John Heathershaw

Tulip Siddiq MP given jail sentence in Bangladesh after trial in her absence The former minister and niece of Bangladesh's ousted former leader, who received a two-year sentence, says the charges are politically motivated.

"I'm absolutely baffled by the whole thing."

It's as if the former treasury minister responsible for anti-corruption measures with respect to the UK financial sector had not considered that family and business ties to a corrupt regime might cause controversy.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

’The two worst days of the year to go to church’ In a guest post, Nick Megoran, Professor of Geography at Newcastle Universty, contrasts the way churches sacralise the nation on Remembrance Sunday with the biblical call to be a 'holy nation'.

My thoughts on the politics of Remembrance in the UK, written for John Heathershaw's excellent Substack blog 'Security After Christendom.'

johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-two-wo...

’The two worst days of the year to go to church’ In a guest post, Nick Megoran, Professor of Geography at Newcastle Universty, contrasts the way churches sacralise the nation on Remembrance Sunday with the biblical call to be a 'holy nation'.

If you've ever wondered about the tension between Remembrance Sunday and the Christian church's call to peace, read this by @nickmegoran.bsky.social

johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-two-wo...

@tenaprelec.bsky.social
@gulnazsharaf.bsky.social
@cais-exeter.bsky.social
See you next week!

Towards Better Theories of Postcommunist Oligarchy Published in Europe-Asia Studies (Vol. 77, No. 9, 2025)

"The way towards better theories of postcommunist oligarchy lies in global comparisons of transnational oligarchic networks that originate in Eastern Europe and Eurasia but are not confined to the region."

I enjoyed writing this piece comparing three exc books.

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

Reith lecturer accuses BBC of cowardice for censoring his remarks on Trump Dutch writer Rutger Bregman says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed

This reminds me of when our paper on kleptocracy and reputation laundering was edited by Chatham House after legal threats from someone who made his money from kleptocracy and was laundering his reputation. Similar cowardice from the embattled BBC. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

Looking forward to joining this great line-up and my friend Corentin Cohen, the man without a face!

Friday-night drug deals helping Russian war machine, UK crime agency warns - BBC News The National Crime Agency says a "vast criminal ecosystem" funds "really bad things" around the world.

This UK-Kyrgyzstan-Russia connection links street drugs in Britain to Russian sanctions evasion via Keremet Bank in the Kyrgyz Republic. It's the tip of enormous iceberg of illicit finance connecting organised crime and professional enablers.
www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc....

What kind of crisis do we face? Three crises over the last week speak to a shift in the “Overton window”, the increasingly simulated character of political order, and the inability of authorities to address complexity.

I wrote something about the character of crisis and the apparent inability of authorities to exercise political reason.
open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

The Authoritarian Stack How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

So much for sovereign states with functional independence. The field of International Relations needs to conceptualise elite networks of power and wealth or fall into irrelevance.

authoritarian-stack.info?fbclid=IwZnR...

This is an excellent book.

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

Therapy Culture for the Business Class: Exploring How CEO Peer Groups Make and Legitimate Elite Cohesion In the current context of extreme economic inequality and rising concentrations of income and wealth at the top, the social processes through which elites restrict the wider population's access to re...

"It is important to emphasise that such groups ultimately lock in wealth, advantage and connections between their (predominantly male) class-advantaged members."

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Image of the title of the journal article. (See below for full text)

Absolutely fantastic new paper from @katiehiggins.bsky.social "CEO peer groups reveal without a doubt that therapy culture has reached the top tiers of the business class. In fact, their version of self-help is in many ways more cooperative and less individualistic than the mainstream" but... 1/2

Why Britain may have stopped sharing some intelligence with America And how America might respond

It’s tough having a special relationship with a lawless regime.

Why Britain may have stopped sharing some intelligence with America
economist.com/britain/2025...

