Dr Matthew Watkins

Petition: Ban fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship Advertisements encourage the use of products and sponsorship promotes a positive reputation & creates a social licence of trust & acceptability. In 2003 a ban on all tobacco advertising was introduced...

Just 10 days left to get 100,000 signatures on this petition to ban fossil fuel ads and sponsorships – please sign and share govpetition.uk/700024

2025: setting all the worst records 🔥

This is a systems error, opticians should be allowed and required to simply press a referral button to the DVLA. Regardless of whether these people felt they needed to drive this is criminal behaviour, far tougher and more visible sentences for dangerous drivers are required urgently.

I'm assuming you didn't do your undergraduate study in the UK. Tuition fees have been charged since 1998 to UG students. It's not going back to no fees ever unfortunately.

My point was a historic graduate tax is a non starter as it would mean some have to pay twice. Very few do pay if their loans, but to make those that have paid their loan off pay yet another tax is not on. Unless a graduate tax is introduced for new UG students only.

Except for those of us that are 44 and under who paid fees and have paid off our student loans. I cleared mine almost a decade ago and I'm an academic.

James Reason, Who Used Swiss Cheese to Explain Human Error, Dies at 86 Mistakes happen, he theorized, because multiple vulnerabilities in a system align — like the holes in cheese — to create a recipe for disaster.

rest in brilliance, my friend
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/s...

Dramatic fall in London’s levels of deadly pollutants after Ulez expansion People in capital breathing much cleaner air, with significant improvements in capital’s most deprived areas

This may have been missed in the media yesterday amongst the Trump turnarounds. But this is real leadership when a politician refuses to be political and just does the right thing for humanity despite major opposition and the risk of unpopularity: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The full graphic:

The damning statistics that reveal the true cost of Brexit, five years on As January marks five years on from Britain leaving the EU, Alicja Hagopian and Kate Devlin explore its impact

Well that's not a surprise but incredibly frustrating and the instigators still refuse to accept they were wrong.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

You do realise that they put colouring dye in plastics they can make any plastic black, they don't recycle plastic based on its colour. Plus plastic utensils are black for a reason it conducts heat......

This time we published the scientific review of the effectiveness of city-wide 30 km/h speed limit worldwide, based on 60 simulation studies and estimations confirming the significant reductions of over 40% of road crash fatalities.

lnkd.in/gu6ktxAp

#JSR #30kmh #speedlimits #georgeyannis

Not listened in years but a great underrated album.

You could buy second hand or from smaller sellers on eBay. I still buy from Amazon infrequently but have reduced it to mainly toiletries only. I did an article 5 years ago on 2nd hand toys for the Conversation that maybe if interest.

The latest cost of Brexit is about to hit – and voters are watching. Will Labour act? | Polly Toynbee New EU trade regulations will cause further pain for the UK. Starmer’s talk of breaking down barriers must be more than warm words, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

Brexit cost £1 million a day in 2022. Think what that could do for the NHS and social care 🤔
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Jaguar Type 00: the controversial pink car is more in step with the brand’s history than detractors think The new concept ruffled feathers but Jaguar has always innovated in the hopes of attracting new and younger buyers.

I wasn't going to engage with the Jaguar rebrand debate but the Conversation asked me to write an article. So I have hopefully given some needed perspective: theconversation.com/jaguar-type-...

‘Motonormativity’: Britons more accepting of driving-related risk Allowance made for dangers that would not be accepted in other parts of life, finds study with potentially major policy implications

Motornormativity means that loads of people who don't drive believe that drivers should be prioritised. #carbrain @ianwalker.bsky.social @holybollards.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2023/j...

Great interview with Peston last night @chrisgpackham.bsky.social
Hope your petition is HUGE! Thanks for your support with mine. They make a great pair.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

UK HE shrinking This is a live page of all the redundancies, restructures, reorganisations, and closures taking place across the sector at the moment. Solidarity to all. This sector is vital to the country’s…

The number of UK universities now actively making redundancies has risen to 85. That number will be will over 100 by spring. I'm afraid this is happening faster, and will be worse, than even I thought. Solidarity and thoughts with and to all affected. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

Changes to farmers’ inheritance tax are fair and could even help them in the long run – expert view Tax relief may acutally have made it more expensive for farmers to buy more land to expand their business.

Changes to farmers’ inheritance tax are fair and could even help them in the long run – expert view

My Sustainability hack for the week. My keyboard letters had worn off on S, C, H and I, there must be some interested analysis on why those letters. But it otherwise works fine so I bought £1.89 keyboard sticker sheet off eBay, perfect fit and very sticky.

It worked for me this morning and I'm not a subscriber.

On assisted dying, are we really any good at predicting survival? Forecasting the last seven days of life is harder than the final 24 hours; beyond that, things become shakier still

Good piece from @anjahuja.bsky.social coming at the assisted dying debate from a different angle: science is not good at predicting survival
on.ft.com/4i4wSnB