@ewanmg
🎓Law Professor @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social, CBR, Cambridge + @granthamlse.bsky.social 🌹Labour law, enterprise law, pensions, corporations, human rights 🌍Cares about stopping inequality, climate damage + war 🕸️ https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/ewan-mcgaughey
Social democrats in Denmark propose a 0.5% wealth tax on assets over £1.86 million (25m kroner).
The Lego family has £7.2 billion.
Looks like - as in Norway - a wealth tax will win another election. Let's watch if the wealthy protests get rejected again. On 24 March.
www.ft.com/content/5d28...
I'm feeling bot vibes from this "factchecker".
Nope. Ironic you say this as oil prices are again about to crash many economies.
What Reform or Tories say they may/not do in 3.5 years time is irrelevant. Electric car costs are plummeting, and this year the same price as a new ICE car. So the economics will eclipse politics. Wind, solar, battery generation is much cheaper than gas. We need to accelerate rollout to save money.
Tax the oil + gas companies' windfall profits to offset (yet another, impending) cost of living crisis.
Then, electrify transport, generation + heating at the double.
No more reliance on fossil fueled dictators, or being battered by the outbreak of aggressive wars.
What an ad. Today, about 38% of our rail is electrified. India just hit 100%.
The oil didn't run out, as we've drilled in ever more dangerous places (eg DeepWater Horizon) and in dictatorships. But it's suffers the same problems that OPEC showed in the 1970s.
Electrify everything.
The idea the North Sea is some great goldmine waiting to be tapped is entirely at odds with reality.
This is a very good article by my colleague Prof Vernon Bogdanor on changing the election system to preferential voting or PR.
But I wish he would stop calling for referendums, as he persuaded Cameron to do for Brexit. We've all had enough. Parliament just needs an Act.
www.ft.com/content/38d8...
🤑 Bogus self-employment costs the UK about £8.5bn every year, I told the BBC.
✍️ This includes Uber, Deliveroo, Oxbridge colleges, construction firms + hair salons writing sham self-employment contracts for their staff.
⬇️ Listen to this excellent BBC Radio 4 show.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
EU Commission registers European citizens initiative calling for European social media platform
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
Man who went to Eton + crashed UK economy, cost millions of people £10,000s on higher mortgages + rents, calls students wanting free uni "freeloaders".
We have to choose between Kwasi Kwarteng and international law (ICESCR art 13(2)(c), which says uni must be made free.
inews.co.uk/opinion/stud...
An infographic with weighing scales showing that the majority of universities not on X outweigh those still using the platform
If you are part of a university or UK facing research organisation, publisher, funder, learned society and they are still posting on X - they're in a rather uncomfortable minority now. Perhaps point them to the eXit.
My piece for the @lseimpactblog.bsky.social
blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...
1/3
Great article on the Thames Water disaster, driven by Wall St vulture funds, who profit from pollution and fleecing British billpayers.
Over double the % cost of your mortgage is the price we're paying in debt via water bills. By @willdunn.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Don’t want a dystopian future of AI feeding a US military industrial complex to destroy internal democracy and conduct illegal wars?
This is an excellent blog by @alanrozenshtein.com on the latest Anthropic and Pentagon spat.
www.lawfaremedia.org/article/cong...
A Milan court just put Deliveroo into administration for exploiting its workers.
If the UK had a functioning labour rights system we would have done the same years ago.
www.euractiv.com/news/milan-p...
Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling.
If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dirty Business is a brilliant docu-drama on Channel 4, and must impel the government to end the water privatisation scam.
It would cost close to £0 to bring failed water companies into public ownership.
Government should do it, starting with Thames Water.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
This is by far one of the best things I have read on pub economics and why pubs are closing - it’s private equity, not just taxes: thank you and well done @laurenleek.eu
laurenleek.substack.com/p/britain-lo...
Ah - I see, many thanks.
How do you mean, Glen? I haven't read enough, but seems like the very least we can do is cut interest rates - e.g. to CPI alone. The USA also did student debt erasure under Biden of course. The loan book of £267bn is a v big problem, and an extra 9% tax on graduates (not employers) seems wrong.
🇨🇳 China has 50,000 km of high speed rail 😅
🇪🇺 Europe has 8,500km 🤨
🇬🇧 Britain has about 110km 🙁
So who should own and run railways? Once built, how should they be governed? And what rights should passengers have?
