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Marc Welsh

@marcwelsh.bsky.social
207 followers 226 following 481 posts

Eclectic, inert, nerdish, a collection of spare parts. Niche Doctor Who references a forte. Masquerades as an academic with a political bent, tho mostly moans about how and why the current system doesn't work. Once wrote something something resilience.

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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Classic entryism. Also a hop skip and jump from existing UCU policy. Both reflect intellectual positions that can be justified and debated at a dinner party. Neither reflect the position of the Palestinian state or the Palestinians themselves. And that is the problem. www.pcpsr.org/sites/defaul...
pcpsr.org
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
For the numbers nerds but yet another highly illuminating (and pertinent to any UCU campaigning on HE funding reform) analysis from Jim Dickinson @wonkhe.bsky.social A glance at Education at a glance misleads on UK spend on universities wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
wonkhe.com
A glance at Education at a glance misleads on UK spend on universities
Every year the OECD publishes Education at a glance, and every year I flick to the table on spending per tertiary student and think the same thing – WTF?
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Aberystwyth University @aberuni.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🌌 Technology developed here at Aberystwyth University is being used in Europe's most Mars-like outdoor environment in preparation for the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission. 🖱️ tinyurl.com/mtm76jvb #ExoMars #RosalindFranklinRover #marsrover #lifeonmars #missiontomars
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The risk is this ends up seeming like a late response to multiparty politics because of insurgents rather a principled position about democracy. Personally I'd favour a full constitutional convention that considered this in context of federal and other constitutional options for future of country.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Another option for Westminster Parliamentary elections? A short commission to identify options and develop material to engage public in a conversation about them. Rounds of national votes to reach a decision on the model itself. In other words: 6 options round 1, 3 in round 2, 2 in round 3.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Much as I loathe university rankings the Times University ones are worth an explore. If you want to examine privilege in operation in modern Britain play with their "Social Inclusion" box and be very very surprised to discover that wealth matters in an education 'meritocracy'.
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Nicolas Hénin @nicolashenin.net · 17/09/2026
Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!
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Aberystwyth Comedy Festival @abercomedyfest.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Didn't get to Edinburgh? Don't worry, all the good bits are coming to Aberystwyth Comedy Festival! Experience 5-star rated, award-winning acts like Paul Foot, Lara Ricote, Rob Auton, and many more!     🌟 Aberystwyth Comedy Festival   📅 Fri 2 - Sun 4 October   🎟 abercomedyfest.co.uk
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The precedent here is shocking. @brightonuni.bsky.social Board of Governors should be ashamed. The outcome will be STATUTORY, rather than voluntary, recognition of the union via CAC. A legally binding (rather than voluntary) sticking plaster that will drag Brighton Uni into legal processes.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Apropos nothing. A random homily for the day: Marc 16:35: "Sure, it can be easy to buy an actual political party. Buying voters? Not so easy. They think it's sleazy."
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Yet another penalty for funding higher education outside of England outlined in WonkHE. Roll-on the federal reconstitution of the UK cos the current system seems to actively penalise non'UK' nations. wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
wonkhe.com
Another deep unfairness in devolved student loans policy
Not another one!
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Dolly Rebecca Parton. What a life and what a fully human being.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Interesting piece by Justine Pedussel and Jim Dickinson on balance sheet issue just today. The balance sheet adjustments seem to make an already unequal system more unequal between the nations. It was ever thus. wonkhe.com/blogs/the-tr...
wonkhe.com
The Treasury is bankrupting three nations' universities
With funding reviews underway in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Justine Pedussel and Jim Dickinson worry none will examine the hidden accounting rules driving the crisis
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
British universities are now gripped by the ultimate madness. Some unis are bankrupting everyone else accepting students they can't even take and have to leave in limbo... While putting everyone on redundancy notice! It's crazed. Still no-one will intervene. thetab.com/2026/08/24/u...
thetab.com
University of Exeter offers deferred places following shortage of student accommodation
The university said it has not been able to offer accommodation to all students
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Hey UCU. Please remove this post (for now). It incorrectly names specific institutions that CURRENTLY employ English lecturers, have English departments and teach English students as having 'shut' their schemes. The overall argument may not be wrong, but some of the facts are and need correcting.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Many current commentators (and indeed an atomised society) seem imprisoned within the former model of empathy, resulting in a 'well, I would cope why can't they' response. It results in the simulation of empathy and the subconscious negation of the validity of another's experience.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I think what people think empathy is is illustrative of why it 'fails'. If empathy means imagining how YOU would feel in another persons situation you're imposing your perspective on theirs. To me empathy means trying to understand how another person feels in their situation. Not the same thing.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Just. Be. Kind.
Never fail to be kind - the Doctor.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
So, accountability and clarity yes, not cruelty. This is essential if we are to move away from the polarisation driven by “revolutionary heat” or “cold rationalised contempt” to what I believe is the essence of humanity – being kind.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The rhetoric surrounding Jason Arday seemed to me to be located within this broader cultural tendency to treat contempt or cruelty itself as somehow intellectually virtuous and rational.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Criticism is not inherently cruel. And kindness does not mean avoiding disagreement or disputes. But it does require us to recognise the humanity of the person on the other side.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I’m not advocating for being emotionally neutered, I’m arguing that what we do with anger, and how we use it, matters. Will Self’s piece ("J'Accuse") captures that feeling in terms of cold hard fury at the constellation of actors and apparatus that created the conditions leading to Jason's death.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Anger is an energy, one I confess to feeling viscerally right now as we process the death of Jason Arday. I’m sure I too am at times contemptuous and maybe even cruel, but I hope not to be.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
