Alex Stevens

The Green victory shows what is needed to beat Reform: a positive message of hope and relentless door-to-door campaigning.

Reviewing and editing academic journal articles: a guide for the perplexed. | Alex Stevens | 40 comments Born out of collective frustration at the ravages of the peer review process, I wrote a guide for the perplexed on how to review and edit academic journal articles. Please add your tips on how we can ...

Anyone who's suffered at the hands of Reviewer #2 may enjoy this. www.linkedin.com/posts/alex-s...

England are playing like a bunch of amateurs #ENGvIRE

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Accessing digital harm reduction services —exploring the impact of the “Here4UScotland” application - Harm Reduction Journal Background The unique challenges faced by vulnerable drug users highlight the urgent need for accessible, immediate digital interventions which people can access anywhere and at any time. This study e...

New paper on "Impact of Scotland's first Virtual Consumption app". Thanks @catrionamath.bsky.social @hadidf.bsky.social for support and guidance. Thanks @sheffielduni.bsky.social for Open Access publishing. @profalexstevens.bsky.social for continuing supervision and support.
doi.org/10.1186/s129...

How International Drug Policy Is Increasingly Fragmented - TalkingDrugs The international drug policy landscape has been disrupted in the past couple of years, with two main moral groups emerging in the aftermath.

New on Talking Drugs:
www.talkingdrugs.org/how-internat... Summary of our recent article on how and why consensus fractured at the 2024 Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS for #LEPH2026

Abstracts should address innovative research, policy development, or practice-based initiatives that contribute to safer, healthier communities and relate to the conference’s themes: leph2026.org

@vp-centre.bsky.social

Not necessarily showy, or designed to impress. It's more about doing something just for the sake of being seen to do it.

The main benefit of decriminalisation is that it reduces criminal justice harms to people who use drugs. But that's a harder benefit to sell.

A risk of overselling decriminalisation, by saying that it will reduce drug deaths, is that it may be reversed if it doesn't appear to do so.

Landslide win for centre-left candidate António José Seguro in Portugal’s presidential runoff Moderate socialist defeats far-right populist André Ventura, with exit polls putting him comfortably above two-thirds of vote

Some good news from Portugal www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Line graph showing an increase in prison deaths in England and Wales from 1978 to 2025, peaking near 400 deaths.

The number of people dying in prisons in England and Wales has risen to the highest level on record, official data reveal.

Prisons recorded 394 deaths in 2025 – a 15% increase on the previous year.

https://howardleague.org/news/revealed-the-rising-death-toll-in-prisons-in-england-and-wales/

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Our new paper on Digital Harm Reduction and "Here4U Scotland app" from lead author @hadidf.bsky.social. Always a privilege to work and learn from @hadidf.bsky.social and @catrionamath.bsky.social 🙏. Thanks to @profalexstevens.bsky.social for ongoing PhD support 🙏
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

But that won't stop some social scientists pretending they understand it in order to justify their ontologically constructionist views.

Here's the bill I received for having three rounds of brain surgery in one of the world's best places for neuro-oncology, King's College Hospital in south London. #LoveNHS.

Thanks to Dr James Densley for telling it like it is.

Ugly all round.

Minister warned as gates and doors 'left open' at HMP Millsike A watchdog has highlighted concerns about security and high levels of violence at HMP Millsike.

Doors and gates left open. Men spending 23 hours a day in their cells. High levels of self-harm, violence and use of force with batons. Cancelled family visits.

Not an encouraging start for England's newest prison: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9z81r18xvo

New powers for ministers to sack failing police chiefs after Maccabi Tel Aviv ban fiasco | LBC Former chief of West Midlands Police Craig Guildford refused to resign after admitting to misleading Parliament

There's lots to unpack in this article, with further details of what will be in the policing white paper next week... www.lbc.co.uk/article/mini...

Measuring success: league tables in the public sector This report examines the use of league tables in education and policing, and reviews the available evidence to determine the benefits and the problems associated with their use.

As if league tables actually improve performance www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

Couldn't we just report it and then move on? Does it need 20 minutes of analysis of how morally repugnant it is? Do we need further discussion of what a morally empty husk of a man he is?

Once more, I am shouting into the void: the stupid, off-hand things that Trump says are NOT NEWS. #wato

US sec of state Marco Rubio, May 2025: “Today, the US welcomed the historic agreement [on Chagos]. Following a comprehensive interagency review, the Trump Administration determined that this agreement secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation” of the base at Diego Garcia.

And now we're arguing over a completely meaningless phrase.

The Jenrick defection is a classic example of a story that the broadcast media will devote hours to, but nobody outside Westminster cares about.

Just listening to Curtis Mayfield's 'Pusherman' played on BBC Radio 6. They censored the words 'coke', 'weed', and the N word, but not the J word. #drugstigma

YouTube video by Marsh Family "Battle Hymn of the Empire" - Marsh Family adaptation of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" about Trump

"Battle Hymn of the Republic" is not a song to be taken on lightly ... but in light of this New Year Trumpian news onslaught, we're sharing this adaptation, called "Battle Hymn of the Empire" - as Trump goes marching on, and dragging us all back to the nineteenth century.

youtu.be/8saU0WeocP0

Banning X would feed the narrative of right-wing #fakefreespeech warriors. Better to leave it as a space where only trolls and fascists go.

The UK government should not ban X. It should just stop using it. And so should everyone else.

Policing and access to harm reduction services among young people who use drugs and young Indigenous people who use drugs before and after the pilot implementation of decriminalization of personal possession McAdam et al. examine how decriminalisation reduced policing-related barriers to services, revealing important benefits for young people, including Indigenous.

Evidence from British Columbia shows decriminalisation reduced police interference with access to harm reduction — a key public health objective.

Rolling it back didn’t correct failure. It reversed progress.

Full study: