Liam Shields

Nazir Afzal: ‘Class Discrimination Isn’t a Complex Mystery – It’s a Structural Issue Quietly Enforced, Politely Denied, Endlessly Deferred’ The Chancellor of Manchester University has co-authored a new report, ‘Class Ceiling’, examining working-class participation in the creative industries across Greater Manchester.

📚 Weekend Reads — Philosophy & Ideas (Edition 83)
✍️ Hardeep Matharu and Peter Jukes

The Chancellor of Manchester University has co-authored a new report, ‘Class Ceiling’, examining working-class participation in the creative industries across Greater Manchester.

The Two Deprivations Are poorer constituencies going green of turquoise?

10/ Thanks a lot for reading. The full article is here: parables.substack.com/p/the-two-de...
May be of interest to @sundersays.bsky.social @benansell.bsky.social @emmaburnell.bsky.social @christabelcoops.bsky.social @anandmenon.bsky.social

It's so great to get out on the bike now the weather has improved, for a gentle ride as I get back to it. no nice pics of the countryside sadly.

If true this is an amazing breakthrough in an area that has been very difficult. And will have vulture capitalism that profits from both over-indulgence and addiction very worried.

Utopia Abstract. Ideal societies, better worlds, more just and peaceful ways of living: these have long been the stuff of human beings’ social dreaming. In this c

NEW BOOK!

I'm very happy to say that my new book, Utopia, co-written with Douglas Mao, has been published on-line

academic.oup.com/book/62279

I read the warnings about kids, and phone-free childhood, and want to write a paper on the need for phone-free parenting.

Parenting while you have your smartphone to hand, which is basically what everyone is doing, must be studied.

Indeed. It's also bleakly funny seeing people go 'this is harmful for teenagers' (a sentiment with a fairly limited evidence base) who have obviously cooked their brains online to the point that they cannot grasp the really simple 'we should probably ban the problematic parts of this for everyone'.

You Don’t Need a Writing Routine. You Need a Reason for Writing The Long Carve #1: Choosing an Idea Worth Living With

I really like @catherinedevries.bsky.social on academic writing. Here she suggests writing one sentence that begins: “I am writing this because…” Keep going until you reach something that feels slightly risky to admit. That’s usually the real one.
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/you-dont-n...

I really enjoyed this interview with Mihingarangi Forbes. In 20 minutes we managed to touch on numerous issues relating to how AI is changing society, issues I've been grappling daily in conversations with colleagues here in New Zealand.

Housing-first works. It's basically the only thing that *does* work.. Implementing it requires us to stop thinking of homeless people as morally deficient and "deserving" of their homelessness.

It's moral judgmentalism, not practicality, that is stopping us from solving homelessness.

‘His favourite book was by Jordan Peterson, which was a massive ick’: how books perform on dating apps Mentions of reading in Tinder bios are up 29% in the last year. But is searching for a fellow fan of one’s favourite author really a shortcut to compatibility?

How do books go down on dating apps and why does it matter? I contributed to this: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

I've been jolted into taking AI (LLMs) more seriously after the recent reports about job apocalypse. I played around with copilot on my lectures slides to see what happened and it was pretty crap. Maybe I need to get better at prompting or maybe it's not there yet. I'll keep you posted gentle reader

Morning all - new Swingometer out last night with my reporting on the parties’ leaflet wars, which me and my Substack have somehow been sucked into

CFP: Special Issue of Moral Philosophy & Politics on "Citizenship and Global Inequality".

Please consider sharing & submitting. Open to interdisciplinary work that engages with philosophical debates.

#migcitsky #poltheory #philsky

www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...

Opinion | Something Surprising Happens When Bus Rides Are Free

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/o...

What I continue to find maddening about these pieces is, look, if your new technological innovation does not create new jobs and just destroys old ones...you don't actually *have* to keep doing it!

NEW on Wonkhe: A new consultation from UCAS offers the chance to comment on application limits, insurance acceptances, and the use of deadlines. David Kernohan is ready to fill the form in. buff.ly/2HUKZb4

Reform UK are seeking to fob off blame for their illegal leaflet on a printer error. That won’t stand up with the police - responsibility for making sure the law is followed lies with the party commissioning and distributing the leaflets.

The dark night of liberalism - The Tablet Be careful what you wish for. A generation ago, it seemed unlikely that academic theology could ever have much influence on politics. Then one form of

www.thetablet.co.uk/features/the...

A great discussion of @pjthinker.bsky.social and @mattsleat.bsky.social in @thetablet.bsky.social - perceptive, and challenging. Thanks to Theo Hobson. @lsegovernment.bsky.social @politybooks.bsky.social

Of self-driving cars, and the non-existence of jaywalking Also this week: the unexpected indeterminacy of rivers; and a barcode map of the UK.

"But surely the biggest issue is we simply have a different legal relationship with our streets from that of almost any major US city. It’s not so much that jaywalking is legal here, as that it’s an entirely non-existent concept."

UBI fans must remember a job is about more than the money The value of work often gets left out of discussions about AI

My column today: on why if AI creates a world where almost everyone has to live off UBI, we should throw away the machine instead:

Defence policy falters when given the wrong prompt If the UK can no longer soothe the US with its pledges, it should refocus on what spending targets are actually for

Today's newsletter: the one silver lining in a very dark cloud is that we should move away from our input target of 'we will spend 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035' to a capability target for defence:

Up the toffees

Better late than never—happy birthday, John!

More at philosophytalk.org/shows/philos....

#PhilSky #philosophy #work #job #retirement

Multiple maps of Africa showing 2025, 2030 and 2040 and the cost-competitiveness of BEG-SOG (solar-powered EVs) vs internal combustion engines, by country. In 2025, ICE is still cheaper but already in 2030 in some vehicle types and countries, BEG-SOG is cheaper. By 2040, latter is cheaper everywhere, by as much as 20%.

Electric vehicles with off-grid solar are competitive with or cheaper than old style petrol/gaslone vehicles in many African countries before 2030; and cheaper in all countries by 2040 - often by a wide margin. That's even allowing for (high) financing costs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Call for Submissions: Res Publica Postgraduate Essay Prize

Papers may be in any area of moral, legal, social or political philosophy. The submission deadline for the Prize is 30 April 2026.

More info: link.springer.com/journal/1115...

Breaking bread with the enemy - Nuffield Foundation

A few years ago I came across the great adventurer Daryl Davis, who still fascinates me today. When I was invited to be part of a book on public philosophy, I knew this was my chance to start sharing his story.
www.nuffieldfoundation.org/evidence-and...

Very hard to follow the African Cup of Nations on BBC website. The Senegal game is on right now and there's no mention of it in the sport or football tabs

There is an odd irony in censoring the teaching of Plato in order (checks notes) to protect western civilization from tenured radicals.