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

New data shows all bad news for England's priority wildlife habitats. ❌big drop in monitoring: Natural England needs funds to keep up ❌fall in favourable management in & outside SSSIs ❌fall in SSSIs in good condition: better incentives & enforcement urgent. 🧵1/3

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

This Is Not Appeasement, It Is Worse Comparisons to Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement are not fair to Chamberlain. Trump isn't trying to delay a war with Putin or give himself time to rearm. The US president is trying to help Putin @phillipspobrien.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

submitted 9 days ago • 20 comments

At least six independent inspectors general fired by Trump all have one thing in common: their agencies investigated Elon Musk's corporations. Musk's crusade against the government isn't about "waste" or "efficiency." It's about shielding himself from accountability.

submitted 11 days ago • 23 comments

When Trump was sworn in, Elon Musk's corporations were under more than 32 investigations conducted by at least 11 federal agencies. Most of the cases are now closed or likely to be closed soon, and the federal agencies are being defanged by DOGE. Funny how that works, huh?

submitted 11 days ago • 266 comments

A deep dive into the crackpot conspiracy theory about the Frankfurt School that unites neo Nazis with mainstream conservatives. I researched the hell out of this and the story is even weirder than I imagined. (Working link this time!)

submitted 11 days ago • 16 comments

A handy compilation of Labour’s negative achievements (so far). They had an opportunity — a big but shallow FPTP mandate. They blew it, & keep doing so a bit more every day, e.g. today’s creeping subservience to US tech. They’re beyond disappointing,

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

🚨🚨 Timely statement from the American Bar Association on the looming Constitutional Crisis in the US: "The ABA supports the rule of law". Well worth to read the statement in full. 🧵 www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...

submitted 12 days ago • 7 comments

The speed of the implementation of Trump’s suppression of open enquiry and his reinforcement of prejudice can only indicate that business and agency leads are being pushed in a direction they are all too willing to go.

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

I’m in Tallin airport+I’ve read all my books+ cleared as much work email as possible. In shop, had either read or didn’t want to read books. So I bought Pride and Prejudice (read last 1995?).Gosh. Ch 1. Such density. Also: Mr Bennett (quick, sarcastic, reserve, caprice) surely a bit Darcy like?

submitted 12 days ago • 4 comments

What can you do with English Studies? Anything! I am sharing @englishassociation.bsky.social Skills for the Future link again, with student stories about the skills they are learning, plus some amazing case studies from the world of work. See 🧵 englishassociation.ac.uk/skills-for-t...

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

Saying ‘deep state’ over and over doesn’t count as deep thinking.

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

This is what should be on every front page right now. What's happening in the US right now is an illegal power grab by a private citizen. IT'S A COUP. It's a digital coup. It's Musk who's leading it. The consequences are terrifying. And it's coming for us next. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

submitted 13 days ago • 170 comments

As a big caveat, a core reasons the German railway system around DB fell apart over the late 2000s and 2010s was because of a disastrously cackhanded attempt to save on maintenance, personnel and infrastructure costs in order to boost short term profits and attract investors for a part-privatisation

submitted 13 days ago • 5 comments

When the State of New York finally has to secede from the Union, I hope the first statue they raise is to the inestimable Letitia James. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/n...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Climate action globally is under threat. It’s hugely urgent to seize initiative from rightwing populists. We need to change tactics: start by building climate resilience in local communities where people can feel tangible benefits – we’re calling it climate popularism. @rupertread.bsky.social & me🧵

submitted 16 days ago • 53 comments

Naomi Smith, "When we think about the world of tech, over the last two decades, their mantra of move fast and break things, was rewarded" "If you bring that approach into gov, politics, to the fabric of society, it won't work. And all it will seek to do is undermine the structures that protect us"

submitted 16 days ago • 9 comments

Just spotted that the Musk White House has disbanded the legal effort to go after kleptocrats. It's beginning to feel a lot like the United States has just changed sides. www.justice.gov/ag/media/138...

submitted 16 days ago • 10 comments

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

'Coming alongside President Trump’s plan for a US takeover of Gaza, the US administration’s resolve to shut down its international aid agency sends a clear message that the era when American leaders valued their soft power is coming to an end.'

