Sadiah Qureshi 🦈

A truly extraordinary example of how much known systematic bias people are willing to tolerate for ostensible *results*.

UK police forces lobbied to use biased facial recognition technology Exclusive: System more likely to suggest incorrect matches for images of women and Black people

It is telling that police described *reducing* the racial and gender bias of this technology as having a ‘significant negative impact on operational effectiveness’.

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

It’s going to be fabulous. Come and join us for the celebrations, and thoughtful conversations.

As we have seen for years with hostile policies, they don't make anything better for anyone, not for those seeking safety or the racists trying to deny them it. Those failures are then used by the populists though to boost their own messaging and gain ground. Everyone loses.

It is easy for Labour supporters to try and dismiss negative reactions to Labour's anti-immigration/asylum policies as down to press coverage, or hyperbole, but it is demonstrable that Labour is now the most, in practice, hostile and xenophobic government in years. #r4today
bsky.app/profile/dani...

Starmer urges Europe’s leaders to curb ECHR to halt rise of far right Exclusive: PM calls for members of European convention on human rights to allow tougher action to protect borders

I cannot believe we elected a human rights lawyer and got this!

Book cover for Vanished. Features a nineteenth-century print with a fossilised mastodon skeleton, Asian elephant being ridden by a turbaned man, Native and colonial figures looking on. In the background is a mountainous landscape and there is also a single passenger pigeon in the sky. The whole scene is framed by an ornate frame and foliage. Below the book the text reads: ‘A love letter to the astonishing ways of being that have survived past extinctions, and an exhortation to create a worthwhile world.’

Six months of roaring louder than I ever imagined. I have a few events lined up for 2026 but, for now, you can watch the launch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPF....

Book cover for Vanished. Features a nineteenth-century print with a fossilised mastodon skeleton, Asian elephant being ridden by a turbaned man, Native and colonial figures looking on. In the background is a mountainous landscape and there is also a single passenger pigeon in the sky. The whole scene is framed by an ornate frame and foliage. Below the book the text reads: ‘A love letter to the astonishing ways of being that have survived past extinctions, and an exhortation to create a worthwhile world.’

Six months of roaring louder than I ever imagined. I have a few events lined up for 2026 but, for now, you can watch the launch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPF....

The Home Office also recognise that this may have an impact on user of care services who are likely to be older people and those with disabilities. The Home Office believes that despite these points the changes are justified for a number of policy reasons including reducing net migration and ending reliance on overseas recruitment.

Home Office Ministers state publicly, on the record, that they are deliberately making life worse for older people and people with disabilities who depend on care services, but it's worth it because it reduces net migration.

TFW someone makes a sensible choice instead of doubling down on a bad move. Far rarer than it should be, but even small wins can feel huge at the moment.

How to quickly add alt-text. You can also change your setting to make sure you can’t post an image without alt-text so you never forget to add it.

Truly astonishing.

the reason its bad to run universities like businesses is that almost all businesses fail on any reasonable timeline of evaluation.

hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity

Screenshot of the Guardian app featuring a promotional campaign with the slogan ‘Make Britain Great Again’ in bold red letters with a plea to ‘bring tolerance back to daily life’, with an article just below from a former pupil at Dulwich with the headline ‘I’ll never forget the look of hatred Nigel Farage had for me at school simply for existing’.

What on earth is the Guardian doing?

From 'Vanished' to the 'Explorer’s Gene': Take a look at six best books on science, nature, released in 2025 'Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction' by Sadiah QureshiThe book is a breathtaking account of extinction as both an evolutionary process and a human act

New Indian Express has chosen Vanished as a book of the year, and described it as a ‘breathtaking account of extinction as both an evolutionary process and a human act’.

Truly astonished that my roar has reached the land of tigers. 🐅 🐅 🐅

www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/bo...

I suspect you have to be quite racist to stand out as "the racist guy" at a boys public school of the 1980s.

Ahhh. Just realised my spelling error. With apologies to Jake. Time to step back from the keyboard.

I’ve heard about the research that has gone into this and it is incredible in terms of the range of archives used as well as the stories that Jake has reconstructed. Especially important given current debates about empire.

If you order direct from Yale, you can get a discount using the code BONDS.

The Bonds of Freedom - Yale University Press London The story of the long fight for freedom of African captives rescued from the illegal slave trade only to be forced back into bondageA Times Literary Suppleme...

I’m expecting this new book by Jake S. Richard’s to be amazing: ‘The Bonds of Freedom tells the forgotten story of people seized from slave ships by maritime patrols, “liberated,” then forced into bonded labor between 1807 and 1880.’

yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar Health secretary has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

Wes Streeting accuses welfare state disabilty benefits of 'trapping people, not just in poverty, but out of work.' But where is the recognition that disability benefits are often what makes it possible for people with higher living and transport costs to work?
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I called my recipe book Sabzi – vegetables. But the name was trademarked. And my legal ordeal began The granting of patents and trademarks to foods and words from the global south is part of a long colonial grab. It’s time to realise we share what we cook, and what we call it

This is quite a story. Trying to trademark the word ‘sabzi’ is the equivalent of trying to trademark the word ‘food’.

www.theguardian.com/food/comment...

Thank you so much. How wonderful and also delighted to see us together in these spaces. It’s just brilliant to see your book doing so well, and really looking forward to reading it over the break too.

While politicians fret about rising numbers of people diagnosed with mental health conditions and disabilities, the fact is that they will be hugely under-diagnosed because our services are so stretched. Instead of admitting this fact, politicians will keep blaming those suffering. Simply appalling.

Reform UK gets record £9mn donation from Christopher Harborne Nigel Farage’s party attracts far more funding than both Labour and the Conservatives

Crypto-investor who lives in Thailand gives record-breaking donation to Reform UK, to help it win power in a country he doesn't live in.

Britain's political funding laws are a charred and smoking ruin. Ducking change was a catastrophic mistake by Labour.
www.ft.com/content/db73...

Whatever our disagreements, I share more with all living British ppl than any of us share with our mitochondrial ancestors who lived in 625 or even 1875, in terms of cultural experiences and identities

But the racist can't admit this truth; it runs counter to biological & cultural essentialism

I’m not at all surprised that this was your experience.

Best history books 2025: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year In the roster of laudable history books published in 2025, authors tackled topics as diverse as Gaza, Indian partition, extinction, medieval and Stuart monarchs – even historians themselves. Here, a p...

Mubarak Moudhy! Did you see that you were also featured here?
www.historyextra.com/magazine/his...

Empire with David Olusoga How did a small island once rule over a quarter of the world's population? This shared history still shapes us today - and billions of people are part of its story.

I’m going to get back to my caring duties, but I wanted to post this quick thread while this conversation was fresh in my mind. Meanwhile, I think the series was a good introduction to really important themes, but you can watch and decide for yourself.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Such assumptions are a fundamentally impoverished, and offensive, way to think about the intellectual interests and capacities of ordinary people. All in the service of trying to maintain a status quo that tries to make a virtue of being narrowly focused on the past and present.

So many people in Britain from a range of class, race, and age groups hunger to know more but have been systematically let down by assumptions about their interests, politics, ethics and families.