@apowelllaw
Oxford City Councillor and Associate Professor in Law at the University of Warwick. Research: gender, sexuality, law; migration; legal theory; and law and popular culture. Views my own, obviously.
This is a really good blog summarising some of the issues with the UK Government's recent move to place a bar on students from 4 countries being granted visas to the come to the UK on the basis that they are committing 'visa abuse' by claiming asylum.
blogs.sussex.ac.uk/sussex-centr...
Pretty difficult to refute a single thing in this perfect assessment of where the f**k we are, from @iandunt.bsky.social:
A government of pantomime villains spewing performative cruelty in every breath.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
To choose to present a gay man in this way, against a pink backdrop and holding hands with his political opponent has some connotations that the editorial staff at the Economist may want to unpack.
Really poor stuff here.
Right now govt is making up an obviously false “saving” to justify its imm, while ignoring the obviously true cost of that policy (treasury projections assume a level of net migration Home Sec opposes and which is unlikely to happen). And these ppl wonder why trust in politics is declining.
On March 24th, I will be giving a guest lecture for the Dialogue in Migration at Oxford Brookes University. My talk is online and open to the public.
The title is:
Death of International Refugee Law? The Right to Asylum in The Age of Retrenchment
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/death-of-i...
Destroying your own electoral base to own the libs?
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/labour-...
The voters: “we don’t like your rightward shift”
Starmer: “fuck you”
Behind many members of this cabinet, who are systematically destroying human rights and human decency in their pursuit of out Reforming Farage, is someone who was once a decent person with values.
Truly excellent work from @zackpolanski.bsky.social here.
It's my daily routine! Although it's usually 5 carriages at least.
4 carriages between Manchester and Bournemouth, a route that includes England's 2nd and third largest cities. With one of those 4 being maintained as first class. Crosscountry is a recurring single company argument against privatised railways...
Excellent and important from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social in today's Guardian!
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
And there is the other shoe! I missed that on my first read through. That's a very concerning implication.
The concern here, of course, might be that this becomes pre-text to withdraw the already woefully limited support given to people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim.
Faster processing would obviously be a best case scenario. But after years of baseless (actually worse, activity debunked) carping about "pull factors" any movement on this is good. 12 months is still much longer than many states restrict working though.
What is this, sensible asylum policy? Forgive me for waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this seems like a rare example of positive news.
That is exactly the kind of thing their graphics do say. The graphic even refers to "up for election this year". Trust is important and there are numerous cases of deeply misleading election material out there. This is not one of them and it would be equally fair if any other party did it about us.
I fail to see how it is misleading. It exactly represents the reality of mapping the Gotron and Denton swing on to the local context of the seats up for election.
It is not a lie to say that Labour would be wiped out across all available seats. If 24 seats are up for an election and Labour lose all 24, they are wiped out. The fact they may hold seats which are not up for election is neither here nor there in regard to their being wiped out in the election.
I agree in principle that no representation is bad. But worth noting that Oxford elects in halves. So, Labour would still have 10 councillors overall in this eventuality (we elect 24 seats every 2 years. To give a total of 48 with 2 per ward).
It's vote Green get Green anywhere in Oxford. No Tories to keep out. No Reform to reflect on. If you want change, it's right there on the ballot paper!
Once again, if you're weary or sceptical of a bunch of white dudes tearing down GenAI from some imagined position of privileged purism, I can only suggest you seek out the women of colour who are tearing it down very comprehensively, and see how your arguments work on them.
Obviously many people work beyond 65, but can we just admire the irony of Farage saying Green voters don't work (yes, he really did) when the only demographic who are now not statically more likely to be Green than Reform are predominantly retired.
Can I come online, please?
You'd be very welcome!
I did say 'a very short list'. I don't see why a gov who have justified genocide, misused anti-terror laws to silence free expression, demonised refugees and migrants in a manner that has propelled the far-right to the top of the polls and stuck graduates with stealth taxes would deserve generosity.
The sensible political reaction to global events, the only sensible reaction, is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Not double down on a policy that has slowed public transitions markedly.
Short termism is part of what got us into such a mess, it is not part of the solutions.
Are you kidding me? Fuel Duty rates have bene held steady for 16 years while costs for public transport and general ethical choices have soared.
Raising fuel duty is one of a very short list of things that this government is getting right. Very poor from the Lib Dems.
A reminder: Matt Goodwin lost heavily in spite of an almost total lack of tactical voting, not because of it.
The combined Green/Labour vote was 66%, versus 28.7% for Reform.
If Labour and the Greens split the vote 50/50 – a total coordination fail – he'd have finished third, not second.
Morgan McSweeny and Labour together absolutely will drive Labour into absolute oblivion if they continue to be given the chance.