Trish Burns
trishburns.bsky.social
Trish Burns
@trishburns.bsky.social
mum to four young adults, mathematician, foodbank worker, university after children: MSc: Inequality and Social Science at LSE. Interest: perceptions of hunger
Reposted by Trish Burns
The Chancellor has scrapped the two-child limit, benefitting more than half a million families.

In April 2025, out of families impacted by the limit:

- 6 in 10 had 3 children.
- 6 in 10 had at least one person in work.
- And 6 in 10 are receiving a health or disability benefit.
November 26, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage.
www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...
Covid inquiry live: ‘Inexcusable’ delays under Johnson led to 23,000 deaths
Lockdowns may have been avoided if Boris Johnson’s government had acted faster, damning report finds
www.thetimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
🧵Things are rather bleak in the world and on social media right now, so here's a thread about how a House Dalek called Colin came into our lives and looked after our kids. (We'll update each day)
#DoctorWho

Day 1: When Rory was born, Colin quickly learnt the art of nappy changing.
August 10, 2024 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
I love the fact that these pics were taken during recording of that first Dalek story, so the general public had no idea what these metal pepper pots were.
PHOTO OF THE DAY. Daleks trying to board a London bus (1963). 📷 Het Parool.
November 4, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Yes, your honor, we received and sold stolen goods, but if there was no market for such we wouldn't have done so. Our customers are to blame.

We live in a golden age of shamelessness and grift.
"Sure, our plagiarism machine ingests enormous amounts of copyrighted material without anyone's permission, but it's the users of the machine who are the 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 criminals, your honor." 🙄🙄

Just unbelievable levels of chutzpah.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
November 14, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
This is what many of us have been saying. Part 3 of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill is based on a myth: that we don't have enough homes because wildlife and green spaces are protected. It will solve nothing, and inflict terrible harm on our remaining ecosystems
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Nature not a blocker to housing growth, inquiry finds
Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
New analysis with @ruthpatrick0.bsky.social and @kittyjstewart.bsky.social: If we are serious about trying to reduce child poverty we cannot rely on employment alone. We need serious investment in social security.

largerfamilies.study/publications...
Benefit changes and larger families
We are a group of university-based researchers investigating how families with more than two children are coping with the benefit cap or the two-child limit.
largerfamilies.study
November 12, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Yes, this is correct. And the reason is because our capitalist classes have decided that it is not sufficiently profitable, so they're not going to do it.

We must understand this reality. Capital *cannot* be relied upon to address the climate crisis.
November 10, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Against the championing of moral sensitivity and evidential examination, the Counter-Enlightenment was born.
Riled by the promotion of universal compassion and empirical objectivity, the Anti-Woke strikes back.
Their continuing mission - keep people in the dark
henry-tam.blogspot.com/2023/09/coun...
Counter-Enlightenment, Anti-Woke
The ‘Anti-Woke’ bandwagon has been picking up speed in stirring up anger and resentment against ideas that annoy reactionaries. Exposing pre...
henry-tam.blogspot.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington is a collaboration between the Arlington Historical Society and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington. It aims to commemorate the names and lives of those who were long erased from the area's historical narrative. www.bbc.com/travel/artic...
The Southern US county honouring its dark past
While other places in the US are increasingly censoring how they tell their multicultural histories to travellers, one community is highlighting them.
www.bbc.com
November 9, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
I can’t envisage a child poverty strategy which garners any credibility without fully scrapping the two-child limit.

Unconvinced? Check out (even better share) this summary of the peer-reviewed evidence base @kittyjstewart.bsky.social @aaronreeves.bsky.social

largerfamilies.study/publications...
November 1, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
‘Carus was a pioneer, but also a dilettante and an idealist who couldn’t renounce Romanticism.’

@johnpaulstonard.com on a German scientist and painter whose career was heavily influenced by Caspar David Friedrich.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
John-Paul Stonard · At the National Gallery: View from a Prison Window
Carl Gustav Carus made copies of paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, or sought out the locations he had painted,...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 8, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
If guaranteeing essentials sounds radical, it speaks to how far we have drifted from democracy‘s core promises. Markets will not beat back the far right. An antifascist economics might. Mamdani provides a playbook for democrats around the world.

