Recent posts by UK Constitutional Lawyers on Bluesky

Has Thames Water considered maybe fixing the leaking and bursting pipes if they want to save water? 🙄🙄🙄

And they definitely did that right?

My cod sociology view is the disproportionate obsession with academic appointments flows from a belief that faculty indoctrinates students. When in fact students indoctrinate each other and professors watch in amusement.

www.middleeasteye.net/news/jason-a...

Not long ago, Ukraine didn’t have the capacity to strike targets deep inside Russia. Now it does—and it asks nobody’s permissions to do so. This has given Kyiv reason for optimism, writes Jen Stout

Morning all - this morning’s sky

In other words, much like what happened to David Starkey in 2020 when he lost college and charitable affiliations through racist comments, based on clauses in those organisations' bye-laws, charters etc.

We know the public is wrong about many facts, *on average*. Anyone seen any work on why they're wrong, which groups are more right or wrong on different subjects?

I'm sorry but it's clearly newsworthy that the President's decisions are being unduly influenced by a mentally unstable obsessive no one voted for who has attached themselves to him in an effort to live out weird fantasies they've had for decades. Something has to be done about Stephen Miller.

Immigration would also like a word.

New episode of the WHERE POLITICS MEETS HISTORY podcast 153. Welcome Home (Harry and Meghan) @Tessadunlop and I discuss the return of you know who, the tragic death of Jason Arday and Reform UK suspending Tim Montgomerie. Listen podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/1...

The entire world is paying the price for Trump’s incompetence in Iran. This time he’s not just bankrupted a casino - he’s pushed the defence of “the free world” to the brink. 1/

I don’t think I had quite realised that Cofnas was not employed by Emmanuel College (he had Leverhulme funding) and this was just an affiliation largely for social purposes. It’s hardly firing someone if you neither employ nor pay them. It’s removing an association with a charitable organisation.

When people tell me they liked my book I’m always pleased of course, but in my head I’m saying ‘Which one? I’ve written eight. But OK. I know which one. The one I wrote 30 years ago.’

But what if this was actually a trade deal, the US lifted Scotch tariffs only in return for the King taking back Harry and Meghan...? Then Trade Secrets would surely have to cover it (at least as second feature to Chester's winning start to their season)

"Harp has become increasingly inseparable from the President, leading to some concern from White House staff"

Doubt it - and maybe for good reason.

Morning Bluesky.

I infiltrated al-Qaeda for the CIA. This month, I was arrested by ICE www.thetimes.com/article/20d9...

If you understand German, watch this, it is relevant far beyond Germany. How a public discourse & society built on noise and self-aggrandizement makes people more susceptible to authoritarian ideas. Everybody already thinks they know everything, which is why nobody listens to each other anymore.

🚨 How money-market funds are providing stock market rocket fuel www.ft.com/content/a079...

'Racism is structural but structures are not always visible; they become perceptible in encounters – in who is assumed to belong, who is interrupted, who is doubted, whose authority attaches effortlessly and whose must continually be demonstrated.' Wise words.

Out Now: QUIET RIOT B SIDE! We are joined by @rachelblakemp.bsky.social to talk HOUSING CRISES PLURAL. 🏡 Supply problems 🏚️ Quality issues 🛌 Rough sleeping And much much more! 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q... 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/4dtw...

UK men with heart disease at higher risk of developing and dying from cancer

Given a few conversations in the last couple of weeks plus the state of my LinkedIn feed, wondering how many officials left the UK government in August and how much disruption this caused. Under-reported and likely slow burn impact.

somehow despite him writing an entire book about my life, i get no royalties.

'Smita Jamdar, head of education at...Shakespeare Martineau, said it will be difficult for the OfS to adjudicate individual cases they decide have merit given the complex nature of the complaints that would reach them, adding that they will also have to face a lot of “untested legal material”. ' 1/2

'Unveiling its new education policies, the right-wing party promised to “come down like a tonne of bricks on taxpayer-funded Mickey Mouse degrees from third-rate universities”.' Predictably, no Dalmatian puppies have been spared in the construction of Cruella's black-and-white coat. 1/3

It is always someone else's fault. Always.

‘John Van Reenen… estimates that annualised productivity growth is running at 1.6 per cent from the third quarter of 2024 onwards, compared with just 0.3 per cent over the previous decade.’ www.ft.com/content/6c35...

34 at the time the photo was taken.

The 'centrist' disapproval of the highlighting of Natalie Harp's role now looks absolutely bonkers with the publication of her notes to Trump and the revelation that she went a year without vetting.

'The higher education workers at risk of redundancy are potentially losing their jobs not just because of external factors, but because of sector-wide mismanagement by university leaders too quick to shirk responsibility.'

Thanks for the Gwendoline Riley recommendation @emmavj.bsky.social @salimotxo.bsky.social . I'm half way through The Palm House and the OH is on her second.

'Paul Whiteman, head of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “We have long called for an end to the current policy which forces students into dispiriting rounds of repeated, demotivating resits.' Misleading headline: failures of the current practice, not of the future plan, predominate.

