Was just recording a lecture about Britain in the 1970s. I got to the bit about the 3-day week and said ‘which might seem like an extraordinary restriction by the government’, paused, and burst out laughing.
My book will be out in less than a month, and it has a beautiful cover - huge thanks to
@OUPHistory
@OUPAcademic
. The book itself contains a ‘Note on the Cover’, but because the first question everyone asks when they see it is ‘which one is Michael Young?’, a thread:/
In my first year British history module I show students a clip from this documentary, send them to the Legacies of British Slave Ownership database and have them find a slave owner who lived near a U.K. address they live or have lived at./
Friends, help me out: can you give me *concrete* examples of historians shaping public policy? I'm looking for examples that go beyond intellectual 'impact', broadly defined, where historical ideas and historians have concretely shaped the actions of states and governments.
BREAKING: The Universities Superannuation Scheme Joint Negotiating Committee has today formally voted to implement cuts to future
#pension
benefits for tens of thousands of UK university sector staff.
The EU has agreed to give the UK an extension from March 29th to April 12th to devise an alternative Brexit plan, which is, coincidentally, precisely the same extension I have granted my first year British History students for their 1200 word primary source essays
The ads aren't yet out, but just a heads up to my Twitter bubble that my department will be recruiting for SEVEN new posts next month, with five of them permanent posts in IP or IPE, and one Professorship in history. More details to come soon.
Very pleased to say that
@MariaChristou_
,
@ruthamorgan
,
@OrRosenboim
and myself have been awarded £50K in
@BritishAcademy_
Knowledge Frontiers funding for our project 'Getting it Wrong: The Limits to Prediction', looking at how failed predictions have shaped our world./
I just want to be clear, in case British followers aren’t aware, that migrants *already* pay to access the NHS with the same taxes everyone else pays - and then get a whopping £624 per year (now rising to £1035!!) tacked on. This isn’t a health surcharge, it’s extortion.
To put this in context, in 2022-23 the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded 657 Doctoral Awards and 420 PhD Canada Graduate Scholarships (though I think there’s some overlap between these). Canada of course has less than half the population of the UK
Very pleased to join many fine scholars as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society!
(Naturally I expect friends and family to immediately append FRHistS to all salutations 🧐)
Everything is very surreal and scary right now. But something I wrote and then added to and then fretted about for far too long suddenly looks strangely like an actual book.
And last night I spoke to academic staff at KCL overwhelmed by this years ridiculously high student numbers. Russell Group universities urgently need step up to stop this sector destroying free-for-all.
BREAKING: We now know the full picture on redundancies planned by
@GoldsmithsUoL
- at least 52 jobs. Alongside 32 professional services staff, SMT today served notice they are seeking to cut the equivalent of 20 full time lecturers in English & Creative Writing and History. 1/4
My book exists in the world! I'll be launching it (online ofc) with
@the_young_fdn
on October 14th at 5:30 pm, speaking to CEO
@HelenGou
and other policy makers (tba) about social science and how knowledge shapes politics - all welcome, register here:
Suella Braverman, "More than 1 in 5 births in the UK are to foreign born mothers. English secondary schools will need to find an extra 213,000 places by 2026, compared to 2020. Accommodation cannot be magicked out of thin air. Nor can new schools, roads.. or any of the public
Now that strike action is paused I can say that
@MariaChristou_
@ruthamorgan
and myself have won
@BritishAcademy_
seed funding for our collab 'The Art and Artifice of Prediction', looking at ideas about prediction and the future in postwar science, social science and literature/
It is completely unacceptable that the UK Universities minister is likening the diversification of university reading lists to totalitarian state censorship. Not surprising, alas, but just completely, unambiguously, through the looking glass unacceptable.
My book came out in September 2020, and was launched in October in a truly excellent online event with
@the_young_fdn
. In 2021 the book has had some wonderful reviews, reception and engagement, which I thought I'd collate, in the end-of-year spirit, in a thread:
So *I know* I've spammed you a lot about my book launch, but we've now lined up a remarkable panel: MPs Rushanara Ali and Jon Cruddas, meritocracy expert David Civil, distinguished sociologist Prof. Mike Savage, and Lord Gus O'Donnell, former head of the civil service. Join us!
'In Michael Young, Social Science and the British Left, 1945-1970, Lise Butler succeeds brilliantly at placing Michael Young in his context to draw out both his effectiveness yet also the limits of his work'
I am delighted to announce that this evening, in what I can only describe as a career defining moment for a historian the British left, I participated in the winning team of the
@po_qu
90th anniversary quiz presented by the Hon.
@Ed_Miliband
It’s impossible to put into words the craven irresponsibility of the wave of redundancies being announced across the U.K. higher education sector. Hundreds of academics have played by the rules, had their research exploited for REF, and then had their careers destroyed.
