Ed Podesta
@edpodesta.bsky.social
#AssociateProf at #Leeds Trinity University - #Education academic, crap #saxophonist, deficient in the attention department. I'll follow if you've got a bio or real-world descriptor.
Not here for Edu-Culture Wars.
I wear hats now. Hats are cool.
Not here for Edu-Culture Wars.
I wear hats now. Hats are cool.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
reminded of eric williams's observation about britain's relationship to its history with slavery. "British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it."
holy shit: “Among the 2,000 UK adults surveyed, 85% were unaware that Britain forcibly transported more than 3 million Africans to the Caribbean, 89% did not know that Britain enslaved people in the Caribbean for more than 300 years” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Caribbean reparations leaders in ‘historic’ first UK visit to press for justice
CRC mission will seek to deepen public understanding of Britain’s colonial legacy and its lasting impact
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:11 PM
reminded of eric williams's observation about britain's relationship to its history with slavery. "British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it."
Reposted by Ed Podesta
To get the policy and politics right means being the party of control, compassion and international cooperation - for voters looking for the viable alternative to Farage, not an implausible imitation and echo.
Focus on what can reduce flows - scale controlled routes to return those outside them
Focus on what can reduce flows - scale controlled routes to return those outside them
November 14, 2025 at 7:55 AM
To get the policy and politics right means being the party of control, compassion and international cooperation - for voters looking for the viable alternative to Farage, not an implausible imitation and echo.
Focus on what can reduce flows - scale controlled routes to return those outside them
Focus on what can reduce flows - scale controlled routes to return those outside them
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Early Bird Tickets now on sale for our Developing Teachers' Conference (Jan 31 online) from here store.leedstrinity.ac.uk/product-cata... 9 workshops for secondary and 3 workshops for primary teachers & an incredible keynote from Dr Sarah Longair, whose gloved hands have touched many an object!
November 7, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Early Bird Tickets now on sale for our Developing Teachers' Conference (Jan 31 online) from here store.leedstrinity.ac.uk/product-cata... 9 workshops for secondary and 3 workshops for primary teachers & an incredible keynote from Dr Sarah Longair, whose gloved hands have touched many an object!
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Incredible opportunity to get your (gloved) hands on some Viking artefacts at our next Yorkshire History Forum at St Barnabas School in York (Nov 24 5-8pm). Just ask @cpalmerhistory.bsky.social and she'll tell you how awesome they are! Tickets available here: store.leedstrinity.ac.uk/product-cata...
November 7, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Incredible opportunity to get your (gloved) hands on some Viking artefacts at our next Yorkshire History Forum at St Barnabas School in York (Nov 24 5-8pm). Just ask @cpalmerhistory.bsky.social and she'll tell you how awesome they are! Tickets available here: store.leedstrinity.ac.uk/product-cata...
Reposted by Ed Podesta
So much @1972shp.bsky.social stuff going on right now! Last call to register for SHP UNEARTHED (Nov 10 5-6pm), our groundbreaking (ha ha!) webinar on Empire and Gardening - email d.lyndon-cohen@leedstrinity.ac.uk to sign up.
November 7, 2025 at 10:24 AM
So much @1972shp.bsky.social stuff going on right now! Last call to register for SHP UNEARTHED (Nov 10 5-6pm), our groundbreaking (ha ha!) webinar on Empire and Gardening - email d.lyndon-cohen@leedstrinity.ac.uk to sign up.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
“In its first formal review of UK trade policy since Brexit, the WTO found that UK trade performance had weakened since the 2008 financial crisis, with Brexit named among the chief causes of a marked slump in goods trade since 2018”
God, failure is tedious…
www.ft.com/content/8f4d...
God, failure is tedious…
www.ft.com/content/8f4d...
Trade’s contribution to UK GDP ‘stagnated’ since Brexit, warns WTO
Export of goods are languishing at 17% below pre-Covid levels
www.ft.com
October 30, 2025 at 7:40 AM
“In its first formal review of UK trade policy since Brexit, the WTO found that UK trade performance had weakened since the 2008 financial crisis, with Brexit named among the chief causes of a marked slump in goods trade since 2018”
God, failure is tedious…
www.ft.com/content/8f4d...
God, failure is tedious…
www.ft.com/content/8f4d...
Reposted by Ed Podesta
The "don't worry about facial recognition tech" arguments are not faring well...
New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people
www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
October 29, 2025 at 5:17 PM
The "don't worry about facial recognition tech" arguments are not faring well...
Wow. The Spectator has somehow become a kampfanzine.
Katie Lam wins the Spectator award 'Newcomer of the Year'.
Morning.
Morning.
October 30, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Wow. The Spectator has somehow become a kampfanzine.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
October is Dyslexia and ADHD Awareness Month. Hannah Hawoldar's new article explores neurodivergent learners' experiences of mainstream education and the importance of whole-school cultures of acceptance.
Read more:
https://chartered.pulse.ly/7s82s741uc
Read more:
https://chartered.pulse.ly/7s82s741uc
October 30, 2025 at 6:59 AM
October is Dyslexia and ADHD Awareness Month. Hannah Hawoldar's new article explores neurodivergent learners' experiences of mainstream education and the importance of whole-school cultures of acceptance.
