Dr Martin Roberts
@robertsmartino.bsky.social
Medieval & Early Modern Historian (PhD Nottingham 2020). Writes about C16 Church Courts. Postdoctoral Researcher @ University of Lincoln. Once a lawyer. Still overweight. Increasingly bald. Never keen on Fascists. Philogynist.
Pinned
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Farage has vowed to cut funding to universities that undermine ‘free speech’. This is just the beginning of the Trump playbook and we know from Johnson’s time there are few constitutional guardrails to stop the abuse of power. Cosying up isn’t going to cut it.
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Cambridge University cosies up to Reform
The vice-chancellor expects Nigel Farage to model his policies on Trump and says other Russell Group members are meeting his allies
www.thetimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Farage has vowed to cut funding to universities that undermine ‘free speech’. This is just the beginning of the Trump playbook and we know from Johnson’s time there are few constitutional guardrails to stop the abuse of power. Cosying up isn’t going to cut it.
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
They're small. Muddy knees. Higher voices than adults. Easy.
November 30, 2025 at 1:24 PM
They're small. Muddy knees. Higher voices than adults. Easy.
This is dreadful.
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started
November 30, 2025 at 10:26 AM
This is dreadful.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Under Mahmood's current proposals, presumably would have been deported to Czechoslovakia in 1945, when it was "safe" again.
R.I.P. Tom Stoppard, playwright most famous for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia he fled his home during the Nazi occupation and found refuge in Britain at the age of eight. He later discovered all four of his grandparents had died in the Holocaust.
Born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia he fled his home during the Nazi occupation and found refuge in Britain at the age of eight. He later discovered all four of his grandparents had died in the Holocaust.
Sir Tom Stoppard, playwright famed for his wit and depth, dies at 88
Winning an Oscar for the screenplay for Shakespeare In Love, he captivated the hearts of audiences for more than six decades.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 29, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Under Mahmood's current proposals, presumably would have been deported to Czechoslovakia in 1945, when it was "safe" again.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Former US military lawyers speak out:
"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."
Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes
1/2
"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."
Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes
1/2
November 29, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Former US military lawyers speak out:
"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."
Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes
1/2
"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."
Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes
1/2
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
One of the things we should consider is that US young people are spending their most formative years living under a deranged fascist regime, while having brain-frying nonsense pumped into their eyes and ears at high pressure.
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 29, 2025 at 5:45 PM
One of the things we should consider is that US young people are spending their most formative years living under a deranged fascist regime, while having brain-frying nonsense pumped into their eyes and ears at high pressure.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
This started pretty much immediately, I have already heard several examples, as well as people looking to withdraw change of conditions applications and decideling not to apply. Families will be left destitute
UK immigration status fears prompt carer to cancel benefits she is entitled to
UK immigration status fears prompt carer to cancel benefits she is entitled to
Woman cancels all benefits including disability living allowance for daughter after policy change announcement
A low-paid carer from Ghana has cancelled all the benefits she is legally entitled to, including the disability allowance one of her children receives, owing to fears about her immigration status after the policy changes announced by the home secretary.
The radical changes to legal migration announced by Shabana Mahmood on 20 November will penalise those who are living and working legally in the UK, but who claim benefits. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:51 AM
This started pretty much immediately, I have already heard several examples, as well as people looking to withdraw change of conditions applications and decideling not to apply. Families will be left destitute
Anyone any idea on this word, please? #PalaeographyPuzzle
November 28, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Anyone any idea on this word, please? #PalaeographyPuzzle
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
📣📣📣 Details of our next publication - The Post-Mortem Accounts and Inventories of Sir Thomas Charlton (d.1465), edited by Claire Martin - are now available on our website! 🎉 Click here for more info: yorkisthistorytrust.org/publications/ #MedievalSky #medieval #Skystorians #BookSky
November 27, 2025 at 3:50 PM
📣📣📣 Details of our next publication - The Post-Mortem Accounts and Inventories of Sir Thomas Charlton (d.1465), edited by Claire Martin - are now available on our website! 🎉 Click here for more info: yorkisthistorytrust.org/publications/ #MedievalSky #medieval #Skystorians #BookSky
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨
📣Join us @lancasteruni.bsky.social 1-3 July 2026 as we return to our original home to celebrate our 50th anniversary!
We welcome proposals from historians at all career stages across 8 thematic strands.
📅 CfP deadline: 16/01/26
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...
#CFP 🗃️
📣Join us @lancasteruni.bsky.social 1-3 July 2026 as we return to our original home to celebrate our 50th anniversary!
We welcome proposals from historians at all career stages across 8 thematic strands.
