War Studies, King’s College London. Researcher of war-to-peace transitions, civil wars, corruption, elite bargains, statebuilding, and UK foreign policy. Trustee at Conciliation Resources. Defender of democracy. Padel enthusiast.
Dr Christine Cheng
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New from me: The cops who AI-enhance blurry photos to try to catch suspects are actually just tampering with evidence, lying to the public and raising the risk of wrongful arrests
Video
Great reporting here, and quite sad. How terrible to treat someone this way.
Canada is not immune. Anti-immigrant groups are organized and international.
"The Dominion Society is part of an international far-right movement proposing mass deportations." thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026...
Also notable is that Republicans still believe in the American Dream (work hard and get ahead) but not Democrats. Republicans still feel that the American Dream is accessible.
Interesting too that 94% of the GOP have believed in the American Dream at one point or another vs only 81% of Democrats.
Drew Harwell
The most extreme heatwaves physically possible already today could dwarf all events in recent memory.
And even more worrying, they occur successively after one or more extreme heatwaves in the same summer.
🔥 Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
@erichfischer.bsky.social @commsearth.nature.com
Drew Harwell
Video
Dr Christine Cheng
Social Media Lab
@warringfictions.bsky.social explores the many reasons why British citizens have gradually stopped trusting politicians.
But he offers antidote:
The Country-Before-Party test!
I’d love to see politicians create a voluntary code of conduct based on these values.
Let’s call it the Good Faith Code.
A good explainer piece on "Why Belfast is burning."
But this could happen anywhere now. www.cbc.ca/player/play/...
And this is how authoritarianism can work in somewhere as seemigly liberal as the UK.
People are forced out, either by their own morals or by the 'morals' of their bosses.
And as a result, those institutions slowly, almost imperceptibly, evolve away from ethical values that we assumed they had.
6/ For instance, the chart below shows the dramatic increase in the % of voters switching parties at each election. I link this in the piece to the decline of deference. It means politicians are increasingly incentivised to focus on valence issues/ the median voter.
13/ Politicians in the UK are disproportionately mistrusted compared to apolitical parts of the state, as the chart shows. My hypothesis is that this comes down to a partisan culture (‘two swords and one inch apart’) – as exemplified by PMQs.
www.cbc.ca
Violent unrest rippled out across Belfast after video surfaced allegedly showing a Sudanese refugee repeatedly stabbing a 30-year-old man in the Northern Ireland capital. Andrew Chang breaks down how ...
New from me: He swiped right. She was recording everything.
A Democratic aide to then-Gov. Phil Murphy thought he met his “forever person.” She was undercover.
www.politico.com/news/2026/06...
14/ The piece concludes by exploring the idea of ‘country before party’ – which ought to be the tonic to ‘Blues and Buffs’ style partisanship. I have set out a list of common practices which I believe do not pass the ‘country before party’ test.
Dr Duncan Robertson
Daniel Han
When Dorothy Bishop resigned from Royal Society , I voiced support for her on my personal social media - I was told by the BBC that I should not have done this as Monkey Cage sometimes worked with the Royal Society
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
"Fewer Americans say democracy is central to the country’s identity, AP-NORC poll finds"
But that's the least of the many concerning findings in this new poll. apnews.com/article/ap-p...
Chris Clarke
Prof Dorothy Bishop said fellowship was ‘a contradiction of all the values’ of UK’s national academy of sciences
A new AP-NORC poll finds that as the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country or its system of government as exceptional.
