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Lewis Miller

@lewgmiller.bsky.social
646 followers 500 following 71 posts

Politics lecturer in Dundee. Public Policy oriented - Teaching Scottish, British and EU Politics.

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Reposted by Lewis Miller
Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Dundee University is continuing with compulsory redundancies. It argues this is required for the financial survival. However, the University’s cash is so high they may not qualify for £27m of the £40m additional SFC funding. The SFC have asked PWC to investigate. www.theferret.scot/dundee-unive...
theferret.scot
Dundee university might have too much cash to qualify for its taxpayer bailout
The university has continued to argue staff cuts are needed to make ends meet. But a growing cash balance has raised questions about the need for more redundancies, and whether it qualifies for millio...
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UK in a Changing Europe @ukandeu.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"So the post-crisis slowdown, while substantial, was perhaps half as large as we previously thought." ✍️ @jdportes.bsky.social explains why the ONS revised its productivity estimates for 2009 - 2019 and what this tells us about the UK economy 🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/britains-pro...
ukandeu.ac.uk
Britain’s productivity disaster was real—but not quite as disastrous as we thought - UK in a changing Europe
Jonathan Portes explains why the ONS updated its productivity estimates for the period between 2009 and 2019 from 0.7 per cent to 1.3 per cent and what this change actually means for the UK economy.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Day 3 of strike action at the University of Dundee.
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Reposted by Lewis Miller
Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Calling all supporters. Join us for a public rally today - Wednesday 23rd September at Central Library in the Wellgate Centre. Support Staff. Support Students. Protect the University. #SaveDundeeUni
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'An unexplained “late surge” in student visa refusals has prompted concern that soaring rejection rates could cause institutions to breach tighter compliance rules that could ultimately endanger their ability to recruit international students.'
timeshighereducation.com
V-cs seek answers over ‘late surge’ in UK student visa refusals
Growing numbers of institutions expected to have breached new compliance rules, endangering future recruitment prospects
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Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Day 1 of 25 - Massive turnout today on our picket line. Thanks to Heather Anderson MSP and @maggiechapman.bsky.social for your support on the picket line this morning. And for all our amazing students from Students Against Cuts. No compulsory redundancies. #SaveDundeeUni
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Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
“Universities have managed staff costs significantly below inflation,[between 2016-17 and 2023-24] increasing only 14% compared to the 41.2% increase in RPIX [measure of inflation]” Substantial real terms pay cut, which continues a trend existing years before that…
gov.uk
Cost of undergraduate provision and qualifications in England
A study of the full economic cost of providing undergraduate-level higher education and other qualifications in England.
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
my brilliant colleague @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on the threat from Elon Musk’s X platform www.ft.com/content/f270...
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S.E.MacRae @semacrae.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
How can Edinburgh justify excising so many Scottish specific language and history courses? The School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures looks to be being gutted, its horrible to see. The fact they are also closing Intellectual History is both deeply ironic and extremely depressing.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Higher Education risks irreversible damage, says British Academy president Prof Susan Smith, with humanities and social sciences disciplines disappearing in many cold spots. BA is tracking subject provision & calling for a comprehensive review www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
British Academy President: UK higher education crisis risks irreversible damage
As course closures, shrinking provision and widening regional inequalities threaten the future of UK higher education and research, President of the British Academy, Susan J Smith calls for an immedia...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
'The University and College Union (UCU)’s Edinburgh branch said staff had been called into “informal meetings at less than 24 hours' notice” and told not to bring union representatives.'
heraldscotland.com
Fear and anger as university set to announce 'massive course and programme closures'
Asked to respond, a university spokesperson said that staff and students were recently informed of changes to “our future academic offering across…
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Awful loss of so many fantastic courses to the country. What’s going on in Higher Education is a scandal.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Have people ever listened to lyrics before?
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Tom Chidwick @tomchidwick.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I've (finally) made it to Bluesky so I thought I'd start as I mean to go on with some shameless self-promotion ... On 12 November, my new book on the first Scottish devolution referendum will be published by @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social, thanks to @atifajiwa.bsky.social! t.co/Rkv3VRWp29
Front cover of "Now or Never! A History of the First Scottish Devolution Referendum" by Tom Chidwick, which will be published by Bloomsbury in November 2026. It shows the delightfully eccentric "Sheriff" Peter Thomson with his "Last Chance for Scotland" against a Saltire background.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is something my wife and I will have to fork out on this year. I call it the “foreign partner tax”. It is a massive cost to us.
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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 14/09/2026
Turns out, the author just ... made them up 🤷‍♂️. I can't get over this. It really doesn't seem ok to me for someone to draw some squiggles, claim that they're illustrative of something in the real world, then act as though it's akin to evidence. The vibes you feel aren't data!
No hard mathematical proof can be proffered for the shift from post- to anti- to hyperpolitics. Figure 1 is therefore less an exact representation of historical reality than an intuitive dia-gram, synthesizing fragments of existing graphs-of trade union density, incidence of political assassinations, size and frequency of demonstrations-offered by way of illustration.
