Nick Gane

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:

Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.

Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Sat on a bench in the sun at Warwick today and found a plaque in memory of Meg Stacey. I remember Meg from arriving at Warwick as a student in 1990 but had no idea that she was the first woman professor at the University

Google’s huge new Essex datacentre to emit 570,000 tonnes of CO2 a year Exclusive: Planning documents show impact of Thurrock ‘hyperscale’ unit as UK attempts to ramp up AI capacity

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

To put this in perspective the average car emits 4 tonnes of CO2 a year

Failure to tackle dependence on food banks in UK driving public discontent One in six households went hungry last year, says Trussell, with Britain facing ‘new normal’ of severe hardship

Dependence on food banks is the new norm in the UK.

In a rich country 14m people, including 3.8m children, food insecure. One in six households went hungry last year.

Result of low wages/benefits, unchecked profiteering, govt indifference.

1% have more wealth than 70% of the population combined.

The Gillian Rose Memorial Lecture Conference 2025 Rosean Futures: Promise and Perdition in the Thought of Gillian Rose

The Gillian Rose Memorial conference. London, 18-19 June. Swedenborg House.

www.kingston.ac.uk/about/events...

Carol Wolkowitz obituary Other lives: Sociologist who examined how gender shapes our working lives

Lovely obituary by Nickie Charles of Carol Wolkowitz who taught me at Warwick in the 1990s. She was a wonderful teacher who brought sociology to life

@sociowarwick.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Just spent 32 mins waiting for my call to be answered by Severn Trent before giving up. Given they make £300m in profits out of a former public utility you’d think they could do better

Great to see Sam Burgum @samburgum.bsky.social today and very much looking forward to reading his new book

Energy network owners have made £3.9bn from higher bills, says report Citizens Advice believes Ofgem made flawed interest rate calculation for companies in Great Britain

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

When you find out your company is owned by a moron who plans to make you and all your coworkers unemployed while scraping every writer who's ever written for every publication in history to auto scribe new "content" based on whatever it is fed, from fellow auto generated content #AutoGenEchoChamber

Just posting a four-year-long state of exception

The federal civilian worker payroll totaled $271 billion in 2022.

The annual cost of permanently extending Trump's tax cuts that primarily benefited rich individuals? $400 billion.

Keep this in mind as Trump and DOGE lay off thousands of federal workers.

Umm I don’t think anything could get through the train. There’s no access even to a toilet. Michael Portillo should go from Plymouth to Edinburgh on one of his great British railway journeys. He could spend hours thinking about the merits of privatisation as punishment

True. But when one set of doors are out of service, the train is way over capacity and no space for luggage and someone pulls the emergency alarm in a toilet but there are no staff to help then you have to wonder whether resilience is the answer

Waiting for a CrossCountry train at Bristol. 200 people on the platform trying to get into 4 carriages. Arriva owned by a private equity group with 40bn assets. Why do we put up with this?

Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament Information from UK Parliament on written questions & answers, written statements and daily reports.

UK govt data on annual median state pension.

For retirees before April 2016
Male £11,436
Female £9,934

Post-2016 retirees
Male £11,490
Female £11,467

Median state pension is less than 50% of minimum wage.

2m pensioners live in poverty.
In 2022, 110,000 died in fuel poverty.

What future?

Cost of extending the expiring Trump tax cuts for the rich: $4.6 trillion

Cost of cutting corporate tax rate to 15%: $1 trillion

Both Trump proposals will explode the deficit and be used as an excuse to gut programs that millions rely on.

It's reverse Robin Hood.

Yes how can anyone think that this is no longer capitalism and that ‘profit’ no longer matters?

All of which is to say that the only account capable of explaining the political and ideological power of Big Tech has to start with a thorough analysis of the global economy, and, well, capital. What passes for "techno-feudalism" is merely an effect of capitalism in crisis.

Word of the week - revanchism (and likely the next four years).

Elon Musk-led group makes surprise bid of nearly $100bn for OpenAI Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO and co-founder, responded that he would not accept and offered to buy X instead

If you’ve ever published anything then this might be of interest

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Feeding frenzy: how army of advisers is making millions from Thames Water Court case points to sizeable fees being racked up as firm seeks £3bn loan to try to avoid temporary nationalisation

Feeding frenzy: Army of advisers making millions from Thames Water.

It has £19bn debt, wants another £3bn debt at interest rate of 9.75% in two instalments.

Two-thirds of £1.5bn will end-up in the pockets of debt investors, professional advisers.

As usual, customers will pay.

Revealed: gambling firms secretly sharing users’ data with Facebook without permission Betting companies secretly track visitors to their sites before sending data to parent company Meta

UK gambling companies covertly track visitors to their websites and sending data to Facebook’s parent company without consent in an apparent breach of data protection laws.

Meta uses the data to flood gamblers with ads for casinos and betting sites.

Will Govt stand up to predatory corporations?

The water industry shows how the state indulges corporations to the detriment of society Since 1989, water companies have been the subject of over 1,100 criminal convictions, but governments are content for them to control the industry.

When is a fine not a fine?
When it is levied on England's water companies.

Aug 2024: OFWAT announced £168m fine on 3 companies. ZERO Paid.

Dec 2024: £18m fine on Thames Water for paying unjustified dividends. ZERO Paid.

Regulatory indulgence emboldens companies, encourages more abuses.

Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3 Billion in Income This brings Tesla’s average tax rate over the past three years to 0.4 percent.

Tesla earned $2.3 billion in the United States in 2024.

You'd think it paid a lot in taxes, right?

Well it paid precisely $0 in federal income taxes last year.

You want waste and fraud? Look at what some big corporations and the rich are getting away with.

'The A&E Crisis Shows How the NHS Is Getting Worse and the Government Has No Real Plans to Fix It' Politicians are refusing to take meaningful action to resolve the perma-crisis in our health service, writes NHS Doctor, David Oliver

The A&E Crisis Shows How the NHS Is Getting Worse and the Govt Has No Real Plans to Fix It’.

It is a political choice, part of privatisation strategy.

Govts that bailout banks & energy companies, fund foreign wars, hand subsidies & tax cuts to corporations/rich can relieve suffering.

NatWest finalises £450m bonus pot as return to private ownership looms The bank's annual results will come with the government on the brink of no longer being its single-biggest shareholder after nearly 17 years, Sky News can reveal.

NatWest Bank finalises £450m bonus pot, 25% higher than last year.

CEO remuneration expected to hit £6.6m.

Their profiteering is our poverty.

Govt tells worker wage rises are inflationary, but that doesn't apply to exec pay, dividends, share buybacks.

It's class war.

Barclays tells customers to contact food banks as IT glitch disruption enters third day The bank has apologised as hundreds of customers complain about service disruption and missing funds.

Barclays Bank tells customers to contact food banks as IT glitch disruption enters third day.

It made £6.6bn pre-tax profit last year but can't produce a robust IT system.

I bet no one told directors to go to food banks.
news.sky.com/story/barcla...

Artificial Ignorance Donald Trump and Keir Starmer star in a new version of Dumb & Dumber.

NEW: Last week Trump announced 'Stargate' a $500bn AI sci-fi inspired plan to boost US economy. This week, I turn the spotlight on the man who stood behind Trump, lesser-known tech bro, Larry Ellison, his special friend Tony Blair & how they're coming for the UK too
open.substack.com/pub/broligar...