My new class on what goes right + wrong in rail👇
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5U1...
Crushing victory for the next Portgueuse Socialist president, whose party's platform includes workers on boards of directors.
Results are in regarding our local ballot.
63.3% of voters are prepared to take IA consisting of a strike action, and 75.6% are prepared to take ASOS. Return rate was 53.1%, comfortably clear of the Tory anti-trade union minimum.
A chart showing nuclear fission's proportion of global power declining from a high of over 17% to 9%, while solar PV's share grows from zero to 7% and accelerating.
Fusion vs fission. It's fusion for the win - with a bit of help from some solar panels, obviously.
Check out the coverage in THE, and stay tuned.
It's an uphill battle + taken nearly 2 years for the union watchdog to hold a hearing. Grady's using union money to hire a pricey KC, so the odds are against us. But we will fight to win for our colleagues.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jo-grad...
UCU members have a right to a free + fair election, and a working union. Under Grady, members have seen:
📉over 10% real pay cuts, for lecturers, senior lecturers
🔻union membership+density plummet over 5%
✊UCU staff doing 4 strike ballots
🏳️failure to protect branches+job security
So we need change.
![Press release: Complaint lodged over 2024 UCU General Secretary election
The General Secretary of the UK’s largest post-16 education union, Dr Jo Grady, will face a hearing by the independent Certification Officer after whistleblowers gave evidence that she used union resources, staff and software to rig her own re-election in 2024.
The election result, reported on 1 March 2024, put Grady ahead by a margin of 182 votes in final preferences out of 114,310 members (0.157% of the vote), on a turnout of 15.1%. UCU did not permit a recount or the presence of candidates at the count.
Two candidates in the election, Vicky Blake (Leeds) and Professor Ewan McGaughey (King’s College London), have applied to the Certification Officer to rule that the 2024 election breached union rules and should be re-run. They seek an order that Grady must vacate her office if breaches are found. The hearing is 10 February, and can be joined by emailing the Certification Officer.
UCU rules 7 and 8 expressly prohibited the use of union resources, including staff, social media, and email lists “for campaigning”. However since the election, whistleblowers from within UCU came forward to the applicants with evidence that is now before the Certification Officer. The key complaints include that:
• Grady instructed UCU’s senior management WhatsApp group that “every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the… lens… Re-elect GS”, and is seen saying she would “destroy” people in the union who opposed her (captured in WhatsApp screenshots below);
• according to witnesses, staff were repeatedly told by Grady and senior managers that their work should focus on re-electing Grady and that jobs were at risk if she lost. In her initial witness statement to the Certification Officer, before WhatsApp screenshots came to light, Grady “vehemently den[ied]” these allegations;](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oaolac3s2bwfnitagj4lf4us/bafkreicob2z2s7fusfnyru3lw2nl44si4xamykvl4qbjumvoih2htx7mu4)
Press release: Complaint lodged over 2024 UCU General Secretary election The General Secretary of the UK’s largest post-16 education union, Dr Jo Grady, will face a hearing by the independent Certification Officer after whistleblowers gave evidence that she used union resources, staff and software to rig her own re-election in 2024. The election result, reported on 1 March 2024, put Grady ahead by a margin of 182 votes in final preferences out of 114,310 members (0.157% of the vote), on a turnout of 15.1%. UCU did not permit a recount or the presence of candidates at the count. Two candidates in the election, Vicky Blake (Leeds) and Professor Ewan McGaughey (King’s College London), have applied to the Certification Officer to rule that the 2024 election breached union rules and should be re-run. They seek an order that Grady must vacate her office if breaches are found. The hearing is 10 February, and can be joined by emailing the Certification Officer. UCU rules 7 and 8 expressly prohibited the use of union resources, including staff, social media, and email lists “for campaigning”. However since the election, whistleblowers from within UCU came forward to the applicants with evidence that is now before the Certification Officer. The key complaints include that: • Grady instructed UCU’s senior management WhatsApp group that “every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the… lens… Re-elect GS”, and is seen saying she would “destroy” people in the union who opposed her (captured in WhatsApp screenshots below); • according to witnesses, staff were repeatedly told by Grady and senior managers that their work should focus on re-electing Grady and that jobs were at risk if she lost. In her initial witness statement to the Certification Officer, before WhatsApp screenshots came to light, Grady “vehemently den[ied]” these allegations;
![Vicky Blake said:
“This case is about the basic principle that union elections must be run fairly and in line with the rules that apply to everyone. Members need to be confident that union resources are not used to give any candidate an unfair advantage, and that staff who raise concerns are protected, not punished.”
Ewan McGaughey said:
“We are bringing this case because UCU members have a right to a union that works for them, not a union used by an incumbent to enrich herself. We are members of trade unions to improve each other’s working lives, and transform society, with fair pay, equality and democracy. The WhatsApp messages showing Grady ordering UCU staff in the middle of a dispute to get herself re-elected shows how far we must go to rebuild universities and further education for good.”
For further information, or to share relevant evidence in confidence about the conduct of the 2024 election, please contact ewan.mcgaughey@kcl.ac.uk and v.blake@leeds.ac.uk.
Notes for editors:
1. These are copies of the screenshots of the WhatsApp group chat, on 11 January 2023. This included three members of the UCU senior management team. Their names have been redacted, but are known to the Certification Officer, as well as UCU. A senior management member is seen replying: “And has been, hopefully” [the case] that the union had been working to get Grady re-elected.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oaolac3s2bwfnitagj4lf4us/bafkreicvf6creii5xty2rmryrj5dg4wod4ndkoups7s5igq4syuoitcuim)
Vicky Blake said: “This case is about the basic principle that union elections must be run fairly and in line with the rules that apply to everyone. Members need to be confident that union resources are not used to give any candidate an unfair advantage, and that staff who raise concerns are protected, not punished.” Ewan McGaughey said: “We are bringing this case because UCU members have a right to a union that works for them, not a union used by an incumbent to enrich herself. We are members of trade unions to improve each other’s working lives, and transform society, with fair pay, equality and democracy. The WhatsApp messages showing Grady ordering UCU staff in the middle of a dispute to get herself re-elected shows how far we must go to rebuild universities and further education for good.” For further information, or to share relevant evidence in confidence about the conduct of the 2024 election, please contact ewan.mcgaughey@kcl.ac.uk and v.blake@leeds.ac.uk. Notes for editors: 1. These are copies of the screenshots of the WhatsApp group chat, on 11 January 2023. This included three members of the UCU senior management team. Their names have been redacted, but are known to the Certification Officer, as well as UCU. A senior management member is seen replying: “And has been, hopefully” [the case] that the union had been working to get Grady re-elected.
2. Jo Grady took office in 2019. In 2023, the Health and Safety Executive found that UCU as an employer violated the laws on workplace stress. Union membership fell from 128,989 in 2021 to 114,310 in 2024. 3. Since the 2024 election UCU staff have conducted four successful strike ballots, in near continuous industrial action from 2024 to 2025, over issues ranging from health and safety, to pay, and workplace racism. 4. After the 2024 election, Grady took a pay rise which according to FE Week paid for settlement costs after Grady was sued for libel by a right-wing activist on Twitter. 5. The Certification Officer originally listed a hearing for 18 November 2025. After additional evidence was disclosed to the parties on 6 November 2025 and shared with the Certification Officer (namely the screenshots above), the hearing was shifted to 10 February 2026.
Grady then used union property, contractors and software to make her campaign videos, violating UCU's own rules. She weaponised UCU's vast social media, and sent a million emails in the election, to flood comms with news about herself.
Our press summary is here...
11 January 2023, Grady tells UCU senior managers in secret WhatsApp group chat "every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the below lense... Re-elect GS".
11 January 2023, in response to Grady's instruction that everything UCU does has to be "Re-elect GS", a senior manager replies "And has been, hopefully"
🚨🧵The 2024 UCU General Secretary was so corrupt that @vickyblake.bsky.social + I are fighting a Certification Officer case to re-run it, 10 Feb. Grady won by 182 votes from 114,310 members, turnout 15%.
In secret, Grady ordered UCU managers to "Re-elect GS" +said she'd "destroy" her opponents...
The @timeshighered.bsky.social has reported that @ewanmg.bsky.social and I have applied to the Certification Officer regarding concerns over the 2024 UCU general secretary election. UCU has characterised this as “smearing”, via a spokesperson.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jo-grad...
/1
I was on BBC News, saying the new Water White Paper does not stop £22bn going to shareholdes and banks up to 2029, raising bills + starving water from investment to stop pollution + keep the taps running.
We need to shift to modern, accountable public ownership.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpuA...