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jaywiggan.bsky.social

@jaywiggan.bsky.social
175 followers 376 following 1 posts

Senior Lecturer in social policy. All things employment and social security policy. policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk…

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Reposted by @jaywiggan.bsky.social
Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 16h
The evidence is clear: countries with lower NEET rates than the UK get there almost entirely through higher rates of post-18 education. In these countries, more young people stay in education for longer and often combine it with work.
Comparison of OECD countries’ differences from the UK in 2024 for 18–24‑year‑old participation in education or work
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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 21h
'Green' and 'class' politics are often viewed as mutually hostile to each other. My research explores how British miners, electricity workers and builders articulated a distinctive working-class environmental politics in the 1970s and 80s. You can read my new article here.
tandfonline.com
‘The true conservationists’: British trade union environmental politics in the late twentieth century
This article demonstrates British energy trade unionists engaged intently with environmental debates during the 1970s and 1980s. These findings challenge dominant interpretations of the emergence o...
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Corey Boyle @coreyboyle.bsky.social · 20h
The final part of my series on making #Edinburgh a cycling city: a 10 point manifesto in four parts. The Alternative. The Carrot & the Stick. The Mechanism. #CarFreeDay @spokes.org.uk @livingstreetsedi.bsky.social @cyclingscotland.bsky.social @wwctrustscot.bsky.social #ActiveTravel #Cycling
edinburghinquirer.co.uk
How we could turn Edinburgh into a real cycling city
Award-winning sustainable travel engineer Corey Boyle lays out a manifesto for the future of the active transport
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Is this legal?
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Such a fascinating range of projects funded through our small grants including looking at who voters blame for inflation, evaluating implementation of UK security/defence reviews and how geopolitics is impacting the UK semiconductor sector www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants Awards 2026
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Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The brutal reality of universities' suppression of wages (in KPMG's report for DfE on cost of undergraduate provision in England) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6aabfa...
Table 1 – Cost increases since the last study by cost type
Actual % increase
between 2016-17 and
2019 study cost groupings
2023-24 weighted
average unit cost
Staff costs 14%
Non-pay costs 46%
Indirect departmental costs -24%
Centrally allocated indirect costs 29%
Estates costs 40%
Sustainability adjustment -2%

Source: Analysis of Data Returns
Table 1 shows that costs have not increased equally in the time between the two costing studies. Non-pay costs have increased slightly ahead of inflation and estates costs have increased in line with inflation. Universities have managed staff costs significantly below inflation, increasing only by 14% compared to the 41.2% increase in RPIX. By contrast, indirect departmental costs have reduced by 24%, but this may be due to differences in the universities participating in the 2019 and this study. The movement in MSI is reflective of changes in financial performance rather than any inflationary impact.
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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
New substack: You can marginalize Marxism, but you cannot marginalize the facts. chrisdillow.substack.com/p/marx-on-ai
chrisdillow.substack.com
Marx on AI
Technical change is an issue of what capitalism does to workers.
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Louise Murphy @louisemurphy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
DWP has just published a flurry of new data on how PIP and UC-Health assessments are carried out (face-to-face or via phone, video or paper) and whether this impacts who gets awarded health-related benefits. Five takeaways 🧵
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The Workers' Observatory @workersobservatory.org · 11/09/2026
📷 If you are looking for a weekend plan in Edinburgh, go check out the exhibition "Sandra George: Start from the Level" to see a portrait of real community power. edinburghartfestival.com/event/sandra...
edinburghartfestival.com
Sandra George: Start from the Level - Edinburgh Art Festival
Photographer Sandra George devoted her life to working with communities, documenting and developing vital social-action projects in Edinburgh for over thirty years. The legacy she has left is a first-...
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Martin Heneghan @martinheneghan.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
So much of what is presented as differences by ethnicity, with the white working-class falling behind, is actually a case of place-based differences. In terms of social mobility there are significant advantages to living in London regardless of class or ethnicity. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...
theguardian.com
Ministers to put white working-class people in UK at heart of new equalities unit
Bridget Phillipson to announce creation of unit which will make class a key part of its equalities agenda
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Michael Tobin @michaeltobin.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
📣Call for Papers The Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 📍South East Technological University (Waterford Campus) 🗓️6th – 7th May 2027 Sociology, Technology, and the Future of ‘the Republic’ lnkd.in/dDM57-ud
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Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.
