Oscar Berglund

UoB staff on strike round 2: 10th and 11th March 2026

Quote from Carla Denyer: "Solidarity with Unison workers at the University of Bristol, who are striking against a 3.4% real terms pay cut. Since 2009, higher education pay has lost around 28% of its value. Meanwhile, low-paid workers have borne the brunt of the crisis in higher education funding. This strike is important for Bristol. University of Bristol workers make up a significant proportion of the city’s workforce – at 4.8%. I also have a personal connection to this issue – many of my friends either currently work in universities, or have left, due to unmanageable working conditions. Workloads can’t keep increasing while wages are dropping. I’m proud to have supported striking University of Bristol workers since I was a local councillor, and to have joined them on picket lines across the years. I echo their demands: it's time for University workers to be paid fairly."

Round 2 of the University of Bristol @unison.org.uk staff strike. We’ll be at the pickets on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th March.

I’ll be there for two reasons: Pay and Redundancies. (1/5)

The global criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest – a repertoire of repression This paper sets out a repertoire of repression operating to criminalise and repress recent climate and environmental protest globally. Deploying a novel mixed methods approach, involving a comparat...

This is yet another attack on the right to protest. Part of a global repertoire of repression. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Advice from Policy & Politics journal on how to choose the right journal for your research. Read the blog post by the editors here @eakoebele.bsky.social @allegrafullerton.bsky.social @cmweible.bsky.social @berglundoscar.bsky.social

policyandpoliticsblog.com/2026/03/09/a...

That YouGov poll yesterday:
Britain's working age population 18-65:
🟢Green 26%
🟣Reform 21%
🔴Labour 16%
🟠Lib Dem 14%
🔵Tories 13%

Britain's retired population 65+:
🟣Reform 33%
🔵Tories 26%
🔴Labour 15%
🟠Lib Dem 14%
🟢Green 6%

I think PR would save a good 15% of the electorate who would still vote Labour, equating to 15% of seats and survival. FPTP risks putting Labour below 10% and electoral extinction, i.e. PASOKification, following their Greek counterparts

Indeed. Not least I think that Labour are heading towards PASOKification, a process that has only just started. Ironically, the only thing that can stop it is PR, which they will never implement of course

The recent peak of UK two-party politics was 2017. It’s conceivable that all Corbyn’s voters would vote Green. It’s inconceivable that all May’s (or Johnson’s) voters would vote Reform. Also, more of them are dead

If the next election is between Reform and Greens, as it’s starting to look like, Greens will win

Reform peaked too early

So this is in effect they got rid of promotion and relegation a few years ago

Well all those bankruptcies meant that there hasn't been relegation for a while

They’ve been doing that for years though

That model more or less broke in rugby union a few years ago when teams started going bankrupt. The whole model has been quite messed up for a while

In that sense, JSO have been neither effective nor counterproductive.

So can we put this question to bed now? Just because activists are (very) unpopular it doesn't mean that they are counterproductive.

3. Were JSO effective in communicating their message? Answer: Not directly in reporting, but their protests led to increased attention to oil and gas extraction licences in North Sea.
4. Did JSO shift public opinion? No, not on climate change and not on licences.

We then ask about JSO:
1. Did JSO succeed in getting media attention? Answer: Big Yes.
2. What was the nature of this attention? Answer: Overwhelmingly hostile

Being repeatedly asked if this type of disruptive isn't counterproductive is what prompted us to look closer into this claim and try to establish if there is any merit to it.
We first propose a framework of assessing counterproductivity in relation to any social movement for any cause (picture).

Assessing claims of counterproductivity of Just Stop Oil’s civil disobedience - npj Climate Action npj Climate Action - Assessing claims of counterproductivity of Just Stop Oil’s civil disobedience

We (Colin Davis, @samuelfinnerty.bsky.social & I) are happy to share our Open Access article 'Assessing claims of counterproductivity of Just Stop Oil's civil disobedience': www.nature.com/articles/s44...

How did you get in there so quickly 😂. I was going to start plugging it later today

the fake conspiracies are a distraction from the real conspiracies... this is what I found again and again while researching Doppelganger.

And Bannon is doing it in overdrive these days.

The locals were very bemused by all the intense electioneering. Not used to it in what was a Liam Fox very safe seat until recently

People often ask me why I left the U.S. and there are various reasons but the thing that made me start really making an exit strategy was when journalists covering Standing Rock were being arrested. Historically a very bad sign for democracy. Seeing it get worse and more blatant is scary and sad

Had a great chat to one of the best climate journalists in the world, @amywestervelt.bsky.social, about criminalisation & repression of climate & environmental protest around the world the other day. Here’s the result.

A Truth From Iran to Minneapolis: Weak Governments Kill Protesters Regimes are most violent against dissenters when they know that the protests have traction.

Good to speak to Liza Featherstone the other day about how repression increases as legitimacy decreases. Here's her resulting article:
A Truth From Iran to Minneapolis: Weak Governments Kill Protesters newrepublic.com/article/2059... via @newrepublic.com

The global criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest – a repertoire of repression This paper sets out a repertoire of repression operating to criminalise and repress recent climate and environmental protest globally. Deploying a novel mixed methods approach, involving a comparat...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

3,000 people have read our @environmentalpol.bsky.social article in its 1st month online

The global criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest - a repertoire of repression

With @crossdale.bsky.social, C Pantazis, @roxana-pessoa.bsky.social & T Franco Brotto

How Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change

I published This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate in 2014. Lots of serious people explained that we didn't have time to tackle capitalism, climate was too important. Let the market fix it for us.

The track record is 12 wasted years and a world on fire. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/c...

Banning organisations has a sorry history – does Australia really want to go down this road again? | Anne Twomey As the government brings its new hate laws to parliament, it’s worth remembering past attempts suggest legislation used to outlaw political groups have been neither wise nor necessary

“Under the proposed laws, no one needs to have been convicted of a hate crime for the minister to be satisfied that an organisation has engaged in conduct constituting a hate crime and there is no requirement for the minister to observe procedural fairness.”
www.theguardian.com/law/commenti...

20 years in the UK have taught me many ways of getting meaning across without saying it outright. That’s really useful when giving feedback to students who have obviously used generative AI to write their essays, without directly accusing them of doing so, as you lack the hard evidence.

Only steering towards the iceberg can save the Titanic