My latest
Zohran Mamdani shows how Democrats can defeat authoritarians like Trump | Isabella Weber
Democrats have two choices: fight to make life affordable again for ordinary people or watch voters embrace authoritarians
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
💬 New interview:

@joelsuss.ft.com caught up with @thomaspiketty.bsky.social at our recent public event to talk about the rise of populism, wealth taxation, fiscal debt, intergenerational inequality and artificial intelligence.

Read the full feature in @financialtimes.com ⬇️
Thomas Piketty: ‘The left has been a victim of its own success’
The economist on populism, fiscal debt and the long-term trend of economic equality
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
1. This is a thread on freedom, and how easy it is to lose.

Over the past 2,000 years in Europe, there have been few periods and places of freedom. For much of the time we lived under highly oppressive tyrannies of various kinds, whether small or grand, local or imperial, secular or religious.🧵
November 7, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
While agreeing in the round,
I've found this (below) both reassuring and highlighting of the need for constant vigilance. There is no perfect end state. See if you can see where the 'thousand year reich' occurs (also, that Roman Empire lasted quite a while).

m.youtube.com/watch?v=UY9P...
The History of Europe: Every Year
YouTube video by Cottereau
m.youtube.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
10. The freedoms we take for granted – political, economic, sexual, individual - were won through a combination of extraordinary struggle and extraordinary luck. There’s nothing “natural” or inevitable about them. They are in fact highly anomalous. And we won’t know what we’ve lost till it’s gone.
November 7, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Very thoughtful letter from my brilliant aunt @katharinesut.bsky.social @theguardian.com we need to do much more to make work work, & we need to address the systemic issues that lock ppl in poorly paid jobs. Improving procurement practices would be a great start www.theguardian.com/money/2025/n...
How employers can help their staff stay in work | Letters
Letters: Readers respond to the government’s Keep Britain Working review that aims to tackle the growing worklessness crisis
www.theguardian.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Here's a full list of all the new things on TheyWorkForYou from last week www.mysociety.org/2025/10/23/t...
TheyWorkForYou Update: A richer view of Parliament
A big update to TheyWorkForYou, covering APPGs, open letters, alerts, and much more.
www.mysociety.org
October 27, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Kentucky Historical Society marker to Peter Postell dedicated
hoptownchronicle.org/kentucky-his... Postell was enslaved in Christian County when he fled during the Civil War to join the Union Army, then returned after the war and became a wealthy business owner.
Kentucky Historical Society marker to Peter Postell dedicated
Peter Postell fled slavery during the Civil War to join the Union Army. Then, he returned to Hopkinsville to become a wealthy business owner.
hoptownchronicle.org
November 2, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
‘The term “landscape painting” (𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘪) became a bugbear for Carl Gustav Carus: “There is something artisan-like about it that revolts my whole being.”’

@johnpaulstonard.com on the German painter:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
John-Paul Stonard · At the National Gallery: View from a Prison Window
www.lrb.co.uk
November 2, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
What does a £180,000 job ad for a private tutor *for a baby* reveal about the global education arms race?

Lee Elliot Major assesses the issue and considers what can be done to level the playing field. Could tutoring – ironically – be part of the solution? #LSEInequalitiesBlog

buff.ly/dAisTWb
Bred to rule: What a £180,000 private tutor job reveals about the education arms race
What does the explosion in private tutoring mean for educational inequalities - with huge sums offered for a private tutor to help babies prepare for Eton?
blogs.lse.ac.uk
October 29, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Trish Burns
A voting system that can be manipulated by wealthy donors and the circulation of malicious disinformation poses a threat to us all.
We need to save democracy before it's too late: citizen-network.org/news/democra... @simonduffy.bsky.social @compassoffice.bsky.social
Democracy SOS
On the International Day of Democracy, a new report sharing eight steps to save the UK’s democratic system.
citizen-network.org
October 25, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Trish Burns
Care about what matters to you - Or Lose It. Clip from Prof Danny Dorling speaking at Festival of Politics in Holyrood. @dannydorling.bsky.social
October 11, 2025 at 9:01 AM