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Chris Newfield @cnewf.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
We've now posted ISRF's newest in its series, Dispatches: Experiencing Academic Decline, this from a union rep for academic staff at a large UK research university. Read this chilling portrait of the post-professional university and its post-cognitive management. isrf.org/blog/negotia...
isrf.org
Negotiating the cuts: Reflections on a University Statutory Redundancy Consultation
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Gav Maclean @gavmaclean.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is slide 4 of the first lecture of my sociology of work module. ✊🔹🔸🔹
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Blackford Safe Routes @blackfordsaferoutes.co.uk · 23/08/2026
This looks like a European holiday destination It’s actually the Cowgate without cars Edinburgh needs more vision in its planning @stephenjenkinson.bsky.social
The inside of a sunlit high stone arch that forms a bridge over a historic street. The street is backlit with sunshine and  100s of people walk along it, as there are no cars. A family pushes a buggy with child looking and pointing at the world in wonder
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Simon Christie @thebonnieloon.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
North Bridge/Nicolson St. Pedestrians spilling out onto the road and a "cyclists dismount and use footpath" while there are four lanes of road, two of which are full of parked wankpanzers blocking buses 🫠
A cyclists dismount and use the footpath sign on a busy pavement with an empty roadHundreds of people on busy pavements with a largely empty road expect for a few buses and cards and van parked in the bus lane
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Martin Heneghan @martinheneghan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
He’s been prime minister for five minutes and he’s already playing with the emergency alert.
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852dude @852dude.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Bro. People are cool as fuck.
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Blackford Safe Routes @blackfordsaferoutes.co.uk · 12/08/2026
This newly re-done junction at Summerhall puts cyclists at serious risk of left-hooks The desireline for people on bikes is straight on, but for cars it’s turning left Suitable for ages 8 to 80 ??? - We think not Edinburgh’s roads designers are morally bankrupt!
A cyclist in a blue t shirt exits a segregated cycle lane, traveling straight on. Cars to his right are turning left, threatening to drive over the top of himZoomed in pic of the same cyclist
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Dave McCraw @davemccraw.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Five years ago, young kids could ride themselves through (small) parts of central Edinburgh, until the council got cold feet. This kid will grow up and have their own kids before this street gets back to 2021. Why are other UK cities leaving Edinburgh so far behind?
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John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 07/08/2026
New from me: Britain’s graduate earnings premium is falling, cue “too many go to university!” But non-university outcomes are also bad, cue “we must reform vocational routes!” Both miss the point: people used to think education drove economic outcomes, but the economy drives educational outcomes.
Chart showing that US workers who are functionally illiterate earn roughly the same per hour as the average British worker
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Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I think it's useful to remember that managers call in consultants to justify a decision they've already made.
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Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The government has effectively outsourced HE policy to consultants, including Nous, KPMG and others. At Exeter it’s Nous www.theferret.scot/consultancy-...
theferret.scot
‘Nousferatu’: the notorious consultancy advising Edinburgh uni amid 'huge' cuts
Scotland’s largest university has turned to Nous Group at the same time as it is making savings that could lead to nearly 2,000 job losses. Staff say they were misled about the extent of its work.
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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I've finally read this working paper properly & it's v interesting about spotting 'critical junctures'. But one could certainly no longer use the Times as reliable source text in future, so thought needed about the best corpus to use: drive.google.com/file/d/1bGrd...
drive.google.com
Critical_Junctures_HB - Michael Callen.pdf
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Everywhere: *is on fire* University of Surrey: The environment? Who needs to learn about _that_?
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Policy Press @policypress.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Make the most of our #SummerSale with 50% off every title. ⏰ Browse our collection in the format that suits you best, from hardcovers and paperbacks to convenient eBooks (EPUB) and audiobooks. #BookSale Use code BUP07 before 31 July. 🌞 ow.ly/me4u50ZifzS
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Lee Gregory (he/him) 🏳️‍🌈 @academiclee.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Time, Welfare and Society is now published!! We talk a lot about money in welfare debates — but far less about time. Yet time is the resource people lose first: waiting, repeating, proving, recovering. This book asks: What if welfare began with time instead? www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/tim...
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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
In light of Burnham saying that care workers should be paid more, I'll plug one of the few of my pieces of which I'm proud: how "skill" is a matter of culture & ideology, not pure technique: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/skill-as-i...
chrisdillow.substack.com
Skill as ideology
What we think of as skilled work is a matter of ideology more than technology.
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Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is good, both on the gendered way in which we conventionally count unemployment, often disregarding structural barriers, and on the dilemmas encountered by 1980s socialist feminist groups, who ended up engaging in state-sponsored 'training' programmes to catapult women into the labour market.
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Prof David Bailey @dgbailey.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Crisis, what crisis? It was the hot summer of ‘76, Jaws was in the cinema & Chancellor Healey was feeling the heat. Superb @cssjournal.bsky.social piece by the fab Sunday Times econ editor @dsmitheconomics.bsky.social on the IMF crisis revisited. Free-to-view! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Suede @suedehq.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Suede's era-defining third album Coming Up celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with a series of special anniversary editions. Released on 25 September.
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Alix Mortimer @alixmortimer.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I did not know this!
