we know them, might be a precursor to the demise of academia itself."

Distressing but important piece by Susanne Taüber.

Corporations Are Using Carbon Credits to Exploit Refugees The UN is putting refugees to work in poorly paid green jobs to generate carbon credits for billion-dollar firms. It’s one of the most cynical instances of a corporate greenwashing agenda that has don...

This just out in @jacobinmag.bsky.social.

The mobilisation of refugee labour for carbon credits as maladaptive practice - Nicholas Beuret, Matilda Fitzmaurice, David Harvie, 2025 The Refugee Environmental Protection (REP) Fund is a programme designed to turn refugees and their labour into a source of carbon credits for global carbon mark...

Glad to see this out, co-authored with @nicholasbeuret.bsky.social and @davidharvie.bsky.social ! Huge thanks to the editors at Race & Class for their support and enthusiasm for the article.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Yep. Edmund Burke. Deputy vice-chancellor of U. Leicester in 2021 and responsible for overseeing mass redundancies, including my own. Assisted by chief financial officer Martyn "Fiddleston" Riddleston. Both now at Bagnor and doing the same thing there.

Organising resistance in the university Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our UniversitiesGibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and friends, Zer0 Books, £7.99THIS criti...

Shaping for Mediocrity reviewed in the Morning Star.
It's particularly timely since workers at University of Leicester are right now in the midst of yet another struggle against restructuring and redundancies. @ucu.org.uk

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/orga...

They All Oppose Genocide YouTube video by stanshall

"For action and for Palestine."

This is tonight! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

UK university job cuts put at 20,000 after full impact ‘hidden’ Number of roles affected could be almost double previous estimates when voluntary schemes and hiring freezes factored in, say researchers

Number of job cuts that have been made in UK higher education could be much higher than previously thought, with more than 20,000 roles potentially affected, say @beccaeharrison.bsky.social @davidharvie.bsky.social www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ... via @julietterowsell.bsky.social

It hasn't changed at all! Across the UK police are responding with violence to peaceful protestors opposing Israeli genocide in Gaza and the British state's complicity in this genocide. Here's a report from the @defendourjuries.bsky.social action in Manchester on July 12.

The Oasis reunion wasn't the only newsworthy event happening in Manchester the past two weekends, not that you'd know it from the mainstream media – & even most of the alternatives. Here's a report from the July 12 @defendourjuries.bsky.social action opposing genocide in Gaza.

CCFC donates nearly £8000 from trans solidarity keeper shirt sales - Clapton Community FC In late May, the call for pre-orders for Clapton CFC’s limited edition trans solidarity goalkeeper shirt attracted huge interest.

Clapton CFC has donated the full profit of £7,944.34 from sales of our limited edition trans solidarity keeper shirt to the Trans Legal Clinic.

Here's the breakdown >> www.claptoncfc.co.uk/2025/07/18/c...

Person sitting on steps and holding a placard saying "I OPPOSE GENOCIDE, I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION"

This happened in Leeds earlier. One person was arrested for sitting on some steps holding a placard saying

I OPPOSE GENOCIDE
I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION

Police searched his house and, I believe, he's still being held in custody.

@defendourjuries.bsky.social
@palaction.bsky.social

Solidarity with the people from @defendourjuries.bsky.social, risking their liberty in Manchester, Cardiff and London today – in opposition to genocide in Palestine and the UK government's complicity in that and in support of @palaction.bsky.social – taking direct action to stop genocide. 🇵🇸 🍉

And this spirit lives on in the activists and organisers (chapeau Palestine Action) taking direct action to stop genocide and to stop (further) climate breakdown.

*This* was the spirit of Gleneagles – 20 years ago this weekend – embodied in the millions of people across the planet who believed another world was (is) possible. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Cinespotlights: Harvest (18) + intro | National Science and Media Museum Dr Rebecca Harrison explores the environmental implications of this spellbinding and thrillingly distinctive period piece.

If we're to restore our rights to the land, & to the commons more generally, it's vital we remember the stories of how we lost these rights in the first place – the stories of enclosure.

At the July 24 screening, the amazing @beccaeharrison.bsky.social will discuss the film & its revelance today.

poster for To Kill A War Machine: a screening of a documentary about Palestine Action BLOC Cinema (ArtsOne), Mile End Road, London E1 4PA 1 July, 18:30-21:00 FREE registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/to-kill-a-war-machine-tickets-1437236636469?aff=oddtdtcreator

SCREENING: “To Kill A War Machine”, a documentary about @palaction.bsky.social by ‪@rainbow-collective.bsky.social‬

⏰2 July, 18;30-21:00,
📍BLOC Cinema, ArtsOne
🎟 free, but register for access: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/to-kill-a-...
🤝 @cclas1.bsky.social

Really unfair question to ask, tbh.

No reason at all it can't be both.

In case anyone's wondering, the "bullying complaint in previous role" was at U. Leicester, where he was enabled by VC Nishan Canagarajah and deputy VC Edmund Burke, now VC at Bangor.

If you've been fucked around by one of the malicious, ignorant, corrupt, greedy, vindictive, arrogant, grasping, spiteful, self-important, smug, censorious & deceitful bullies who run UK universities ...

... check out the demolition of ex-Vice Chancellor Gillespie at Holyrood

Enjoy

I'm pleased that even though the 'grown ups' are ignoring the massive ecological and financial scandal that is the ongoing subsidies to Drax, these kids aren't. Good on them.

Organisation scholars call this 'strategy' MIMETIC ISOMORPHISM. We write about it in Shaping for Mediocrity – it's a 'middling' strategy!

Imagine the banality of a university where the only ratified areas of study are ‘complex analysis’ and ‘critical thinking’. Thinking about what? We have already seen what happens when we unleash a cadre of overrated, narrowly-educated adolescents whose only thought is of their own exceptionalism.

"Your micro-credentials in ‘leadership’, decision-making and ‘commercial awareness’ are not going to impinge on the threats from climate change or global health hazards."

oh man, this is SO spot on about #UKHE, its value, and and why we have to defend it from blandness.