Read more:
https://chartered.pulse.ly/7s82s741uc
Read more:
https://chartered.pulse.ly/7s82s741uc
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Posting old halloween comics, #3. From 2019 (hence the reference to something called 'Twitter')
![Cartoon strip by Stephen Collins from Halloween 2019.
The scene is a suburban street on Halloween night. Families are out trick or treating together. Two families are passing each other - with their respective children. A little girl called LUCY from one family says hi to a boy named BILLY from another family. We can only see the back of Billy's head.
LUCY:
Hey Billy
BILLY:
Hi Lucy
BILLY:
What are you dressed as?
LUCY:
I'm a scary witch
What are you?
BILLY:
I'm the creepiest thing in the world...
[We now see that he is dressed as a vampiric version of UK politician JACOB REES MOGG, and his parents are similarly dressed as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss with various Brexit - themed things stuck to their costumes.]
BILLY:
A child in an inappropriately political Halloween costume!
LUCY:
Oh my god...
BILLY:
I wanted to be a zombie but my parents said we all had to dress up as scary ERG members because we are going to a Brexit Halloween party.
LUCY:
What does that mean
BILLY:
I have no idea
LUCY:
Are they doing this to put it on Twitter?
BILLY:
I believe so, yes.
LUCY:
Well at least you'll get a few retweets!
BILLY:
Can I join your family
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreifzq752rgmtgsmhpjlpttxokxnujwxvstp3gifj5qotq4s7c636lu@jpeg)
October 29, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Posting old halloween comics, #3. From 2019 (hence the reference to something called 'Twitter')
Reposted by Ed Podesta
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji@jpeg)
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Welcome to our Open Day 👋
Unfortunately, due to the clocks change, our ANPR cameras have fined all Open Day guests who have parked in our car parks between 8-9am. The fines cannot be cancelled, but 5% will go back into improving the student experience.
Unfortunately, due to the clocks change, our ANPR cameras have fined all Open Day guests who have parked in our car parks between 8-9am. The fines cannot be cancelled, but 5% will go back into improving the student experience.
October 26, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Welcome to our Open Day 👋
Unfortunately, due to the clocks change, our ANPR cameras have fined all Open Day guests who have parked in our car parks between 8-9am. The fines cannot be cancelled, but 5% will go back into improving the student experience.
Unfortunately, due to the clocks change, our ANPR cameras have fined all Open Day guests who have parked in our car parks between 8-9am. The fines cannot be cancelled, but 5% will go back into improving the student experience.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Hard to believe 3 yrs have passed since the 10.29 이태원 참사 - a tragedy worsened by the Yoon admin’s diversion of police resources. Working-level officials took the fall while the Pres. spread conspiracy theories. Remember the lives lost, & the families still seeking truth.
October 29, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Hard to believe 3 yrs have passed since the 10.29 이태원 참사 - a tragedy worsened by the Yoon admin’s diversion of police resources. Working-level officials took the fall while the Pres. spread conspiracy theories. Remember the lives lost, & the families still seeking truth.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
which = 🤷♀️
witch = 🧙♀️
witch = 🧙♀️
October 28, 2025 at 6:11 PM
which = 🤷♀️
witch = 🧙♀️
witch = 🧙♀️
Reposted by Ed Podesta
It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once:
— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap
— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap
October 12, 2025 at 9:38 PM
It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once:
— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap
— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap
Reposted by Ed Podesta
A scenario:
Andrew, younger brother of Charles, steps forward to tell all he knows and brings down both a monarchy and an authoritarian regime.
Andrew, younger brother of Charles, steps forward to tell all he knows and brings down both a monarchy and an authoritarian regime.
October 21, 2025 at 7:28 AM
A scenario:
Andrew, younger brother of Charles, steps forward to tell all he knows and brings down both a monarchy and an authoritarian regime.
Andrew, younger brother of Charles, steps forward to tell all he knows and brings down both a monarchy and an authoritarian regime.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
A divided left is the way to guarantee a Farage Reich and all the horrors that will involve for ordinary people and minorities .
When faced with the stark option of a fascist or a wooly bourgeois social democrat, the correct choice is always the latter.
When faced with the stark option of a fascist or a wooly bourgeois social democrat, the correct choice is always the latter.
October 20, 2025 at 4:41 PM
A divided left is the way to guarantee a Farage Reich and all the horrors that will involve for ordinary people and minorities .
When faced with the stark option of a fascist or a wooly bourgeois social democrat, the correct choice is always the latter.
When faced with the stark option of a fascist or a wooly bourgeois social democrat, the correct choice is always the latter.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
How do we stop Nigel Farage from forming the next government?
spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-bl...
@counsellc.bsky.social
@andywalker1965.bsky.social
@danlyndon.bsky.social
@richardjonesnerzic.bsky.social
@edpodesta.bsky.social
@apf102.bsky.social
@hollyhiscox.bsky.social
spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-bl...