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
A country that is determined to destroy its own economy, and to make everyone's lives greyer and grimmer into the bargain. Peanuts, with vast multipliers. Unbelievable. www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/dfe-sla...
artsprofessional.co.uk
DfE slashes creative and performing arts teaching grants for universities - Arts Professional
Performing and creative arts university courses will no longer receive funding from a government teaching grant as part of "difficult decisions" about
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Professor Lisa Scullion @lisa-scullion.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Are you a family member, partner or spouse of someone who served in the UK Armed Forces? Have you interacted with MoD welfare services for veterans? Please give your views in our new survey: salfordshs.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
salfordshs.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Adam Tranter @adamtranter.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Humans should not be forced off pavements by delivery robots, but that's exactly what's happening. The people who pay the price are those with the least room to give it up.
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Each uni has a consultancy in that tells them how to run a degree cheaply. They all simply say 'mega lectures' (LOL, infrastructure) & 'generic modules staff is interchangeable on'. It's pitched as rationalising, creating a 'sustainable' portfolio. But its destroying what university actually is.
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Suede @suedehq.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
"The candid biography of Suede we’ve all been waiting for." - Steve Lamacq Drawing on extensive interviews with the band, As One: Remaking Suede is an intimate portrait of Suede's remarkable second act. Released in hardback on 27 August. tr.ee/EZN3ZGPFkg - SuedeHQ
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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 17/06/2026
“Interestingly, this means that the coming of AI is going to mean there will be demand for more professors, rather than fewer.” @nilsgilman.bsky.social
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Matt Gallagher @mattmgallagher.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
The UK's youth social media ban will require *all adults* to submit their biometric and personal data to a host of third-party ID verification providers. Some have questionable privacy records – and ties to the Israeli Govt and Peter Thiel. 🧵 bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/t...
bylinetimes.com
The Online Safety Act is Forcing Brits to Hand Over Personal Data to 'Unregulated' Overseas Corporations With Questionable Privacy Records
The age verification services used by social media platforms include a company funded by a Trump-supporting billionaire and a firm set up by former Israeli intelligence officers
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Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
"Starmer and Labour are cracking down on the freedoms of young people, and not the far right, nor white supremacist billionaires, precisely because no oligarchical interests will be harmed in doing so."
averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
Authoritarian Babyism
If you're lucky to be under the age of 16, congratulations! You will still be allowed to access this site from April next year. But if you w...
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Northern Ireland assembly briefing paper on immigration into Northern Ireland over the last two decades www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets...
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Lynton Lees @lyntonlees.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Good to see this covered! Given govt spent £500m to reassociate (!) this is surely a no-brainer. Max ~30k p/a Erasmus students studied in the UK. Charging unis £925 per inbound student (when they don't even pay fees!) doesn't exactly scream 'please sign up to Erasmus again'...
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
“With funding from the Regenerative Futures Fund, The Workers’ Observatory will be able to continue its mission to support precarious platform workers, with an expanded horizon of working directly with migrant communities across the city." www.sps.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...
sps.ed.ac.uk
Ten-year funding secured for research addressing conditions in the gig economy | School of Social and Political Science
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Today I've written for Arguably on one big mystery in our public life: why does no-one care about the existential crisis of our universities? Read all about it... 👇 www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...
arguably.uk
The quiet collapse of British universities
One of our great triumphs and economic advantages is fading away
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Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 10/06/2026
I don't know how to make it any clearer. Every contributor to Britain's ongoing decline from the late-20th c. onwards has been the right realising precisely the political programme they've wanted: Thatcherism & free market supremacy; then austerity; then Brexit; now rising authoritarianism.
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Politics Theory Other @poltheoryother.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
ICYMI - @trillingual.bsky.social on the rise of the UK far-right and how Britain's establishment institutions normalised ideas and policies that were once considered fringe and extreme:
podcasts.apple.com
The rise of the UK far-right w/ Daniel Trilling
Podcast Episode · Politics Theory Other · June 4 · 1h 14m
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Alasdair Stewart @abestew.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
- Perfectly legitimate for sites to block mass scraping regardless of whether it is being done for genAI purposes or not given costs it imposes. - Governments are too enthralled by AI companies to recognise them anytime soon, but we need copyleft-like licenses that prevent commercial AI usage.
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Dr Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Anyways here's a breakdown of how silly it is, and thankfully how unlikely it is to form anything close to policy direction until Farage is our overlord and at that point, we have bigger problems anyways.
wonkhe.com
Policy Exchange sees a future – in 2010 and 1992
For the time being at least, we have notionally centre-left governments across England, Scotland and Wales.
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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This by @gsoh31.bsky.social captures a great deal, especially the sadness
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Alasdair Stewart @abestew.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
How out of touch is the DWP? '[O]fficials say [the ridiculous chatbot] will put "a job centre in your pocket".' www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/20...
theregister.com
Department of Work and Pensions' answer to AI job fears is a bot to polish your CV
Whitehall says Work Assistant will help jobseekers apply around the clock – provided employers don't mind machine-written applications
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