We see this amplified by social media and other echo chambers and performed across the political spectrum. Resist the oppressor with rage and contempt, the manner of that resistance no longer morally relevant.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
- displays of performative cruelty to signal membership of a community no longer hidebound by norms to ‘do no harm’, justified because the very existence of a.n.other (in the wrong space, wrong occupation, wrong tribe) is itself perceived as causing harm to their group.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Statements are presented as morally neutral descriptions of ‘reality’, the consequences of their expression treated as unrelated to the way they are expressed. I think this becomes a kind of weaponised rationalism -
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
But this has morphed from reacting to events into a proactive state of mind – a framework that seeks to cause upset, to provoke a response, to resist the regulation of "being kind".
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Some of this originates from individual experiences of cancel culture or being on the receiving end of unkindness from a community they have an affiliation to - whether academic or political or identity based.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It results in a culture that treats cruelty, provocation and contempt as evidence of intellectual courage under the cloak of speaking truth to power.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Not “being kind” has become a character trait, a form of rebellion and dissent. It’s intellectual cod-punk for the 2020s, a reactionary response to the perception (and at times real) stultifying and oppressive constraints of language and disciplinary policing.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Worse, some have made it a defining feature of how they choose to engage with the world, sneering at the “be kind brigade” for not always “being kind” in practice, and performatively choosing to not “be kind” in their own rhetoric and actions.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Some thoughts to follow. I think we have a kindness problem. Whole activist and intellectual communities seem to have lost that capacity.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Jason Arday: J'Accuse the British Media, by Will Self. I could never write so cogently about how this came to pass, those who played a hands-on role in its inevitability, the apparatus and interests that ensured it did, or use my anger so productively. willself1.substack.com/p/2089334077...
willself1.substack.com
Jason Arday: J'Accuse the British Media
After the death of Jason Arday, Will Self asks what happens when the media machine mistakes what interests the public for the public interest.
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James Kneale @jameskneale.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I've just heard that the BA/BSc Geography programme is to close at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (CGES) in Cornwall. This programme was made up of excellent modules with original and content, taught brilliantly—often with real innovation—by extremely 1/9
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Hah! I was cycling past at that moment. It was hilarious! (and insanely packed and really all rather beautiful).
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Ah yes, Clearing, the process by which eight to twelve Big Universities simply eat all the other unis. (1/2)
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
One can always pick away at metrics fetishism but the analysis here (on mobility for example) is nuanced and balanced, the puzzles posed ones we need to find solution to. Highly recommended for all @ucuaber.bsky.social members to look at and begin working out where we sit in the puzzle of Welsh HE.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The analysis emphasises the impact of removing the student cap on Aber for example, long a bizarrely contentious issue within UCU structures. Welsh higher education has long been poorly served by "UK" and English centred education policy and structures, and not just the government ones.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
This is an interesting long read. It gives some important metrics and context for understanding the Welsh situation. What is interesting is reading it in the context of what story the figures tell us about our specific institutions.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Bet you didn't expect anyone to agree! :)
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I'm here for this. A perennial nothing month. Far to quiet, family friendly and enforced sun-fun. Work an uphill drudgery to Sept when those 'urgent' meetings emerge. And the pressure is on to 'do something' (pricey) so you can pretend you have returned from 'the break' refreshed & tickety-boo. Bah!
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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
There now follows a party election broadcast by the Count Binface Party, And if I do say so myself, it's a banger. #VoteBinface #Clacton
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The timescale is insufficient for the scale of the problems about to hit Welsh HE - in terms of staff/research capacity loss, institutional hollowing-out, subject cold-spots - and I'm less comfortable with some hints of directions of travel, but overall this IS encouraging, albeit a mammoth task!
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Some of our unis are much more significant anchors for our communities and economies. Managed decline of HE means continued managed decline of parts of Wales, so I'd like to see more ambition for education as underpinning the development and renewal of 'Wales outside the metropole' in the Review.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
It covers things often missing from UK/English government thinking on HE such as (genuine, rather than vanity) sector needs for capital investment, governance, a joined up tertiary education regional economy. A bit surprised that the 'place-based' phrases are not more front and centre though.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Whilst the fiscal constraints are spelled out - (can review and provide analysis of effects and impacts of student finance model but fundamental reform seems out of scope as operating within constraints of Westminster Treasury spend and legislation) - the scope of the review is good.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The headlines for Welsh HE are dire but well outlined in the Welsh Government review of HE ToR. Whilst it is great to see one of the UK governments recognising the scale of the issue, ultimately Wales is hampered by UK government purse-strings and (lack of) ambition. www.gov.wales/review-highe...
gov.wales
Review of higher education in Wales: terms of reference | GOV.WALES
The review of higher education in Wales will make recommendations on the funding and organisation of higher education.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
If you can wade through the management speak this FT piece paints the starkest picture of what comes next. Collapse, mergers, fewer staff covering more gaps, serious reduction in learning and research opportunities for students and economy. A doom loop in action.
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
OMG I could spend weeks and months here!
peter-guillam123.github.io
PlotLines - the classics, mapped
Every journey in the book, played out on a genuine period map - out-of-copyright novels and plays, followed stop by stop from Frankenstein to Shakespeare.
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Marc Welsh @marcwelsh.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
For the UCU watchers out there, we know they are legion, an insight into what happened at the most recent HEC and what/whether UCU is about to ballot for a national dispute. tldr: it isn't, yet.
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