Somehow a university can be "jointly recognised as the best modern university in the country, and the highest-ranked modern university in London" in terms of REF while making the 200+ people who gained them that result redundant
Perhaps my biggest challenge as a modern British historian is refraining from using ‘the politics of’ in the title of literally everything I attempt to write.
If the government’s definition of ‘highly skilled’ takes account of earnings, I’m fairly certain that the University of Oxford History Faculty would risk disqualification on the basis of my postgraduate employment *at the University of Oxford*
English lit degree at Sheffield Hallam is being “suspended.” University responding to Government who will no longer fund degrees where 60% students don’t end up in “highly skilled” jobs within 6 months.
Four years ago Dina and I sat down to create a brand new History BA out of thin air. Our first cohort finishes their final seminars this week. Watching them come into their own as students and historians has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career.
Emotional before the last seminar with our Y3 students - the first cohort of the BA that we designed with
@LiseRButler
@HistoryatCity
. Grateful for being their course director, teacher, and mentor for 3 years. Proud of their achievements and excited about their future adventures.
Such a privilege to visit the vast inner workings of the
@LdnMetArchives
with my first year
@Cityintpolitics
History and Politics students. Thank you so much to
@VerSym
for the fantastic tour!
So *I know* I've spammed you a lot about my book launch, but we've now lined up a remarkable panel: MPs Rushanara Ali and Jon Cruddas, meritocracy expert David Civil, distinguished sociologist Prof. Mike Savage, and Lord Gus O'Donnell, former head of the civil service. Join us!
This evening I sliced my finger in the process of preparing an unnecessarily complex Ottolenghi salad. One trip to A&E later, my wound was bandaged and I returned home and served the salad. My article on this traumatic episode will appear in this week’s Observer.
Me to my students: ‘Dates don’t matter, it’s your interpretation of the evidence and argument that matters!’
Me revising for the Life in the U.K. test: ‘OMG I’m gonna be deported if I can’t I remember the date of the Battle of Agincourt’
Today is my birthday, and you can all give me a birthday present by signing up to my book launch on October 14th (as well as by tolerating my shameless self promotion)
Last year I was somehow put on a panel with Andrew Adonis, Vince Cable and Wes Streeting. I began my remarks: ‘I hope that future historians will someday recognise my contributions to preventing all male panels at centre-left policy events.’
10/10/2023: A protester invades the stage and pours glitter over Keir Starmer at the start of the Leader's Speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
Sabbatical provisionally confirmed, I’m hugely looking forward to spending more time in my favourite mid-century Senior Common Room as
@ChuArchives
Archives By-Fellow next fall
@lottelydia
People often ask me if I ever think about moving back to Canada, and seem surprised when I respond “well yes, sometimes, but there are only about twelve jobs there”.
Delighted that
@OUPHistory
and
@OUPAcademic
have made a chapter of my book Michael Young, Social Science, and the British Left free to view as part of their new British History Collection - especially as they have chosen the chapter with the best name...
So we're clear, the British Conservative Party considers being disinvited to speak by a 'woke' student society to be a bigger threat to freedom of speech than state imposed restrictions on the right to peaceful protest.
Really very pleased to be among many brilliant colleagues and students to have won a City Students Union impact award 💕 (and grateful to the kind, anonymous History and Politics student who put my name forward)
Just enjoyed a blockbuster launch for
@LiseRButler
's blockbuster book (see link). Not many monographs will attract, alongside academics, a former Cabinet Secretary, two Labour MPs, a former Cabinet Minister, heads of BIT, the Young Foundation and the ICS!
Some days online teaching is frustrating, but other days it involves watching a whole batch of great student presentations on 1970s socialist feminism❤️
We are very proud that our members
@LiseRButler
and
@jmulich
won this year's student-nominated Impact Award for their achievements in teaching
@CityUniLondon
! Well done, Lise and Jeppe!
Attention London-based historians! We are looking for visiting lecturers to teach two undergraduate modules for the History and History and Politics programmes at
@Cityintpolitics
for the autumn term of 2022🧵(please retweet!)
Why is Michael Young's classic 'The Rise of the Meritocracy' no longer in print, and only available at prices over £30 on second-hand book sites? Surely some publisher could find a market for it.
In contrast to the tweet below, had a genuinely thought-provoking conversation this afternoon with
@lewis_goodall
for what promises to be an excellent
@BBCNewsnight
special on Brexit in historical context. Look out for it on January 31st.
He’ll be relieved to hear that these days the media rarely asks me for comment on the Labour Party (my actual area of expertise) but rather on things like the cultural significance of Big Ben and Prince Phillip’s impending death.
