Daniel Grey

Meticulously rendered macaw on a plain ground. Its talon seems to be wrapped around a branch, but none can be seen. The bird just floats on the paper. Script identifies it as Pssitacus Arauna at the bottom

Jacopo Ligozzi, Psittacus Ararauna (Blue and Gold Macaw), c. 1580-1600, 67 x 45.6 cm. Florence, Uffizi

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

“Shabana Mahmood has ripped up the government’s asylum rules so that from Monday every refugee will be told that their status is temporary and will last just 30 months.”

The UK Home Office already takes several months to process an initial refugee claim. Status review after 30 months is bad policy.

A group of approximately 15 people wearing white hard hats and neon yellow safety vests stand on the rooftop of a construction site for a topping out ceremony. They are posing behind a blue pedestal branded with "Dominus" and "McAleer & Rushe." Above them, a crane hoists a large concrete block bearing the McAleer & Rushe logo. Modern London skyscrapers are visible in the background.

A high-angle wide shot of a multi-story building under construction at 65 Crutched Friars in London. The concrete frame is largely complete, with blue safety netting on lower levels and several blue construction cranes towering over the site. In the background, the iconic "Gherkin" skyscraper and other City of London high-rises are visible under a cloudy sky.

Last month we celebrated a major milestone: the topping out of our future home at 65 Crutched Friars. This was a special construction marker and an occasion to recognise that Britain’s first permanent Migration Museum is now moving from vision to reality!

Photos: Mike O’Dwyer

1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral panic surrounding children becoming "addicted" to novels, which were "designed to keep kids hooked" and destroy their attention/mental health

Front cover of 'Organised Militarism in Interwar Britain. The Navy League and the Air League of the British Empire', by Rowan Thompson.

Coming soon: the next in the Society's 'New Historical Perspectives' book series is 'Organised Militarism in Interwar Britain. The Navy League and the Air League of the British Empire', by Rowan Thompson: bit.ly/474AbHq

Published free OA & in p/back @uolpress.bsky.social on 9 April #Skystorians 1/2

When we talk about slavery, we're talking about a system that goes beyond the mere physical ownership and control by white planters over black enslaved people: we're discussing a system of psychological terror which pervaded every element of enslaved people's lives, even beyond the living.

Finally, Crisp relented, but only on the condition that if even a single one of them ever hung themselves, he would hang all the others the next day and they would 'work at the new sugar mill' for all eternity. 'Major Crisp returned home with his Negroes, pleased with the success of his stratagem'.

The terrified slaves were convinced that even death would be no escape. 'They came and threw themselves at his feet, promised never to think of returning to their country, and begged him' to accept. Crisp stood in silence for a long time. even the white servants began to beg him to forgive them.

As he unfolded this vision of eternal slavery, reminding them of the all encompassing and inescapable institution of slavery the white planters had built, one that transcended into the afterlife (and down generations to children and their children's children), Crisp tied his noose to a branch.

He explained that as they would no longer be able to run away in the afterlife, 'he would have them work day and night without giving them either Saturday or Sunday'. In the afterlife, he would recapture those who had hung themselves first and then 'they would be forced to work in irons'.

But then the terror of what he suggested unfolded as he gestured to the sugar and brandy works on the carts behind him. He wanted to join them in the afterlife where he had already purchased land for a plantation, he told their dismayed faces. He would set up a sugar works, and they would work it.

He burst into the scene, wielding his own nose. Seeing their startled faces, he told them 'not to fear anything' and that, learning of their plan to hang themselves 'and return to their own country', he simply 'wanted to accompany them there' by hanging himself.

Crisp ordered his white servants to gather up 'cauldrons of sugar and brandy, along with other equipment, onto carts' and had them follow him into the woods the next day. When he arrived, he discovered his runaway slaves 'arranging their ropes to hang themselves'.

Whilst this illustrates the sheer hopelessness of life for enslaved people and the terror of the violence committed on them, it was more than that. They believed by committing suicide they would eventually 'return to their country' and live freely as before. In slavery, only the dead could be free.

But some slaves could embrace even more extreme forms of nonviolent resistance beyond escaping, as they did on the Crisp plantation. One day an indentured servant tipped Crisp off that 'all his slaves had resolved to flee the next day into the woods and commit suicide'.

The enslaved could resist their position through uprisings, and often did. Shortly after St Kitts was first colonised, a mass slave uprising was brutally crushed in the 1630s. But non-violent resistance was more common, as the case of Crisp's declining population shows.

Crisp's plantation had an unusually high number of enslaved children. It was said that he 'treated them harshly' - although 'as is generally the case with all Englishmen'. But as a result, 'the number of his slaves decreased daily' as they responded to his cruelty by 'escaping one after another'.

We don't know how many enslaved people Crisp had on his plantation, but a typical medium sized sugar plantation on the island averaged around 100 in the C18th. Whilst violence was a normalised practice in controlling enslaved people, Crisp had a reputation for being particularly severe.

Whilst the Leeward Islands were slower than the Windwards such as Barbados in embracing sugar (cost of investment + greater labour demand put planters off), meaning many of his peers stuck with tobacco, Crisp had made the switch to sugar and was now very wealthy (as per his will).

On the English island of St Christopher in the late C17th, Captain Joseph Crisp was a member of the Council and the owner of a large plantation at Nichola Town in Christ Church Parish on the North side of the island. Here is a late C18th map of the estate.

This is the story of slavery at its most traumatic, one predicated not just on physical violence against enslaved people by slave owners, but the all-encompassing terror of slavery as a psychological tool of control and oppression, and the desperate ways enslaved people tried to resist it. A small 🧵

One interesting point in the UKRI letter is the statement that before the buckets UKRI's investment was 'tracked largely by discipline'. Is it very difficult to map this assertion onto how 'disciplines' are normally defined in research and academic contexts, or am I missing something? 2/2

UKRI shares first detailed comparisons of past and future spending under new ‘bucket’ model - Committees - UK Parliament Professor Sir Ian Chapman, Chief Executive of UKRI, has written to the Committee Chair, Dame Chi Onwurah, to provide previously unavailable information about its new 'bucket'-led approach to funding r...

Back to buckets. Four of them. Or, three buckets and a trough. 1/2

It would mean the lobbying by big US tech firms had succeeded, and the protests of the UK's creatives had been ignored.

People's work is not the government's to give away.

If you're in the UK and you care about creatives and the creative industries, please write to your MP!

/end

In the House of Lords today, a government minister refused to rule this out.

To be clear, this would amount to legalising theft. It would fly in the face of public opinion on what is fair, and would mean a surrender of British creatives' work by this Labour government.

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There are rumours it is considering introducing a 'commercial research exception' for AI training. This would be disastrous. It would mean handing the life's work of British creatives to AI companies for free, to train their models on.

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🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.

This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.

Please spread the word.

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Growing up in the online world: a national consultation We are consulting on further measures to prepare children for the future in an age of rapid technological change. This includes potential age restrictions on social media and other services such as ga...

Morning all, please consider filling this in. I want my kids safe online but I'm against age verification generally and especially for VPNs. better to enforce against the companies creating an environment of harm, radicalisation and enshittification I would think, yes?

www.gov.uk/government/c...

delighted to share publication of our article today!

#AcademicSky discourse happening today about impact/engagement and how it is/isn't measured or valued in the UK. What's one useful thing your in-house Impact lead (or equivalent position) has or could do for you, realistically?
Just as interested to hear from STEM colleagues as arts & hums.