michaelhigham11.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Too much news? My Eastern Eye column this week on the relentless pace of the global and domestic news agenda, so that issues that might have been discussed for a week might come and go within hours www.easterneye.biz/uk-migration...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Researchers: The copying of populist parties and their policy positions by centrist parties does not win back voters, but further emboldens and empowers populists as they are becoming mainstreamed, further weakening the centrists. Keir Starmer: Hold my beer.

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

When will Starmer learn that no matter how good his Nigel Farage impression gets, it won't save him from wipeout at the hands of Reform? Here's another idea - how about doing the work that's needed to actually make people's lives better? 🧵

submitted 38 days ago • 84 comments

Labour's immigration announcement today is a reflection of the paucity of honest debate by BOTH political parties over the last decade on this issue. Labour has never made a counter-argument, or been honest about economic cost of immigration curbs, so it's stuck making Tory/Reform arguments 1/n

submitted 38 days ago • 64 comments

If academic institutions want to grade students in a meaningful way, I suspect they will now need to go back to handwritten exams and oral tests only. If you can’t handwrite or speak, it’ll have to be done on a non-networked dumb machine. Maybe just a typewriter

submitted 43 days ago • 40 comments

Seems the UK might have decided to come up with a foreign policy. Well, it certainly isn’t an ethical one

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Its clear that Mr Clegg would greatly benefit from taking our 2nd year undergraduate module: Introduction to the Integration of the European Union!

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

The US is now attacking Europe on multiple fronts: economic, diplomatic and political all the while weaselling out of its strategic commitment to European security and offering aid and comfort to Europe’s existential threat… Russia. Can’t address the problem until it’s honestly identified.

submitted 56 days ago • 1 comment

Britain, a trading nation, now has a vital choice to make about its priority trading partners: - the EU, where agreements are made, kept, reciprocal, based on international norms, & enforced by a court - the USA, where agreements are made, broken, changed & broken again at a whim, with no recourse

submitted 62 days ago • 123 comments

Can’t wait for this to feature in the lecture slides for US Politics modules

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments

This is high art

submitted 74 days ago • 546 comments

Carney: Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy, and to protect our sovereignty. Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of likeminded countries who share our values… If the US no longer wants to lead, Canada will

submitted 77 days ago • 402 comments

Marvellous. Booker makes a stand against Trump – and doesn’t stop for 25 hours www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 78 days ago • 1 comment

Americans were obsessed with the Lexington Green myth and the idea that they’d take to the hills muskets in hands if anyone ever dared to tread on their precious freedoms. Instead all it took for them to instantly fold was a grubby real estate swindler posting some vague threats at 2am.

submitted 83 days ago • 7 comments

I’m actually lowkey wondering that once we pop this can of worms, will we stop? It’s just weird how many people seem to tacitly believe that Europeans are somehow inherently pacifistic and antimilitaristic, and that’s why Europe disarmed. EUROPEANS. What if we really return to the old ways?

submitted 99 days ago • 30 comments

Would be cool if the European Union were occasionally not living a defining moment

submitted 100 days ago • 3 comments

I think we’ve reached the point where this discourse is no longer helpful. It’s hardly breaking news that the EU/Europe has been heavily dependent on the US for its security. What we should be discussing is how do we move away from this dependency in as fast and as sustainable way as possible.

submitted 101 days ago • 0 comments

www.bbc.com/news/article... Wait, wait, wait… I’ve heard this one before

submitted 106 days ago • 0 comments

“Governor Trudeau” is part of the Trump administration’s ethos of pathological insecurity. A weak person is constantly compelled to insult and belittle others, even allies, to show “strength.” An actually strong person isn’t. Bullies are weak, as are their sycophants.

submitted 107 days ago • 99 comments

Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the agressor. Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.

submitted 111 days ago • 698 comments

I keep reading that Zelensky shouldn't have risen to the bait. The man is human. He's seen tens of thousands of Ukrainians murdered, their cities blown apart & their children stolen. He was sitting by a man who's looting his country's minerals & praising Putin. And for 40 minutes, he held it in.

submitted 111 days ago • 110 comments

You know, maybe having some of your biggest media outlets owned by tech billionaire corporate overlords isn’t such a doozie for democracy after all.

submitted 113 days ago • 0 comments

US, Russia, Israel, Sudan, North Korea, Belarus, Hungary. Axis of.. No, wait. Axis will do.

