The wonderful world of the British political-media ecosystem, where you can hold entire events about trends you've made up and which experts - who are crucially not invited - have debunked multiple times.
There were no faces on British banknotes at all - not even the Queen - until 1963
So only 12 people had yet appeared on notes from 1970-2005
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/...
This is terrible, and made worse by fact that SHU has also historically been an institution which employs a lot of teaching only staff. My dad worked there for 25 years and him and his entire department (maths) were teaching only! (That might have changed since, but was case in 2015 when he retired)
Thanks Alex!
Thanks Peter!
Thank you Jon!
Thanks Paula!
Thanks Chris!
Yes I'll be there, albeit not for the whole thing sadly!
Diolch Tom!
Equally surprised and delighted to win this!
Congratulations to @yamilrvelez.bsky.social, @patrickpliu.bsky.social, and @scottclifford.bsky.social !
we think attitudes are some function of beliefs; our exps routinely move beliefs but not (even correlated) attitudes. This team found a way to guess which beliefs matter more (and they do!)
Chart showing lifetime average GDP growth for Brits by year of birth. 20-year-old Brits have experienced an average of 1.4% growth, compared with 2.4% for 75-year-olds
Part of the issue is a lack of growth. A recent study showed that cohorts who experience more GDP growth in their lifetimes are more likely to trust the government and have positive perceptions of their living standards. academic.oup.com/qje/advance-... In Britain, such voters are dying out
Polling from More in Common shows that Greens and Reform win a higher share of voters who struggle to make ends meet, while Labour and the Conservatives win those who are most financially comfortable
Reform UK and the Greens are hoovering up financially insecure voters. My piece this week looks at the return of Britain's class politics (with a twist) www.economist.com/britain/2026...
Tax exiles stuck in London desperately trying to get *back* to Dubai to avoid becoming tax resident in the UK? Just great stuff. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Agree with this - I remember saying as much at the EPOP panel for the book!
Deluded. Labour lost about ten points during the course of the 2024 campaign. A strategic triumph it was not.
It definitely helped me understand better why reformist monarchs might fail though, both due to threats from within the family and among other aristocratic factions (let alone the geopolitical threats).
Is this the “household name” that Reform were promising last month? Because if so, they should have added the caveat “if your household read Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column between 2002-2018”
New piece from w/ @hannahbunting.bsky.social & @jess-smith.bsky.social on the Gorton & Denton byelection, and what it might tell us about British politics.
We cover turnout, late-deciding voters, gender gaps & the continuing fragmentation of the party system 🧵
theconversation.com/late-decider...
Farage/Yusuf "disenfranchise to deport" plan
* largest ever removal of voting rights in any democracy
* largest deportation plan of legal migrants in any democracy ever
* first deportation plan for permanent residents since Idi Amin expelled 80k Asians. Reform plan is much bigger: up to 400k+
GB News are now bringing Restore Britain on to the channel to tell their own black British presenter, born in Newcastle, she is not British - and it is "ridiculous" to define being British in a way that includes black people.
*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...
That "Danish Model" he went for is paying off in Denmark too, latest polls:
SD : 22.1% (-5.4)
SF : 13.2% (+4.9)
Exactly three weeks from an election
Yes - this does make think that funders/institutions would probably have to provide the data to do this work here, and are perhaps unlikely to do so given the incentives. Might also make sense not just to evaluate HEIs/depts on whether PhD students complete but also whether they get a job!
British Academy response to the Department for Education's technical consultation on the Interational Student Levy 18 February 2026 Background The Department for Education is consulting on the proposed levy on international student income, due to be introduced in England in August 2028.
‘We remain deeply concerned that universities will be unable to absorb the cost of the levy’s
introduction. The loss of cross-subsidy for domestic teaching & research will harm
universities’ ability to deliver their core functions’
Our response to the levy
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...
As Maria Sobolewska and I first said in Brexitland, the legacy parties under FPP are like Tinkerbell - they need belief to survive. if people cease to believe they see the best and only options, they can die fast. Is this the moment Labour’s Tinkerbell dies?
Screenshot of the "Does that use a lot of energy?" online app
Hannah Ritchie has built a fun little tool where you can compare energy usage of various products and activities.
This is super helpful imho, because it's so hard to develop intuitions even just about the scales involved here.
hannahritchie.substack.com/p/does-that-...
Assume proportional swing also much more likely with current Green strategy - appealing to formerly Labour safe seats in metropolitan areas