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Long-tailed tit in the trees

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

Golden hour in Durham yesterday — two attempts at taking one of my favourite views of the Cathedral (apart from the more usual ones) — looks wonderful to the eye, which focuses on the Cathedral, different or less so to a lens, which sees the trees. @legalmusings.bsky.social

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

FT isn’t holding back today.

submitted 17 days ago • 5 comments

Quoted this brilliant passage from the late Steve Silberman's Neurotribes last night, and now want to share it with y'all.

submitted 17 days ago • 10 comments

Just read a prescient 2014 paper mapping the vulnerability of English HEIs and the employment conditions of the cities they're in. (Southern) Pre-92s fare better (obvs) but what's subtler is how some areas are heavily dependent on their HEI for jobs; if they fail... academic.oup.com/cjres/articl...

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

East Anglian farms breach environment regulations 700 times in seven years

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Lots going on in our 'Critical Interventions in the Medical & Health Humanities' series! Some fascinating proposals under consideration and some excellent books in production. Please do reach out with any questions/ideas for the series that you may have! www.bloomsbury.com/series/criti...

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Richard J. Evans: “The fascist project was to remake human beings into a new kind of ruthless, hard, pitiless entity [and] to expunge humanitarianism from the political system and from people’s consciences.”

submitted 20 days ago • 16 comments

It's not a demolition site it's a mass grave. It's not a demolition site it's a crime scene. It's not a demolition site its a homeland. It's not a demolition site it's Palestine. It's not a demolition site it's a genocide.

submitted 19 days ago • 98 comments

As my colleagues wrote this morning @economist.com, Trump's imperial fantasy of taking over Gaza is not so much a policy proposal as it is a mix of different ideas he's heard over the years, leavened with his own particular impulses www.economist.com/middle-east-...

submitted 18 days ago • 3 comments

Seeing Netanyahu smirk in disbelief as Trump basically endorses ethnic cleansing, and the entire right wing Israeli agenda to clear Palestinians from their homeland is the most obscene moment in this obscene presidency so far.

submitted 19 days ago • 24 comments

Room for a little good news from the North Pennines? www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

We're very happy to hang out with you here on Bluesky, but if you want to get properly into the movement, please join the Network so we stay connected no matter what happens to these platforms >> arts-emergency.org/get-involved...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

I think this is one reason why the BBC's coverage is so poor. It has to bend away from reality for fear of sounding extreme. The truth is that a delusional old man and an insane billionaire are executing an unconstitutional power grab at high speed but saying that sounds hysterical.

submitted 20 days ago • 20 comments

The jacket for one of the latest books in our Digital Cultures series now confirmed! 'Resisting Big Tech: The Personalized is Political' will be available in paperback and free, open access, from August. Particularly timely and urgent, take a look at the book here: www.bloomsbury.com/resisting-bi...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Grim: "The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees who work on climate change, reducing air pollution, enforcing environmental laws and other programs that they could be fired at any time." www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/c...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Like other economists I'm being asked to comment on Trump tariffs. We should do so - it's our job. But first we should make the point stated eloquently here by @alanbeattie.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/c26b...

submitted 20 days ago • 19 comments

The Arts and Humanities Alliance have written an open letter to Bridget Philippson, Secretary of State for Education, on the recently announced cuts across the sector. We are concerned that these measures disproportionately affect our disciplines and call for an urgent government review.

submitted 20 days ago • 3 comments

Lovely editorial + design work on my article for the latest emagazine. Thanks @barbarableiman.bsky.social + Lucy Webster! www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emc-magazine...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Tomorrow! Free online! englishassociation.ac.uk/lets-think-i...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

this is a really really stupid understanding of biodiversity, as if it was a little luxury that we could have a bit of once we had got the growth job done. the point is not bats and newts, it is the system. the point of a canary in the mine is not to keep the canary alive.

submitted 29 days ago • 18 comments

"The most powerful office in the world is becoming the court of an emperor, untrammelled by alliances, the constitution or the law. The task is to see it." @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social

submitted 29 days ago • 19 comments