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Emiliano Mellino @mellino.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
For example it costs the government £310 to process a settlement (also known as indefinite leave to remain) application, but charges ten times as much: £3226. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...
Graph showing how much the UK government charges for different visas and how much it actually costs for it to process these applications.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I return to work tomorrow as the new students arrive. We are in the process of losing colleagues and facing compulsory redundancies despite the fact the University did not do its job. The staff always seem to be the ones paying the price but are given no say. www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/5524...
Credible and meaningful engagement with staff and students was a condition of funding set out by the Scottish Funding Council to the institution i. march 2026. Unions and student representatives have long argued that the engagement has not met those conditions. Dundee University and College Union and Dundee University Students Association wrote to the SFC warning then the conditions had not been met. The SFC waved throug the plans regardless.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I have binge watched westerns for a month. Nobody I know has a similar interest in this genre. I will share my feelings about the ones I have seen in this thread in case someone else enjoys them.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
CDs were best for putting on something at home but terrible on the move. The skipping when it was in your school bag or risk when swapping a CD when driving wasn’t great. Not having to use a phone to put on music at home, with all the distractions and notifications, was great, though.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
'Jenny Phillimore, professor of migration and superdiversity at the University of Birmingham, said another part of the problem was the UK’s policy of including students in net migration figures. Hence, policies to reduce their number is seen “as a way of reducing net migration”.' Easily fixed.
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
#OffTheScale Donations to the main parties, £m per calendar year. (2026 is part-year, to 30 June, plus the £72m announced this week) c/o @frasernelson.bsky.social
Graph illustrating just how how out of proportion Reform's £72 million donations are
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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Maybe they'll introduce a cap just when Reform don't need any more cash.... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Reform UK given record £36m donation by British crypto billionaire
Ben Delo was convicted in US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls but pardoned by Trump
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
But why? Labour has a big majority. I see lots of risk and expense and not much benefit.
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I am so fed up of this. Its just ignorant, particularly at a time the UK is losing so many fantastic courses, often which cross-subsidise the ones he speaks so highly of.
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Nick Ridpath @nickridpath.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
We’d expect higher migration – if it resembled the current composition of migration – to increase tax revenues, in part because most new migrants are currently working age.
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Nick Ridpath @nickridpath.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Migration could be quite important at this year’s budget, as falling migration feeds through into the OBR’s forecast and the government’s “headroom” against its fiscal rules. Given this, a thread on how migration affects the public finances:
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Edzia Carvalho @edziac.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What will the future of Scottish HE be if the SFC, the primary independent oversight body for the sector, cannot or does not fulfill its functions? Whats more, no political body wants to hold the SFC to account for its failures. @ucu.org.uk @ducuuo.bsky.social sites.dundee.ac.uk/ducu/wp-cont...
sites.dundee.ac.uk
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Lewis Miller @lewgmiller.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
There is a discussion to be had on Scottish local government. I can’t help but think merging into bigger units would be (a) expensive (b) time consuming and (c) unclear how long those costs take to pay off. Also, it doesn’t address the difficult taxation/powers issues. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
How will Swinney 'rewire' local government and public services?
The first minister announced wide-ranging plans to shake-up Scotland's public sector.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)
You cannot conduct a fair match when one side is playing with a ball and the other with bombs and, if democracy is to survive, it must be conducted according to definite and recognised rule. One of them is that no political party should resort to any weapon other than reason and argument. The introduction of private armies, as I see it, strikes at the root of democracy. I know it is contended that the Blackshirts are not armed and, therefore, are not an army, but I do not think that argument can be upheld. … Uniformed men in military formation suggest, and are meant to suggest, the idea of force. It is no argument to reply that at this or that demonstration no force is intended. It is an inescapable fact that a uniform in politics symbolises force, to be used either now or in the future.
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HOPE not hate @hopenothate.org.uk · 07/09/2026
Worryingly, this protest was also attended by hardline neo-Nazis like Harrison Leworthy, former co-leader of White Vanguard and current activist for National Rebirth Party, along with current White Vanguard deputy Declan Young.
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HOPE not hate @hopenothate.org.uk · 07/09/2026
Last night, hundreds of men in black emerged on the street in Portsmouth. In ugly scenes that lasted until 3am, they blocked coaches transporting migrants. The action was led by Danny Tommo’s Patriot Platform, who were also behind Saturday’s demo in Dover. hopenothate.org.uk/2026/09/07/b...
hopenothate.org.uk
Balaclavas on the beachfront: Anti-migrant activism escalates in Portsmouth – HOPE not hate
A major anti-migrant protest occurred in Portsmouth last night, triggered by the arrival of a dinghy carrying asylum seekers into the harbour.  Hundreds emerged onto...