submitted 115 days ago • 14 comments

Elon Musk does a Nazi salute. Trump advocates ethnic cleansing. Judges sacked, the state gutted, JD Vance pushing the AfD and Trump now playing footsie with Putin. Now Steve Bannon does his own fascist salute. It’s hard to deny the fascist trajectory of the US administration x.com/josheakle/st...

submitted 118 days ago • 4 comments

We work to ensure that false or misleading information doesn’t diminish public debate or cause harm. Free speech matters, but so does protecting people from harm. ✍️ Read more:

submitted 119 days ago • 9 comments

The Irish should read The Witcher books (ironically written by a Polish author) - a good story of how the protagonist slowly discovers that consistently maintaining the belief that they are somewhat ‘neutral’ to the events around them, ultimately leads them to their demise

submitted 119 days ago • 0 comments

🇺🇸🇷🇺 are now formulating a new ‘axis of evil’ - it’s high time that EU member states recognise this and act accordingly

submitted 119 days ago • 0 comments

🇪🇺

submitted 120 days ago • 22 comments

All democracies should have regularly rehearsed contingency plans for successfully repelling domestic attempts to overthrow democracy. With aspirational autocrats increasing trying to seize power, we shouldn't discover how resilient our democracies are only at the point when they face overthrow.

submitted 198 days ago • 6 comments

Once again I am leaving the Munich Security Conference in a low mood. Amongst all the noise, the US signalled their plans for Europe, so things are becoming clearer. But things are clearly not good. This is what we now know, and what we have to do about it:🧵1/17

submitted 124 days ago • 198 comments

Exceptionally grim @financialtimes.com essay by Keir Giles of @chathamhouse.bsky.social: archive.ph/287LE

submitted 124 days ago • 2 comments

Vance’s attack on European democracy in Munich, perversely twisting the language of democracy itself should leave no doubt whatsoever that the aim of this administration is to destroy the EU and its liberal democracies #msc2025

submitted 125 days ago • 19 comments

Fanciful perhaps, but.. What can Europe put on the table? 1) massive, coordinated efforts to purchase and ship defensive weapons to Ukraine 2) EU membership and Art 42.7 guarantees 3) forward deployment of European troops to defend Ukraine. 4) comprehensive economic embargo on Russia

submitted 127 days ago • 1 comment

The US is visibly - and rapidly - collapsing as a credible, functioning democracy and as a global partner. Time for European governments to get their act together alongside likeminded allies. US can’t be ignored but it can no longer be trusted.

submitted 126 days ago • 0 comments

🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺🇪🇺 Democratic Europe now has 3 to 5 years to prepare before Russia regenerates enough to go west. The clock is ticking.

submitted 127 days ago • 5 comments

Column: In the Musk Revolution lessons from 20th Century history will be deleted www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 127 days ago • 13 comments

Måke Califørnia Great Ægain! denmarkification.com

submitted 127 days ago • 0 comments

This is the one article to read on contemporary (and future) U.S. politics. Laid out analytically and clearly. There is a hint of optimism (which I do not share but do appreciate).

submitted 128 days ago • 6 comments

Nothing, neither the promise of wealth nor the prestige of Lords, can deter our national commitment to being a bit crap all the time. It is iron-clad, a principle far stronger than any party or personality.

submitted 135 days ago • 5 comments

🇬🇧🇪🇺 I am increasingly convinced that the British government, despite a massive parliamentary majority and no veto-capable head of state standing in its way, is going to pull off one of the more spectacular self-inflicted political suicides that will make Scholz govt look like it had a good run.

submitted 148 days ago • 19 comments

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took aim at Europe in a fiery speech delivered at the World Economic Forum today, saying the continent “needs to step up” and “learn how to take care of itself so the world can’t ignore it.”

submitted 149 days ago • 14 comments

He accidentally did a Nazi salute... TWICE. While talking about the future of Western civilization. He is who we think he is.

submitted 150 days ago • 433 comments

Today the world feels a much scarier place. Trump is back in the White House, Elon Musk is now funding Tommy Robinson and the AfD is likely to come second in the German elections. But however awful today seems, things will get better. Keep the faith. HOPE will triumph over hate ✊🏼 @hopenothate

submitted 150 days ago • 4 comments

New The coming battle between social media and the state Behind the alignment of X and Meta with Trump is a cold business logic — and a position of weakness rather than strength By me, in todays @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/917c...

submitted 159 days ago • 7 comments

In Gen-Z language: This gives big ‘throwing toys out of pram’ energy. Imagine the audacity of going to another country, breaking the law, and then being upset that you have to face the consequences of breaking said law…

submitted 159 days ago • 0 comments