Benjamin Bland

In conversation with Dr Colm Murphy: one year of Labour, decline of the Conservative party, value of understanding political history | Dods Political Intelligence Our latest interview features Dr Colm Murphy, Lecturer in British Politics, and it covers topics including one year of Labour, the decline of the Conservative Party, and the value of understanding pol...

I was recently interviewed by Dods Political Intelligence. We talked trade protectionism, Labour splits, party realignments, and using political history to understand the present. All my favourite topics so I hope I didn't ramble too much!

www.dodspoliticalintelligence.com/resources/in...

📣🎉 We are pleased to announce 3 new IHR Seminar Series starting in September 2025.

• African History
• Migration & Mobility History
• Planetary History

Find out about the new series on the IHR website: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Slander! The Twilight Sad are great... if you want Scottish shoegaze misery. If not then I accept that the mileage might be limited.

Our work | The Runnymede Trust Runnymede is the UK's leading independent race equality think tank.

(Both the overlooked report in 1976 and the new one the work of the Runnymede Trust btw) www.runnymedetrust.org/our-work/ove...

If only people had pointed this out decades ago... oh, wait a minute...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (my article one of many on this theme, named in ref to a 1976 report that made similar arguments to this new report and which was ultimately largely ignored, as I suspect new one will be)

So pleased to see this letter from MPs in support of students in Gaza with offers at UK universities. It's been signed by over 100 MPs and is a real cross-party effort. I hope now that Starmer will respond to our requests.

Rare post to heap praise on @thenickelcinema.bsky.social. Finally got to attend my first screenings at their new permanent location last night. A glorious new grindhouse indie cinema on Clerkenwell Rd. Sort of thing that restores your faith in the city. If reading this then you should go some time.

Genuine question: would there be any downside from a potential legislative intervention banning university senior management from hiring external consultants?

That is cheating!!!!!!

The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ... Penniless and homeless, the Winns found fame and fortune with the story of their 630-mile walk to salvation. We can reveal that the truth behind it is ve...

A superb piece of journalism in The Observer: it seems like the one of the sacred texts of Nature Writing (TM) is not quite as much of an unflinchingly honest read as claimed

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Alex Cox on the legacy of Moviedrome, the BBC’s essential cult film slot Broadcasting a weekly diet of transgressive, iconoclastic cinema into British living rooms, the BBC’s Moviedrome series turned a generation of viewers into adventurous cinephiles. How did it come abou...

Fascinating interview about an unmissable BFI season, and the magnificent Moviedrome, the first thing I would recommission if I ever became Director General of the BBC.

www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/a...

What can an unconventional self-portrait of a 15th century bailiff tell us about medieval lordship today?

In the latest issue of History Workshop Journal, Tom Johnson (@tomlukejohnson.bsky.social‬) unpacks the seigneurial archive.

Available to read open access in HWJ 99: doi.org/10.1093/hwj/...

new chapter from me on the folk legend around Ecstasy and football-related violence (or "hooliganism", if you prefer)

rdcu.be/esUdJ

This country seems to have settled on a version of free speech where it's important to be shocked and offended at university but not permitted to shock or offend at a music festival

"When global consulting firm Nous Group arrives at a university, the company blueprint is always the same: weaken the academe, centralise power and cut staff."

Purely accidental that that's happening here, obviously. After they deemed Schools' autonomy a 'problem' nousgroup.com/case-studies...

Mapping London's South Asian history London and South Asia are bound together by a shared history dating back four centuries and today around one in five people in the capital have heritage from the region. These connections are often overlooked but an illuminating map aims to brings them to light via a ‘knot of intertwining stories’. Journalist and author Shafik Meghji picked up a copy and set off on an eye-opening tour around his home city.

Soldiers and suffragettes, singers and spies, authors and artists’

London and South Asia are bound together by a shared history dating back four centuries, and today around one in five people in the capital have heritage from the region, writes @shafikmeghji.bsky.social

www.runnymedetrust.o...

AI boom means regulator cannot predict future water shortages in England Datacentres, which do not have to report amount of water used to cool servers, leave Environment Agency with no idea of shortfalls

So, AI companies are… mysteriously exempt from having to provide data on how much water they use from public supplies? Good good nothing could possibly go wrong there…

Exactly this. What’s striking across the HE-bonfire-board is the meanness, the triviality, the TINY amounts saved in these cuts. Lives ruined through job loss at worst, fear/burnout/disengagement at best. And for truly trivial savings compared to the cost of one yachted-in management consultant

People often publish *despite* their institutions and the diabolical treatment of staff.

This is more evidence of the cultural embrace of dishonesty. Such craven determination to steal other people's work, research, writing, and creativity.

The Trades in Hebden Bridge, by Elspeth Moore

'The broader battle involves fostering more community-owned venues, defending them against licensing threats and, ultimately, equipping them with the resources not just to survive the year, but to plan for the next ten'

Is it Time to Support Grassroots Venue with a £1 Ticket Levy?

buff.ly/8pw43hE

I find this every time I teach about the history of protest.

I start by showing them a clip of a contemporary peaceful protest and ask students to describe what they see.

Invariably, they write down common media tropes about violence and/or "unemployed shirkers".

This is bad but Jack Straw said something similar-ish albeit more politely about 20 years ago. British politics has had an ingrained Islamophobia problem for a long time.

Vanished with Sadiah Qureshi | NACBS Join NACBS to discuss Sadiah Qureshi’s latest work, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction. Audra Mitchell will join Qureshi in conversation.

📕Book Event📕

Join NACBS to discuss Sadiah Qureshi’s latest work, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction. Audra Mitchell @audralmitchell.bsky.social will join @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social in conversation.

June 10 at 11am ET
Free & open to the public
Info & RSVP: www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

D'oh ofc they are... and Glassjaw are on at same time too. Kinda relieved I didn't get a ticket now as those three and Model/Actriz would be my four main sets. Hope it's still a good day tho!

And yes at FoF all weekend (see my DM)

Turn it off. Stop using it. Turn it off. Stop. Stop. Stop.

If every time I was wrong about something, a gallon of precious water was boiled into the sky, my neighbourhood got polluted and someone lost their job, people would stop asking me things.

This was such a treat, to put it mildly

Honestly gutted this is clashing with Film on Film at BFI as I'm already booked (although at least I don't have to deal with the clashes). Hope it's good. Site's been organised ok for a Victoria Park gig (did the Massive Attack one last night). Don't miss Danny Brown and Have a Nice Life if poss!

Sign the Petition End unnecessary redundancies at Newcastle University

I interrupt this holiday to ask you to consider signing a petition calling for a halt to redundancies at Newcastle University. Britain's HE sector may have descended into a Hunger Games-style war of all against all, but your voice still matters:
www.change.org/p/end-unnece...

Arts University Bournemouth staff in 'despair' over job cuts - BBC News Unions say Arts University Bournemouth is planning to cut almost one in five of its workforce.

“Caught between fury and despair”

Devestating cuts proposed at Arts University Bournemouth.

Up to 93 redundancies. 19% of its workforce.

📢 We’re calling on AUB management to work with us and halt these plans.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Faux Rebellion: the Neoliberal Roots of Trump and Farage Is right-wing populism truly a challenge to the establishment – or just its latest disguise? Byline TV interviews author and historian Quinn Slobodian

🔴Faux Rebellion: the Neoliberal Roots of Trump and Farage

Is right-wing populism truly a challenge to the establishment – or just its latest disguise? @bylinetv.bsky.social interviews author and historian Quinn Slobodian

www.bylinesupplement.com/p/faux-rebel...