Academia

I’ve held off posting this in the hope of coming up with some kind of positive response, but I haven’t got one. When I wrote back in November 2024 that Trump’s dictatorship was a fait accompi there was still plenty of room for people to disagree. But (with the exception of an announced state of emergency) it’s turned […]

The UK government has signalled its intention to “proscribe” the protest group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation. This will place it in the same legal category as Al Qaeda and Islamic State: it will be illegal to belong to the group, to show public support for it, to arrange a meeting in support for it, […]

Pro-natalism (the idea that people, or rather, women, should have more babies than they choose to do at present) has become an established orthodoxy,[1]. The central claim is that, unless something changes soon, human populations both global and national, are going to decline rapidly, with a lot of negative consequences. This is simply not true, […]

Hi CT readers, I’m publishing this open letter here so there’s a public record of the letter I’ve co-written and signed about what looks, walks and talks like a good old-fashioned Brussels stitch-up aimed at weakening the EU organisation that oversees data protection in EU institutions. Thank you, Maria (Comments welcome, as with any other […]

Please consider donating to this fundraising effort (here) to support Helen de Cruz’s family. There is no greater joy for a teacher than to see a student develop and grow; and no more satisfaction to a mentor than to be overshadowed professionally by one’s mentee. I have followed Helen’s intellectual development and blossoming professional career with […]

Thursday afternoon I belatedly fulfilled a promise to post a book to Wilcannia. The school day was just finishing and as I left the Post Office I overheard a child around eight years old: Dad, I was so good today I got FIVE stickers. Dad was a little distracted, navigating cars and pavements and no doubt […]

Except it’s not happy, of course. The ocean’s ecosystems are going to hell in a hand-cart, while our politicians congratulate themselves for signing up to pledges (like protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030) that they have no realistic plan for achieving. The conclusion that they are simply kicking the can down the road, while […]

A few days ago, I experienced a strange auditive mix-up. My favorite German radio program, Deutschlandfunk, sent a documentary about “platform workers”. Uber, Deliveroo, etc., you might think, but no. This was about workers on oil platforms in Norway: about the oil boom in the North Sea, about the hard work on the oil rigs […]