📅 CfP deadline: 16/01/26
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...
#CFP 🗃️
SHS Annual Conference 2026
Our 50th anniversary conference will be held at Lancaster University, the academic home of the Social History Society. A Significant Milestone The Social History Society was founded at Lancaster Un…
socialhistory.org.uk
November 27, 2025 at 10:42 AM
🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨
📣Join us @lancasteruni.bsky.social 1-3 July 2026 as we return to our original home to celebrate our 50th anniversary!
We welcome proposals from historians at all career stages across 8 thematic strands.
📅 CfP deadline: 16/01/26
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...
#CFP 🗃️
📣Join us @lancasteruni.bsky.social 1-3 July 2026 as we return to our original home to celebrate our 50th anniversary!
We welcome proposals from historians at all career stages across 8 thematic strands.
📅 CfP deadline: 16/01/26
🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...
#CFP 🗃️
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
News – University of Nottingham secures funding grant for groundbreaking research on early British voices and identities
https://www.europesays.com/uk/595100/
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
What did the voices of Britain sound like during and after…#uk #news #uknews
https://www.europesays.com/uk/595100/
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
What did the voices of Britain sound like during and after…#uk #news #uknews
News - University of Nottingham secures funding grant for groundbreaking research on early British voices and identities - United Kingdom
What did the voices of Britain sound like during and after the Roman period? How did early British communities construct and represent their identities, and
www.europesays.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:00 PM
News – University of Nottingham secures funding grant for groundbreaking research on early British voices and identities
https://www.europesays.com/uk/595100/
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
What did the voices of Britain sound like during and after…#uk #news #uknews
https://www.europesays.com/uk/595100/
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
What did the voices of Britain sound like during and after…#uk #news #uknews
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Feuding neighbours, adultery, defamation, witchcraft...👀 welcome to the wonderful world of Early Modern Church Court Records! ✒️
Learn to decipher these important historical texts and unlock unrivalled insight into Early Modern life, online and at your own pace: imemsdurhamlearn.com/working-with...
Learn to decipher these important historical texts and unlock unrivalled insight into Early Modern life, online and at your own pace: imemsdurhamlearn.com/working-with...
November 26, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Feuding neighbours, adultery, defamation, witchcraft...👀 welcome to the wonderful world of Early Modern Church Court Records! ✒️
Learn to decipher these important historical texts and unlock unrivalled insight into Early Modern life, online and at your own pace: imemsdurhamlearn.com/working-with...
Learn to decipher these important historical texts and unlock unrivalled insight into Early Modern life, online and at your own pace: imemsdurhamlearn.com/working-with...
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
I referred to it in my publication, Harming Children. TBF it included all anti-trans measures including social & legal oppression, not just puberty blockers.
Now however the government is introducing Section 28 for trans kids, it is doing pretty much everything these Republican states did.
Now however the government is introducing Section 28 for trans kids, it is doing pretty much everything these Republican states did.
Harming children: the effects of the UK puberty blocker ban
This paper presents an analysis of data from trans children and young people and their parents following the imposition of a UK-wide ban on puberty blockers for this group. The consequences of this...
www.tandfonline.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
I referred to it in my publication, Harming Children. TBF it included all anti-trans measures including social & legal oppression, not just puberty blockers.
Now however the government is introducing Section 28 for trans kids, it is doing pretty much everything these Republican states did.
Now however the government is introducing Section 28 for trans kids, it is doing pretty much everything these Republican states did.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
This research was published 14 months ago. In *Nature*.
Three months BEFORE Wes Streeting announced a "permanent ban" on puberty-blockers.
& yesterday, the Tories insisted you don't even need a clinical trial to keep that ban, forever...
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Three months BEFORE Wes Streeting announced a "permanent ban" on puberty-blockers.
& yesterday, the Tories insisted you don't even need a clinical trial to keep that ban, forever...
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Evidence has now emerged of the adverse consequences of the laws banning GAHT for trans youth in both the US and UK. This includes sharp declines in mental health and increased suicide attempts among transgender young people.
t.co/YZaiSgdDAl
t.co/YZaiSgdDAl
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01979-5
t.co
November 26, 2025 at 10:38 AM
This research was published 14 months ago. In *Nature*.
Three months BEFORE Wes Streeting announced a "permanent ban" on puberty-blockers.
& yesterday, the Tories insisted you don't even need a clinical trial to keep that ban, forever...
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Three months BEFORE Wes Streeting announced a "permanent ban" on puberty-blockers.
& yesterday, the Tories insisted you don't even need a clinical trial to keep that ban, forever...