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is the Home Office's response to hundreds of masked far-right thugs blocking roads, intimidating refugees and attacking the police
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Robert Smith @bondhack.ft.com · 04/09/2026
One thing that I love about the film is how it captures a very distinct social setting and milieu. Lunch at Rules. G&Ts at Mark’s. A champagne reception at Oswald’s. Pints in a Shepherd Neame’s pub in Westminster. Discussion of Black Velvets over oysters by the sea.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Iceland is not in the EU, but it is a member of the Schengen area. It’s also a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and is part of the Single Market, meaning it enjoys freedom of movement with the EU. Good to know that doesn’t impact their independence. Maybe we should try it, Nige.
Nigel Farage 
@Nigel_Farage
Congratulations to Iceland on voting to keep their independence.
09:40 • 30/08/2026 •
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
He who pays the piper evidently still calls the tune. 🙄
theguardian.com
Burnham drops support for political funding cap aimed at curbing mega-donors
PM said he would set bar at £500k, but trade unions say funding reforms could undermine their ability to donate to Labour
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Interesting letter on the history of AI research. In 1972 a group met in Italy & discussed issues like the erosion of human autonomy. But then research narrowed its focus to industrial applications & did not include humanities, so we lost a more integrated view www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Jill Lepore asks why nobody listened to warnings about the threats posed from the AI revolution (Democracy v the machine, 18 August). As she is a Harvard professor, her piece is understandably US-centric. But in 1972 there was an international gathering of AI researchers and others in Italy to tackle the ethical and social implications of AL.
This "Serbelloni group" of global experts (they met at Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como) was led by my father, Donald Michie, the director of the University of Edinburgh's department of machine intelligence. The group mapped out early concerns regarding potential political tyranny, the erosion of human autonomy and widespread social coercion driven by automation.
Why did nobody listen? In part because the next year the UK cut research funding for machine learning, robotics and AI, following the Lighthill report, which had been established - it has since been documented - for this purpose.
Researchers had instead to focus on more immediately industrial-relevant work. My father's attempts to reconvene the Serbelloni group to include experts from the humanities thus proved unsuccessful.
Jonathan Michie
Professor of innovation & knowledge exchange,
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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 26/08/2026
Dundee University still plans to cut 154 jobs. UCU remains unconvinced that the university’s recovery strategy will work and we oppose compulsory redundancies. Our Dundee members have 25 days of strike action planned from 21 September. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Dundee University confirms reduction in proposed job losses
The university said 154 roles were now at risk following a 10-week consultation process
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Disappointed Optimist @disappoptimism.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Periodic reminder that academia was one of the top things that most other nations tried to imitate from UK & largest reason many visas are taken for Uk.
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
If only we had a Government, a Dept for Education and an Office for Studemts, they'd probably do something.
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Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
There are just 21 working days until Dundee UCU members begin 25 days of strike action. We are striking because after 820 job losses, the UEG has proposed making 200 people redundant. We are asking the University to rule our redundancies and return to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
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cmitown @cmitown.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I trained for a marathon by driving my car for 26 miles everyday, but somehow I ended up being terrible at actually running.
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Alona Ferber @aloner.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"His story was never discussed without a miasma of race. His shortcomings were depicted.... as exceptional proof that ethnic diversity at Cambridge — where 0.4 per cent of academic staff are Black — has gone too far" - excellent column by @stephenkb.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/5f92...
ft.com
The difficult truth about Jason Arday
From the beginning, investigations were accompanied by a cloud of excessive references to his race
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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 19/08/2026
Oxford and Yale academics are backing the fight to save philosophy at Dundee University. The course is under threat as management seeks another £20m in cuts, with 190 jobs at risk. Then join the fight to on 8 September.
thecourier.co.uk
Under-threat Dundee University degree gets Yale and Oxford backing
Esteemed academics have written to Principal Nigel Seaton in support of the philosophy course.
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FT Edit @ftedit.ft.com · 18/08/2026
Exclusive | The British government is set to pay the consultancies KPMG and EY almost half a billion pounds to train civil servants despite a pledge to halve spending on contractors. Read the story on #FTEdit 👉 ft.trib.al/skiDMwB
Bar chart showing UK government spending on the Big Four accounting firms from 2012 to 2026. Spending rose sharply to around £1.7bn in 2020, before falling, but remained above £1bn in recent years despite a commitment to cut spending.
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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 13/08/2026
A direct result of government policy: 1) a disastrous funding system, 2) removal of student recruitment quotas, 3) restricting overseas recruitment. Now, the richest universities are over-recruiting, to the detriment of students & every other university. A problem that’s been known about for years.
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 14/08/2026
Think this turned out to be on the money. Farage, just after polls closed last night: "I've managed to beat the establishment candidate."
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 13/08/2026
Mark Zuckerberg—who single-handedly commands a $1.5 trillion tech giant—is now writing a manifesto criticizing corporate power, @willoremus.com reports.
bit.ly
Mark Zuckerberg’s Convenient Truth
The Meta CEO has a new message now that his company is losing the AI race.
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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
£2.9million on staff costs and £8.9million on 'office costs'? 👀
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
It’s just depressing. Further education has been cut to ribbons. Higher education is in crisis. Labour turns its eyes to the bit of the education system which is turning out the highest literacy rates in the western world and goes “that’s the bit that needs to change”
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