Thanks Ian. Let's hope speaking louder and cogently in English about the value of foreign languages will at least make some difference. I'm doing an event for secondary students with @exetermodlangs.bsky.social in December promoting the personal & professional value of Russian and other languages.

I totally agree with @jheathershaw.bsky.social , & have signed the petition. "Say it in English, only louder" was never a good way of dealing with the outside world; in current times, it's even less appropriate.

We Can Make an Impact. Stop the removal of Modern Languages courses at the University of Nottingham!

Languages education at all levels, especially higher, is under existential threat in the UK. It is an impoverished society which produces so few students interested in languages & a shortsighted state that cannot subsidise this public good through tough times. Pls consider signing.
c.org/qQMPqxcLCD

Model code of conduct: protection of academic freedom and the academic community in the context of the internationalisation of the UK HE sector Published in The International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 26, No. 10, 2022)

Instead of imagining that they can manage this market-wide problem out of existence, managers could commit to being more transparent & accountable to their own staff & students, thereby preventing disasters like what happened to Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam.

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

China-critical UK academics describe ‘extremely heavy’ pressure from Beijing Reliance on overseas students’ tuition fees under scrutiny as scholars describe chilling effect of being targeted

Academic freedom is protected according to UUK when we are on “British soil”. What an extraordinarily anachronistic claim about internationalised universities that indicates that UUK has still not grasped the problem. Rules and regs of such kind are not enough. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

They will.

Their frames of reference are spreadsheets and log frames so they cannot see the unintended consequences of these so called “efficiencies”. It is a function of the increased size and centralisation of Russell group universities that they are imitating each other in their disastrous reforms.

Security after Christendom- Wipf and Stock Publishers We live in the wealthiest and most heavily defended world in history, so why do we feel so insecure? In a secular world, what does Christian theology have to...

My book Security after Christendom is 50% off through November 30. Yes, half price! Use code CONFSHIP at checkout. If you select Media Mail, shipping is free.

wipfandstock.com/978153261533...

The Tehran-Washington Crypto Connection - Coda Story There is a saying that the best way to make money during a gold rush is to sell picks and shovels. The worst way, presumably, would be to run a government taskforce drafting regulations for the retail...

So much for geopolitics.

“Iran sells oil for USDT; which creates demand for Tether; which buys US government debt. Cut out the middleman and essentially, thanks to the magic of the blockchain, the Iranian and US governments are in business with each other.”

www.codastory.com/oligarchy/th...

Well, if we mean kleptocracy as a transnational enterprise linking pol elites and prof enablers then we address the postimperial (Russia/UK) contexts of this in chapter 2 of the book. If we mean national corruption/patronage systems, there's long Pol/Econ tradition.
global.oup.com/academic/pro...

New OA article @europe-asia.bsky.social: The Incumbency Advantage and the Enabler Effect: How Londongrad Beat the UK AML Regime

Drawing on £2bn of property data, we show that not a single incumbent kleptocrat (0/72!) lost their UK assets.

with @jheathershaw.bsky.social T. Mayne & S. Tokubayev

Model code of conduct: protection of academic freedom and the academic community in the context of the internationalisation of the UK HE sector Published in The International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 26, No. 10, 2022)

"The good faith of all actors in these relationships cannot be assumed, and therefore current protocols on internationalisation require revision. It is important for the UK HE Sector to openly acknowledge these challenges...." 2/2
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research, documents show Sheffield Hallam University apologises to Professor Laura Murphy for restricting her academic freedom.

heffield Hallam would have fared much better - and been better prepared for such risks - if they adopted the model code of conduct of the Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group which we published several years ago. 1/2
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Totally. I had 20+ meetings with my first years last week where I emphasised that they can be confident in their own capacity as a writer and learn to be a good one via practice and more practice.

Transcending Christian Nationalism To supersede Christian nationalism, we should: not let it set the debate, tell a different story, take part in a different community, point to a different future, and live out a new Christian politics

Latest from my theological blog.

open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...