@counsellc.bsky.social
@andywalker1965.bsky.social
@danlyndon.bsky.social
@richardjonesnerzic.bsky.social
@edpodesta.bsky.social
@apf102.bsky.social
@hollyhiscox.bsky.social
How do we stop Nigel Farage from forming a government?
How do we stop Nigel Farage from forming a government?
spartacus-educational.com
October 20, 2025 at 4:29 PM
How do we stop Nigel Farage from forming the next government?
spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-bl...
@counsellc.bsky.social
@andywalker1965.bsky.social
@danlyndon.bsky.social
@richardjonesnerzic.bsky.social
@edpodesta.bsky.social
@apf102.bsky.social
@hollyhiscox.bsky.social
spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-bl...
@counsellc.bsky.social
@andywalker1965.bsky.social
@danlyndon.bsky.social
@richardjonesnerzic.bsky.social
@edpodesta.bsky.social
@apf102.bsky.social
@hollyhiscox.bsky.social
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Some politicians and commentators continue to denigrate London and talk our great city down, but the facts show a very different picture.
The number of homicides in London in the first nine months of 2025 was lower than in any year since monthly records began 22 years ago.
The number of homicides in London in the first nine months of 2025 was lower than in any year since monthly records began 22 years ago.
October 14, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Some politicians and commentators continue to denigrate London and talk our great city down, but the facts show a very different picture.
The number of homicides in London in the first nine months of 2025 was lower than in any year since monthly records began 22 years ago.
The number of homicides in London in the first nine months of 2025 was lower than in any year since monthly records began 22 years ago.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Sorry, what? There is no “race debate”. There is racism, there are racists.
This isn’t a legitimate political polemic, this is hate speech and hate crime.
Can we stop trying to wedge the bigotry of fragile white men in to public discourse? Doing so is hate-washing and we need to stop it.
This isn’t a legitimate political polemic, this is hate speech and hate crime.
Can we stop trying to wedge the bigotry of fragile white men in to public discourse? Doing so is hate-washing and we need to stop it.
‘Frightened to get out of their cars’: Britain’s toxic race debates threaten overseas care workers
‘Frightened to get out of their cars’: Britain’s toxic race debates threaten overseas care workers
Staff are being advised to travel in mixed groups and carry panic alarms as incidents of intimidation spread
www.theguardian.com
October 14, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Sorry, what? There is no “race debate”. There is racism, there are racists.
This isn’t a legitimate political polemic, this is hate speech and hate crime.
Can we stop trying to wedge the bigotry of fragile white men in to public discourse? Doing so is hate-washing and we need to stop it.
This isn’t a legitimate political polemic, this is hate speech and hate crime.
Can we stop trying to wedge the bigotry of fragile white men in to public discourse? Doing so is hate-washing and we need to stop it.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research.
Reposts welcomed.
Reposts welcomed.
Historians dismayed by ‘scandal’ of BBC cutting access to...
Critics say new limit to trove of information sounds knell for independent research
observer.co.uk
October 14, 2025 at 9:09 AM
For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research.
Reposts welcomed.
Reposts welcomed.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Very excited to share the forthcoming SHP Understanding event from @1972shp.bsky.social: Unearthed (Nov 10 5-6pm). The first in a series of webinars looking at the transformative and radical power of gardening - from the Diggers to Mary Seacole to settler colonialism we've got it covered!
October 13, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Very excited to share the forthcoming SHP Understanding event from @1972shp.bsky.social: Unearthed (Nov 10 5-6pm). The first in a series of webinars looking at the transformative and radical power of gardening - from the Diggers to Mary Seacole to settler colonialism we've got it covered!
Reposted by Ed Podesta
LLMs are doubly deceptive. Most people think that they can ask it a question and get an answer. The majority of the rest think that you can ask an LLM a question and it will return what an answer might look like, statistically.
But it's actually even worse. It doesn't "read" the prompt; it guesses.
But it's actually even worse. It doesn't "read" the prompt; it guesses.
October 11, 2025 at 5:35 PM
LLMs are doubly deceptive. Most people think that they can ask it a question and get an answer. The majority of the rest think that you can ask an LLM a question and it will return what an answer might look like, statistically.
But it's actually even worse. It doesn't "read" the prompt; it guesses.
But it's actually even worse. It doesn't "read" the prompt; it guesses.
Reposted by Ed Podesta
It's a dream team of secondary workshops at #YHF York!
Delighted to be presenting at this fantastic event organised with @1972shp.bsky.social and alongside the wonderful @cpalmerhistory.bsky.social
Spread the word!
#historyteacher
Spread the word!
#historyteacher
October 10, 2025 at 8:31 PM
It's a dream team of secondary workshops at #YHF York!
Reposted by Ed Podesta
Somewhere in the recent past, a coup overthrew the spirit of education with the stuff of schooling, and we've seen the system remade entirely in that image.
Let companies and employers produce workers and let our schools produce citizens. There is no vision of a thriving public education without reclaiming the central mission of schooling as the place where we live diversity, equity, and inclusion.
October 10, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Somewhere in the recent past, a coup overthrew the spirit of education with the stuff of schooling, and we've seen the system remade entirely in that image.