Robert Saunders

Really pleased to read such generous and thoughtful engagement with my work here from @anthonybarnett.bsky.social

Tesla board awards $30bn of shares to ‘energise and focus’ Elon Musk World’s richest man threatened to quit as chief executive of electric-vehicle maker if he was not given more stock

"Musk promised to refocus his attention on Tesla after the carmaker’s sales collapsed in Europe and other key markets during his time working in the Trump administration".

I wonder how many normal people get a pay rise to help them "focus" after screwing up at work?
www.ft.com/content/ae08...

Tesla board awards $30bn of shares to ‘energise and focus’ Elon Musk World’s richest man threatened to quit as chief executive of electric-vehicle maker if he was not given more stock

"Musk promised to refocus his attention on Tesla after the carmaker’s sales collapsed in Europe and other key markets during his time working in the Trump administration".

I wonder how many normal people get a pay rise to help them "focus" after screwing up at work?
www.ft.com/content/ae08...

The rich must be incentivised; the poor must be disciplined.

The political economy of the super-elite in one headline.

The trouble with AUKUS | Patrick Porter | The Critic Magazine How should Australia secure itself against serious military powers? For decades, the question was peripheral in public life. Sure, the security problem haunted debates about borders or terrorism.

My piece on AUKUS in @TheCriticMag. We need a little more Machiavelli downunder.
thecritic.co.uk/the-trouble-...

This man is a Conservative MP and former No.10 adviser.

Still from the 1941 film "Love on the Dole", with the unfortunate subtitle "She's a strange lassie's arsehole".

Catastrophic subtitling on the 1941 movie "Love on the Dole".

(It should read "She's a strange lass, is our Sal"...)

These are the top replies, being financially rewarded for posting this stuff, and the explanation offered by the site’s own AI for why it’s like that.

Anyway just flicking through the Sunday newspapers reading about some minor content infractions that Ofcom might look into at the BBC/Channel 4.

I realise this is just a failure of imagination on my part, but I've never really understood how gangs of men can lurch down a quiet, domestic road at one o'clock in the morning, yelling and jeering at the top of their voices, and not one of them think "I wonder if we're disturbing anyone?"

The question is partly in my mind because I've been looking at photos of women voting for the first time in 1918 and wondering how this worked. (Were they staged? Did anyone object? Secrecy of the ballot...?)

I'll really look forward to reading your work on old age!

I agree that the concerns were baseless, & I love the stories of OAPs bringing gifts & crying "God bless that Lord George" (to the dismay of the "peers vs the people" campaign).

But my dim memory from Pugh was that there was anxiety about stigma,so I wonder if anyone was reluctant to let cameras in

It's the Captain and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock!

In 1908, means-tested, non-contributory Old Age Pensions were introduced in Britain, payable from the age of 70. Here, incredibly, are photographs of two of the first citizens to claim them (plus a dog).

How wonderful! Do you know anything about how they came to be photographed? I can imagine there being concerns about cameras deterring claimants, especially when Post Offices were working so hard to reassure potential recipients.

Even broad churches must have walls, but I think they should be quite capacious.

I don't defend Abbott's view of the markers of race, but am not convinced they require expulsion, or that they're worse than (e.g.) talking of the "incalculable harm" done by immigration in this "island of strangers".

Spot-on from @nixonsimon.bsky.social

I suppose the test is if/when it hits Mumsnet...

I'm sorry to hear about your child. Long Covid is a terrible thing.

Indeed - and this is partly where understanding (and upholding) good practices like referencing, peer-review and data-sharing is important - and speaking out when those things are flouted.

One thing we learn as academics is that research is hard. I *could* "do my own research" on C19th Germany but I'd need to improve my German, learn to read Gothic script, get to know the archives & tune myself in to all sorts of things that are unfamiliar. And that's within my own discipline & period

I don't think having a smattering more medical literacy is going to help. But the alternative isn't "blind trust in authorities": it's having processes like peer-review, open publication of data, transparency in funding that mean we can have confidence that expert opinion is robust & disinterested.

Yes, changing communications-technologies play a role here.

Thirty years ago, conspiracy theorists were cranking out poorly-typed newsletters that *looked* mad.

Now anyone in their bedroom can produce a swish website and call it "The Centre for Critical Medical Research" or some such.

The answer was the whole apparatus of footnoting, peer-review, showing data & reproducing findings.

The idea wasn't that *I* could check it, but that anyone competent cd. The science *might* still be wrong,but there was no rational reason to prefer my own judgment.

But all that's now under assault

There was a lot of debate about this in the 19th century, when there was also strong suspicion of vaccines.

People like John Stuart Mill wrote about how we could reconcile a healthy distrust of authority, and the idea that infringements on liberty must have democratic consent, with expert knowledge

It's a massive problem. "Do your own research!" sounds like excellent advice, but most of us are simply not competent to research complex questions of medical science.

So the question becomes, how do we establish forms of authority to which it is rational to give free consent? [...]

a soccer game is being played on fox ALT: a soccer game is being played on fox

Or in the immortal words of Mary Earps...

To all the weirdos marching around with clipboards, deciding who is and isn't English based on where their grandparents were living... THIS is England! ⬇️

Alternative theory... bsky.app/profile/robe...

Eric having a bit of a wobble right now...

(And what a goalkeeping display from Hannah Hampton. Schmeichel-esque). 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Can England bring on Chloe Kelly again? The galvanising effect of bringing her on the first time seems to have worn off.