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
What a tremendous theme! Wish I could go!!
Our final event of term is happening this Thursday (27 November) Dr Nailya Shamgunova @nailyas.bsky.social on 'English and Scottish Scholars at the Global Library, c. 1500-1700'. ✨📚 This talk will be in-person only at the IHR. You can sign up here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
English and Scottish Scholars at the Global Library, c. 1500-1700
This talk introduces the UKRI-funded Future Leaders project, The Global Library project.
www.history.ac.uk
November 26, 2025 at 12:43 PM
What a tremendous theme! Wish I could go!!
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
It highlights how much people misunderstand how research works. It’s much more ruling out what doesn’t work than the eureka moment and coloured liquid in curly glass tubes that people are led to believe.
November 26, 2025 at 10:41 AM
It highlights how much people misunderstand how research works. It’s much more ruling out what doesn’t work than the eureka moment and coloured liquid in curly glass tubes that people are led to believe.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Yes, definitely. This idea of ultra concentration and specialisation is naive about the way that research is done and how we achieve good outcomes from it.
November 26, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Yes, definitely. This idea of ultra concentration and specialisation is naive about the way that research is done and how we achieve good outcomes from it.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
Also the incremental way within any project that 'excellent' research emerges, with waystations that may not be 'excellent' enabling publications that are.
November 26, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Also the incremental way within any project that 'excellent' research emerges, with waystations that may not be 'excellent' enabling publications that are.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
The other problem with this is that research is a type of spread bet/lottery. You do lots of it and hope some of it pans out. If we had a perfect way of selecting which small bits of science and scholarship we "need", we'd have solved the funding problem. But we don't know this.
'Science minister Patrick Vallance has rejected concerns that focusing on “doing fewer things better” in research will lead to funding being concentrated in larger research-intensive universities from the Russell Group.' 1/3
Post-16 plan ‘not recipe for Russell Group domination’ – Vallance
Science minister dismisses as ‘bizarre’ fears that government push for ‘teaching-only’ specialists will further concentrate research activity in small number of institutions
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:11 AM
The other problem with this is that research is a type of spread bet/lottery. You do lots of it and hope some of it pans out. If we had a perfect way of selecting which small bits of science and scholarship we "need", we'd have solved the funding problem. But we don't know this.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
If only new books also came with the gift of some time to read them :)
Just listened to @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social talking about topics of his new book, and it was so interesting. Now I have to get hands on the book (and find some time to read it, which is much more difficult.) www.historyextra.com/membership/1... #medievalsky
11th-century Europe: not just the Norman Conquest
Charles West explains how the 11th century saw a raft of major changes and a plethora of significant events that extend beyond the Norman Conquest
www.historyextra.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:36 AM
If only new books also came with the gift of some time to read them :)
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
7 x 3000+ students + 17 smaller institutions must mean 30,000+ affected students. That’s about the same size as Sheffield uni, which employs 8000ish staff. Why is the government tolerating the impending collapse of up to 24 related employers and 8000+ more lost jobs? Where is the sense of crisis?
Chief exec of OfS 'said the OfS believes there are 24 institutions at risk of exiting the market in the next 12 months, seven of which are large providers with more than 3,000 students. There are another 25 or so institutions of various sizes at risk over a two- to three-year period, she added.'
Seven ‘large providers’ at risk of going under in the next year
Skills minister says no higher education institutions are at imminent risk of collapse this year but OfS confirms more than 20 providers are being closely monitored
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:57 AM
7 x 3000+ students + 17 smaller institutions must mean 30,000+ affected students. That’s about the same size as Sheffield uni, which employs 8000ish staff. Why is the government tolerating the impending collapse of up to 24 related employers and 8000+ more lost jobs? Where is the sense of crisis?
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
And still nobody cares
Chief exec of OfS 'said the OfS believes there are 24 institutions at risk of exiting the market in the next 12 months, seven of which are large providers with more than 3,000 students. There are another 25 or so institutions of various sizes at risk over a two- to three-year period, she added.'
Seven ‘large providers’ at risk of going under in the next year
Skills minister says no higher education institutions are at imminent risk of collapse this year but OfS confirms more than 20 providers are being closely monitored
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:58 AM
And still nobody cares
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
The media really will treat LLMs as human before they give trans people the same courtesy
November 25, 2025 at 9:39 PM
The media really will treat LLMs as human before they give trans people the same courtesy
Reposted by Dr Martin Roberts
I want David Lammy to read this particular case. I want him to understand what it means.
November 25, 2025 at 9:35 PM
I want David Lammy to read this particular case. I want him to understand what it means.