There are lots of good reasons for this strike. But I’ve got to say that when I told me students that I was striking next week because my pension was being reduced by a third on the basis of a valuation done in the stock market crash of March 2020 there was an *audible* gasp.
This letter from the KCL branch of the University and College Union gives an excellent summary of the arguments against the absurd cuts Universities are trying to impose on academic pensions - one element of strike action taking place over the next three weeks.
@ucu
@KCL_UCU
It says something about who I follow on Twitter that my only exposure to Jordan Peterson’s Cambridge tour is coming from academics pointing out his bewildering confusion of college facilities.
Back in my office for the first time in a VERY long time - and happy to find my author copy of Corbynism in Perspective waiting here for me.
@AndrewCrines
If you missed Ben Jackson's book launch for The Case for Scottish Independence the recording is up - featuring Ben himself,
@shirkerism
,
@hinesjumpedup
and me in the chair
I think it's fair to say that this would have been pretty much unthinkable when I was teaching at Oxford four years ago, and Rhodes Must Fall was treated as a student-led inconvenience to be managed by college committees. Change seems impossible until it happens all at once.
It will, at the very least, be easy to explain this strike to our students:
‘Our pensions are being cut 35% on the basis of a valuation of the pension scheme that took place in the stock market crash of March of 2020. Clear enough?’
URGENT USS PENSIONS NEWS:
Today
@UniversitiesUK
voted to push ahead with its plans to cut thousands of pounds from the retirement benefits of university staff in the USS pension scheme
1/
As a historian I’ve been lucky to visit many beautiful archives, but it’s going to be awfully hard to beat the first stop on my U.S. sabbatical archive extravaganza, the magical
@Center4NewEcon
, where I’ll be staying for the next few days to look at the EF Schumacher papers.
NEW: The deficit at the UK's largest private-sector pension scheme, the
#USS
, has been slashed from £14bn in March 2020, to £2.9bn at the end of January this year, as the schemne's assets recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
#UUK
#UCU
More follows.
This, on Prince Phillip and British environmentalism, is a thread I wish I had written and easily the most interesting thing I’ve seen on Twitter in the last 45 minutes:
When you think of environmentalist royals, you probably think of Prince Charles.
But he really gets it all from his father, Prince Philip, who was at the forefront of the very emergence of British environmentalism.
A thread:
Great fun to welcome our first year History and History and Politics students today - with a special appearance from students on the brand new Journalism, History and Politics BA too
@Cityintpolitics
@cityjournalism
I make a brief appearance in this BBC Newsnight special - talking Thatcherism and the economic vision behind Brexit - along with
@ea_robinson
and
@mds49
No-one knows for sure what will happen next. But we do know that the Brexit process had a remarkable effect on our democracy and political institutions. Are they forever changed? And where did Brexit really come from anyway?
My Newsnight piece.
When I was writing my book I became fascinated by the progressive community of Dartington Hall, and the utopian, bohemian vision it represented.
Now
@Anna_Neima
had written a book about not just Dartington, but interwar utopian communities like it around the world. A must read!
At the
@policynetwork
Next Left conference yesterday I talked up
@martin_oneill
and
@joecguinan
's 'Institutional Turn' and the
@IPPR
's Commission on Economic Justice report. Beyond the political battles there is informed, critical and constructive thinking happening on the left.
Enroute to Cambridge for two very good reasons: 1) a meeting of the
@ChuArchives
Advisory Committee 2) to comment on
@freddyfoks1
marvellous new book Participant Observers at
@CamModBrit
seminar - join us today at 5 pm!
Woke up this morning to find that my book has been the subject of an lovely portrait in
@La_Lettura
, the cultural supplement of Italy most widely read newspaper Corriere della Sera, in a special feature on meritocracy. Huge thanks to
@GioB1974
for being my ambassador in Italy!
Su
@La_Lettura
di oggi racconto Michael D. Young, colui che nel 1958 inventò la "
#meritocrazia
" come incubo futuribile (e oggi pericolosamente prossimo), ben lontano dall'ingenuo ideale in cui il termine è stato trasformato.
It’s never a bad time to remind everyone that Andrea Leadsom’s brother-in-law is billionaire hedge fund owner based in Jersey who has consistently supported and funded her political career and appointed her and her husband to positions in his companies
All set for the launch of
@colm_m
’s new book, ‘Futures of Socialism’ which is taking place at
@CH_Venues
this evening.
Warmest congratulations to Colm from everyone at the MEI!
Churchill College Cambridge have put my bio and very enthusiastically smiley face on their fellows page - so looking forward to starting my Archives By-Fellowship there next week.
The new
@RenewalJournal
is out - and features a free to download discussion with me,
@ea_robinson
, and incoming director of the UCL Policy Lab
@mds49
on expertise, experience, and technocracy in Labour policy