Nicholas Guyatt

I think a job search is stressful enough without that added ordeal but thanks anyway

We can do comparative/connective if it has a US/North American angle, we can do borderlands, and we can do #VastEarlyAmerica (recent holder worked on early 19th century Hawai'i) but alas it's not a Latin American postdoc (though we do have a Centre of Latin American Studies which hosts them)

Just to clarify this postdoc was advertised last year and limited to 20th century historians, but we actually just gave a permanent job to the incumbent (congratulations, Caroline!) and this time there's *no period or field restriction* - vast early Americanists (and everyone else) welcome!

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

The left warned that Starmerism would end like this. Now all of Britain faces the fallout | Owen Jones Peter Mandelson helped Morgan McSweeney privilege Labour’s reactionary forces to sustain the PM, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones

For Americans struggling to understand how Keir Starmer is on the brink of resigning, this piece by @owenjones.bsky.social offers a concise and bleak summary of how we got here www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

it's honestly sickening to see Starmer and his supporters performing their concern for the victims when they ALL knew Mandelson's friendship with Epstein had endured past Epstein's conviction; whatever lies Mandelson may have told them, that simple fact was established by the FT in June 2023

Starmer Faces Storm of Criticism Over Ties Between Ex-Ambassador and Epstein

The Times belatedly covers the huge Mandelson-Starmer scandal in the UK, but omits the crucial fact that 18 months before Starmer made Mandelson US ambassador the FT reported that he'd stayed in Epstein's NYC mansion *while Epstein was in prison for child sex abuse* www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/w...

Frost making the point that the entire cabinet backed Mandelsons appointment as ambassador

Starmer is going to be the fall guy for this (& lots more), but everyone at the top of Labour is implicated, including people who might have resigned in the meantime!

i couldn't find a peep about it from, say, the Times - weirdly they went with the (formerly known as) Prince Andrew angle, which seems small fry given the national meltdown here these past couple of days over Mandelson/Starmer

Always seemed likely that eventually the media and/or the public would wake up to the sheer madness/recklessness of this; the latest Epstein document release has finally brought the house crashing down on Starmer, who has shown wretched judgement (or a lack of it) throughout bsky.app/profile/nich...

Ever since the Financial Times reported in 2023 that Peter Mandelson had stayed in Epstein's mansion while Epstein was serving time for child sex crimes, many of us over here have watched with horror as Starmer first made Mandelson his election guru and then his US ambassador x.com/NicholasGuya...

front page on starmer's likely demise as UK PM

Probably no bandwidth in the US media right now for international news, even before we factor in the mass firing of journalists, but the latest Epstein document dump really might bring down the UK prime minister before the week is out

can't see that happening at this point alas

it's a photo of a groundhog that can tell the future

"Keir Starmer's government will last for six more weeks!"

From last night's 'emergency' podcast, genuinely don't know which of them is supposed to be speaking

Dark mood among Labour MPs as Keir Starmer tries to contain Mandelson scandal The chaos of the parliamentary debate about the former Labour minister is just one sign of how quickly the mood in the party has soured this week.

Given Epstein's sordid relationship with Trump, it seems incredible to think that this scandal may bring down the UK government before the US government www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Even in the 'unipolar' years of the 1990s, US presidents were exasperated by their inability to control the United Nations; the idea of replacing the unruly Security Council with a pliant 'Board of Peace' is really a sign of US decline in the world, not of Trump's strength

MAGA Empire w/ Aslı Bâli and Greg Grandin Featuring Aslı Bâli and Greg Grandin on the MAGA model of US imperialism.

A really excellent analysis of imperialism, gangsterism and regionalism under Trump 47 - and some sobering thoughts about the connections between violence abroad and the white nationalist agenda at home thedigradio.com/podcast/maga...

I think the 'reverse discrimination' line is not a good look, for sure

Cambridge college to target elite private schools for student recruitment Exclusive: Trinity Hall’s new policy described as a ‘slap in the face’ for state-educated students

So much for the Trinity Hall reboot! www.theguardian.com/education/20...

A military capture of Russian-flagged vessels at sea won't seem like small stuff to most of the world, and the idea that a US sanctions regime can be seen as legitimate by the rest of us when the Trump administration is burning down the international order is also a hard sell right now

Hard to reconcile the flagrant illegality of US policy towards Venezuela this past week with the idea of a 'legal' sanctions regime - and I suspect that that regime will end up being highly selective rather than consistently enforced, in terms of Venezuela/Iran vs Ukraine

The UK Ministry of Defence says it supported US efforts to seize the Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic today, including with RAF aircraft. Here's a statement from UK Defence Secretary John Healey: "Today our UK Armed Forces showed skill and professionalism in support of a successful U.S. interception of the vessel Bella 1 while on its way to Russia. "This action formed part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting. "This ship, with a nefarious history, is part of a Russian-Iranian axis of sanctions evasion which is fuelling terrorism, conflict, and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine. "The UK will continue to step up our action against shadow fleet activity to protect our national security, our economy, and global stability - making Britain secure at home and strong abroad."

Madness for the UK government to get involved in the increasingly unhinged and dangerous foreign policy of the Trump administration, but Keir Starmer seems determined to outdo Tony Blair in becoming lickspittle-in-chief to a rogue U.S. president

Ha ha! I mean Mike Lupica and George Will were *kinda* your colleagues, right?

The Most Rancorous Line | Nicholas Guyatt How did the Mason–Dixon Line—meant to resolve a longstanding colonial border dispute—come to represent the US’s foundational divide between slavery and freedom?

You probably don't have a lot of bandwidth for recreational reading about a divided America, but just on the off chance I have a piece on the Mason-Dixon Line in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted. "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland," Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper, the CNN host, after being asked repeatedly whether he would rule out using military force. The remarks were part of a vocal push by Mr. Miller, long a powerful behind-the-scenes player in Trump administration policy, to justify American imperialism and a vision for a new world order in which the United States could freely overthrow national governments and take foreign territory and resources so long as it was in the national interest. "We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power," he said. "These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time"

Pure cowardice on the part of every European leader who refuses to call out the Trump administration for what it is: a criminal and utterly lawless extortion racket which poses a grave danger to the security of the entire world

I often think about this Guardian piece from 2011 insisting that we shouldn't equate the Daily Mail of the 1930s - "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" and all that - with the Daily Mail of today. And I'm afraid I think today's paper is at least as bad, and maybe worse

In the upside down world of the Daily Mail, If you're opposed to the US invading another country, kidnapping its president and then telling the world of its plan to "run" that country indefinitely, you're a "Maduro apologist"

that is what Bush said about Iraq - $7 trillion mistake

A gangster regime, with cheap dialogue to match