Stuart Shields

3 years on and I'm finally getting used to outlook email moving the mark as unread, flag, pin & delete buttons to the right of the inbox and what does Microsoft do? Moves them back to the left 🤯

🚨New PGR social media/digital culture methods network if you're in the north west 🚨

John Keatley's Surprisingly Empathetic Portraits of Real Life Toy Soldiers — Humble Arts Foundation While John Keatley is most widely known for his commercial photography and advertising campaigns, shooting everyone from Anthony Hopkins to Macklemore with punchy, studio lit, conceptually-driven po...

I'm a bit late to John Keatley's less commercial/celebrity based work but this collection somehow seems even more relevant and moving in 2025 hafny.org/blog/2017/2/...

Just discovered that I get access to the BFI player through @uomlibrary.bsky.social ... I may be gone for some time

vortexual [series collection] volume one, by variant 8 track album

"Nearly 9 hours of celestial magic. A soundtrack for your dreams".
echospace313.bandcamp.com/album/vortex...

I hope this has a really loud alarm at the 20 minute mark and an even louder one at stop now

The perils of centrist economics in a polarised world | Kenneth Rogoff A decade ago, a prominent analysis was falsely cast as a call for austerity. Our real offence was suggesting there might be a trade-off between debt and growth

I'm not sure I'm totally convinced here given the impact of the austerity that followed the global financial crisis based on the intellectual ballast lent by the Rogoff & Reinhart paper. however, respect for holding a grudge for so long ;) www.theguardian.com/business/202...

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Poland’s birth rate is in freefall. The cause? A loneliness epidemic that state cash can’t solve | Anna Gromada Bonuses for families have done nothing to fix a baby bust caused by post-communist Europe’s relationships crisis, says sociologist Anna Gromada

Nice piece in the Guardian on the pathologies of disciplinary neoliberalisation and social reproduction in Poland echoing my own thinking on this doi.org/10.1177/0309... but adding the idea of loneliness - really fascinating

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Somewhere in the Department for Education, a phone is ringing On October 20th at a bit after 5pm, the UK government introduced its Education and Skills white paper to Parliament, to absolutely no…

I wrote about the stupid white paper.

In summary, with these people in the driver's seat and apparently unbothered by consequences, we're so cooked.

Very sad that I'll miss the 6th Global Policy North workshop
@uofglasgow.bsky.social 6-7 Nov 2025 due to another longstanding commitment. CFP attached - do apply if you're working on global governance broadly conceived. it's pluralist and engaged in the best sense and lovely people too!

Starmer's lot are so crap at politics. I managed to fix the headline for the Guardian anyway

United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals: Hybrid Institutional Complexes as Hegemony‐Building? This paper adopts a Critical Political Economy (CPE) perspective to analyse the success or otherwise of the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) Hybrid Institutional Complex (HIC). The paper take...

J. Loginovich & @docstushi.bsky.social provide a CPE perspective on HIC-based SDG governance. Developing the concept of 'ideological fit', they theorise the relationship between institutional diversity and neoliberal hegemony within the SDGs.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@benjaminfaude.bsky.social kicking off the @globalpolicy.bsky.social journal event on the 10th anniversary of the SDGs: Celebrations or Commiserations

If you’re interested in the SDGs come and join us in Durham later today!

The SDGs at 10: Please join us for a Special Section Launch event on Friday 12 September 14:00-17:00 (BST).

Contributions by Faude & @jacktaggart.bsky.social; @policyrelevant.bsky.social; @danxuu.bsky.social; K. Abraham; J. Loginovic & @docstushi.bsky.social; B. Reinsberg.

Comments: Fariborz Zelli

Currently not enjoying #EISAPEC2025 as I'm sat in Manchester T2 departures waiting for a delayed flight hoping I don't miss my connection

Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the SDGs, Julija Loginovic & @docstushi.bsky.social argue that the institutional diversity of the SDG HIC constitutes a way to reorganise inter-and intra-class relations to co-opt a greater variety of policy actors at multiple transnational scales.

We build on Abbott & Faude's Hybrid Institutional Complex emphasising the socio-economic content not just institutional form. Huge thanks to @benjaminfaude.bsky.social & @jacktaggart.bsky.social for encouraging us to write this & Eva-Maria Nag for steering us through with @globalpolicy.bsky.social

Delighted to see this paper out, co-written with Julia Loginovic where we think about what the #SDGs mean. Rather than concern for their apparent failure we argue they do exactly what they're supposed to: commodify and socialise ever more parts of the world under so-called "neoliberal" hegemony ...

The ultimate insider Just as I was about to accuse Simon Jenkins of personifying the Establishment, he outwitted me by denying that such a thing any longer existed.

which refuse to subsidise dissent. So now, with columns in the Times and the Standard , he finds himself reduced to chitchat; his home, inevitably, is in the stretch of NW1 where all the members of his garrulous class seem to live. www.theguardian.com/theobserver/...

Before the intelligentsia was declared redundant, Jenkins had hoped to join its ranks. At university, he wanted to become an academic. 'In those days, that seemed a glittering career,' he said with a grimace, acknowledging the way the universities have since been cowed by governments

As thousands more teenagers scramble for university places, I have to ask – why? | Simon Jenkins Student debt increasing, graduate salaries dropping, high-skilled jobs thin on the ground – higher education in the UK is a mess, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

As Simon Jenkins scrambles yet another thousand words on something he knows very little about, I have to ask – why?

I wonder whether the Guardian has ever thought of asking someone who actually knows about universities to write something?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

RA.1000 DJ Harvey & Andrew Weatherall Andrew Weatherall's first official posthumous mix. The only b2b DJ Harvey ever agreed to. Six hours at Trouw. The rarest of rare for RA.1000: this one's special. When mulling which direction to go in

Celebrating the youngest getting into university on the 'wrong' side of the Pennines with six and half hours of two blokes playing records
soundcloud.com/resident-adv...

A light purple note that says "STOP SAYING YES TO SHIT YOU HATE" on a silver background

My reminder as I work on my 2025-2026 goals

Labour to revive Northern Powerhouse Rail project Starmer and Reeves expected to announce move before Labour conference, with aim of boosting backbench morale

Polling at Labour HQ must be really bad if they're already putting this out.

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

Inaugural workshop of the UK Curiosity Network

This workshop marks the beginning of a new effort to connect researchers with shared interests in curiosity and related themes.

👉 Read more & register: www.curiosity-battery.co.uk/uk-curiosity-network [curiosity-battery.co.uk]

Northern UK university researchers - Call for papers - Global Policy North Workshop, University of Glasgow, 6-7 November 2025

Economics teaching has become the Aeroflot of ideas The discipline is failing students by ignoring the biggest social, political and ecological challenges facing the world today

Ironically the btl comments rather proving Ha-Joon Chang’s point www.ft.com/content/9aab...