Asset-backed commercial paper is baaaack (and helping fuel the stock market rally…) www.ft.com/content/a079...

Me: Maybe I should be a columnist. Also me: Perhaps not.

'The area of the National Trust’s Holnicote estate where rivers have been returned to their natural courses and wetlands have been restored have remained green and lush during the five heatwaves across the summer.'

Aftersun (2022), second on this list, is on the iplayer still and knocked me flat when I saw it. Highly recommended

So fun that Meghan is going to be next James Bond

"band-aid on a bullet hole" Going well, then Scott Bessent takes on bond vigilantes in $32tn Treasury market - as.ft.com/r/b41d29d4-4...

“When you saw me at the cash register.” Reminds me of that line from ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?’

With regard to whether Labour stands a chance of winning the next election @stephenkb.bsky.social's latest encapsulates one of its biggest dilemmas.

It is, in fact, a Building Roman. (You need to have seen it to understand.)

One article in this magazine is saying that the view that AI won’t deliver huge productivity gains is not credible. (The hit on Acemoglu). This one is explaining how to spot AI writing - that presumably is unwelcome.😂

I’ve alwaysloved @vermontgmg.bsky.social ‘s writing but this is astounding “AI has arrived in American life & communities across the country as a giant turd mountain. No one wants it; it makes everything worse when it arrives; and it’s been pushed & backed & cheerled by the absolute worst people”

I’ve loved @vermontgmg.bsky.social ‘s writing but this is astounding “AI has arrived in American life & communities across the country as a giant turd mountain. No one wants it; it makes everything worse when it arrives; and it’s been pushed & backed & cheerled by the absolute worst people”

Aggregate Result of the 98 Council By-Elections Since the 2026 Local Elections RFM: 21 (+6) | 23% (+11) LDM: 18 (+3) | 15% (+1) CON: 17 (-2) | 18% (-2) LAB: 13 (-5) | 17% (-6) GRN: 11 (+2) | 14% (-1) PLC: 10 (-1) | 4% (+1) Ind: 5 (-3) | 5% (-3) SNP: 2 (+2) | 2% (-1) electionmaps.uk/council-by-e...

Breaking news - questions have been raised about Hegseth’s leadership.

Harraby South (Cumberland) Council By-Election Result: ➡️ RFM: 46.2% (New) 🌹 LAB: 33.3% (-7.6) 🌳 CON: 16.8% (-18.5) 🌍 GRN: 2.1% (New) 🔶 LDM: 1.6% (New) No Ind (-23.8) as previous. Reform UK GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2022.

Penistone East (Barnsley) Council By-Election Result: 🌹 LAB: 51.6% (+14.4) ➡️ RFM: 23.8% (-6.7) ◼️ RES: 6.5% (New) 🌳 CON: 11.6% (-7.6) 🔶 LDM: 2.1% (-3.6) 🌍 GRN: 1.7% (-5.6) 🙋 Ind: 2.6% (New) 🙋 Ind: 0.2% (New) Labour GAIN from Reform UK. Changes w/ 2026.

St. Anslem poll | 8/17-8/18 RV 2028 Democratic US presidential primary (New Hampshire) 🟦Pete Buttigieg 25% 🟦AOC 17% 🟦Jon Ossoff 12% 🟦Mark Kelly 12% 🟦Gavin Newsom 7% 🟦Kamala Harris 3% 🟦Cory Booker 2% 🟦JB Priztker 2% 🟦Ro Khanna 2% 🟦Rahm Emanuel 2% 🟦Josh Shapiro 1% 🟦Wes Moore 1% 🟦Andy Beshear 1%

Leen Valley (Nottingham) Council By-Election Result: 🌹 LAB: 30.5% (-33.8) 🏘️ NPA: 23.2% (New) ➡️ RFM: 18.2% (New) 🌍 GRN: 16.7% (New) 🌳 CON: 8.4% (-13.3) 🔶 LDM: 3.0% (-11.0) Labour HOLD. Changes w/ 2023.

Let's get the life back into Edinburgh - and communities around the country - with flats and houses people actually live in; places they call home.

“The term 'feeding frenzy' originates in animal behaviour and is defined as 'a total loss of control triggered when an intensely competitive predator group is overwhelmed by an abundance of prey'. Actually, I cannot think of a more complete explanation of what happened.”

St Neots Eynesbury (Huntingdonshire) Council By-Election Result: 🔶 LDM: 47.9% (+29.8) ➡️ RFM: 30.3% (+3.1) 🌳 CON: 6.7% (-3.8) 🌍 GRN: 5.5% (-12.5) 🌹 LAB: 4.9% (New) 🙋 Ind: 4.8% (New) No Ind (-26.2) as previous. Liberal Democrat GAIN from Reform UK. Changes w/ 2026.

I have to agree J.D. I was utterly and completely amazed.

If only there was something, anything, that was happening right now that explained why oil prices might be high.

The Trump administration is so unfathomably lucky their reign coincided with the AI Boom/Bubble. - Huge capex spending that's immune to their bad policies - Massively inflated stock market - And now they can just imagine AGI will deliver 300% GDP growth any day now so the debt doesn't matter.

The US Navy is considering renaming the future USS Doris Miller, an aircraft carrier honoring the Black sailor who became a hero during Pearl Harbor, and have discussed naming it after Trump instead, CNN reports.

The wife of Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News producer Jennifer Hegseth, attended sensitive, high level international meetings without a security clearance. She was also included in the Signal chat where her husband shared plans for US strikes in Yemen.

www.ft.com/content/9399... Investors cut bets on US and UK interest rate rises

Totally understand why Masnick stopped quotes but I concur with this. I’m not sure Bluesky is a really that much of an echo chamber except in the case of AI, where yeh it kinda is. So it’s hard to learn much here about what works and what doesn’t with a technology that gotta say, ain’t going away

I’ll take Manchester being mentioned in the same breath as Oxbridge and go from there

I think we all need to limber up for not caring about Harry and Meghan by not caring about smaller stories first so we feel confident not to care about the bigger ones down the line. #Idon'tcare

there is a fucking massive spider somewhere in this bedroom and I didn't want to hurt it but i might have panicked a tiny bit and now I no longer have eyes on and what do i just leave for good now i think it was definitely the man eating kind

Haven’t heard much about wild fires lately. Are they all out, or did we just get bored?

What a bloody brilliant story from @rachelsylvester.bsky.social. Gutted I missed it, obviously, but this is the sort of stuff I live and breathe. There are so many micro-scale projects like this hidden in #localgov. Replicate the best and things improve very rapidly observer.co.uk/news/politic...

I was at #TheDogStars world premiere tonight and there were quite a lot of men who would like to be mistaken for Jacob Elordi. Anyway the real one was also there.

America. Is *anything* ok?

I feel we should have the concepts of ‘assists’ in philosophy. Asking people insightful questions that give them clues about how to improve their work. Have benefited from many over the years.

Liz Truss Mark Littlewood Lembit Opik John Cleese All ex-Libdems. Makes ya fink, don't it?

“The retreat to the small, and the jettisoning of grand metanarratives of the kind that Hobsbawm excelled at, has reduced our understanding of who we are.” @johnmerrick.bsky.social on @emile-chabal.bsky.social’s biography of Eric Hobsbawm: unherd.com/2026/08/eric...

Waited an hour in the sun in an uncovered viewing area for today’s Falcon launch. Which was cancelled with about a minute to go. Urgh. On the other hand, Cape Canaveral is still a great day out. If you like rockets. I like rockets.

2½ years ago. #ADHD

Ban the #PervertGlasses #CreepGoggles

This is how, once on an ammunition forecast, 9 Mar 1997 got turned into 643,766.07

“Insert tab A into slot B”

Not buying this. Not consistent with my own experience

Can I just stop you there?

A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has hit southern Peru with the epicentre in Ayacucho province.

Joint statement from the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Canada.

'Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Montie has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.' 'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare

This piece rather misses the fact that large corporates are increasingly becoming direct political players, and arguably in doing so undermining the notion of free markets that The Economist is supposed to support.

While the public understands climate change as a serious crisis, it barely shows up in popular culture. Isabel Hilton speaks to the makers of ‘Hot Mess’, who are defying the trend

Am I shocked that the programme seemingly specifically designed to attack neurodivergent individuals and diminish our support needs twisted evidence to attack us and diminish support needs? Uhm...no. Not even remotely. It fits a pattern in coverage seen right now. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Basically very, very few people are openly objectionable in person - but you are the totality of what you do and say, not just when you want people to like you and when you're around people you've decided worthy of respect.

But what if this startles the Welfare Toddler, who starts Welfare Crying?

I honestly cannot conceive of a more pointless use of time than to think up what will happen when the Machines generate a world of super abundance. Listen to this podcast to see that I'm right pca.st/episode/00fb...

Happy 80th birthday Ralf, and thank you

The problem with Love is Blind was that it refuted its own premise in the Brazilian one where for the first time they included one (1) person who wasn't conventionally attractive, and they got rejected as soon as their partner saw them.

China and the US are in a race for the title of world's biggest supercomputer... but does that actually matter? My latest for @tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...

🎵 Paved paradise Put up a data centre 🎶 We get it Joni, but there’s something still a bit off. Can you have another go?

FFS you chowderheads, Ghent is not even in the UK

Fascinating that Adrian Vermeule, a Catholic convert, phrases his objections to legal originalism by referring disparagingly to Protestantism’s doctrine of “sola scriptura”

“I’ve been full time at The Guardian for over a decade now. I’m the first columnist in the country to use a wheelchair. I’m still one of the only visibly disabled journalists in the press. That is objectively batshit.” I wrote about the British media’s diversity problem. shorturl.at/ZHX5W

🚨Quick post on the US Treasury intervention www.ft.com/content/150a...

More on America’s growing food crisis. The FDA has upgraded a recall of frozen blueberries to the highest risk level, indicating a reasonable chance of "serious adverse health consequences or death" from E. coli contamination. What happens when you gut federal government protections.