Nicholas Guyatt
@nicholasguyatt.bsky.social
I teach American history at Cambridge. Views/opinions strictly personal. Content 40% political, 30% historical, 30% cat photos but ratio under constant review
Pinned
So it has taken a bit longer than promised but the Oxford Illustrated History of the United States is about to go into production! Watch this space for pub date and possible (shameless) semiquincentennial branding. And massive thanks to the stellar contributors who have been incredible to work with
Reposted by Nicholas Guyatt
Not cat-related, but you've reminded me of @nicholasguyatt.bsky.social and the marrow spoons:
bsky.app/profile/yvon...
bsky.app/profile/yvon...
November 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Not cat-related, but you've reminded me of @nicholasguyatt.bsky.social and the marrow spoons:
bsky.app/profile/yvon...
bsky.app/profile/yvon...
After Trump I don't know how you go back to the presidency being even vaguely dignified and not perpetually batshit-crazy
November 20, 2025 at 9:47 PM
After Trump I don't know how you go back to the presidency being even vaguely dignified and not perpetually batshit-crazy
ICYMI here's the recording of my chat last week about law, politics and autocracy in America with Jim Zirin, author and talk-show host. Some great questions from the audience and a persistent effort from yours truly to find some hope in the current moment www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj3o...
Autocracy in America: Law and Politics in the Second Trump Administration
YouTube video by Cambridge Development & Alumni Relations
www.youtube.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:36 AM
ICYMI here's the recording of my chat last week about law, politics and autocracy in America with Jim Zirin, author and talk-show host. Some great questions from the audience and a persistent effort from yours truly to find some hope in the current moment www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj3o...
Surreal to see the media architects of Starmerism, the guys who cheered every one of Starmer's deceptions and assaults on the left, now scratching their heads about why he's become a terrible and reviled prime minister who stands for nothing www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Starmer’s squandering of a historic election victory is a tragedy nearing its finale | Rafael Behr
The tactics that gave Labour its huge majority in 2024 were no preparation for government – and the prime minister has proved he has nothing more to offer, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Surreal to see the media architects of Starmerism, the guys who cheered every one of Starmer's deceptions and assaults on the left, now scratching their heads about why he's become a terrible and reviled prime minister who stands for nothing www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Obviously this is another trumpet of doom hailing the imminent collapse of the AI bubble, but for now it's nice that Microsoft and Nvidia are helping to fund the gigantic settlement for all the authors Anthropic ripped off
Tech giants pour billions into Anthropic as circular AI investments roll on
ChatGPT competitor secures billions from Microsoft and Nvidia in deal to use cloud services and chips.
arstechnica.com
November 18, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Obviously this is another trumpet of doom hailing the imminent collapse of the AI bubble, but for now it's nice that Microsoft and Nvidia are helping to fund the gigantic settlement for all the authors Anthropic ripped off
“Mr Summers added that he would continue teaching at Harvard”
Summers, ‘Ashamed’ Over Epstein Ties, Steps Back From Public Commitments
www.nytimes.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:19 PM
“Mr Summers added that he would continue teaching at Harvard”
The AI bubble is now consuming non-AI companies which have been borrowing tens of billions to build data centres they can rent back to the AI companies. So much hubris but of course when the crash comes they will all get bailed out and the rest of us will be screwed
Oracle hit hard in Wall Street’s tech sell-off over its huge AI bet
Company falls more than rivals over its borrowing and reliance on OpenAI contracts.
arstechnica.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:15 PM
The AI bubble is now consuming non-AI companies which have been borrowing tens of billions to build data centres they can rent back to the AI companies. So much hubris but of course when the crash comes they will all get bailed out and the rest of us will be screwed
When you have a viciously right-wing media which has spent YEARS scaremongering about immigrants and insisting that immigration is the nation's most important issue, it's grim to see a Labour home secretary validate that narrative so shamelessly www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Illegal migration tearing UK apart, Mahmood says
The home secretary is set to announce major policy reforms, including a 20-year wait before people granted asylum can apply to settle permanently.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 1:58 PM
When you have a viciously right-wing media which has spent YEARS scaremongering about immigrants and insisting that immigration is the nation's most important issue, it's grim to see a Labour home secretary validate that narrative so shamelessly www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
The focus should properly be on Mahmood’s grim willingness to lead McSweeney’s anti-immigrant crusade; but the central and enduring role of Murdoch’s Times and Sunday Times in laundering the McSweeney/Starmer project is a wonder to behold
Shabana Mahmood tells Sunday Times it should take 20 years for somebody granted refugee status in UK to secure permanent status (ie, reapply 6 times) if came without permission.
Paper says Denmark has toughest settlement timeline (8 years) but UK govt wants longer
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Paper says Denmark has toughest settlement timeline (8 years) but UK govt wants longer
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Shabana Mahmood: ‘Illegal migration is tearing Britain apart’
The home secretary is planning to introduce a 20-year wait for permanent stay to end a ‘golden ticket’ for asylum seekers
www.thetimes.com
November 16, 2025 at 1:43 AM
The focus should properly be on Mahmood’s grim willingness to lead McSweeney’s anti-immigrant crusade; but the central and enduring role of Murdoch’s Times and Sunday Times in laundering the McSweeney/Starmer project is a wonder to behold
Reposted by Nicholas Guyatt
it's often very hard for extremely successful and powerful people to understand that mild criticism from those they have power over is not equivalent to actually being oppressed.
Jill Lepore in the Chronicle. This is still so embarrassing. I don't know in what world 2014 was "miserable" because students held the power over Harvard profs, and it was worse then than now.
November 15, 2025 at 11:50 PM
it's often very hard for extremely successful and powerful people to understand that mild criticism from those they have power over is not equivalent to actually being oppressed.
Reposted by Nicholas Guyatt
It’s hard to even know where to begin with this. Professor Falk is in his 90s and one of the world’s most prominent international legal scholars. It beggars belief that he could even remotely be considered a threat to Canada.
Falk, who has investigated Israeli abuses, says questioning reflects push to silence truth of Israel's war on Gaza.
Former UN special rapporteur Richard Falk interrogated for hours in Canada
Falk, who has investigated Israeli abuses, says questioning reflects push to silence truth of Israel's war on Gaza.
bit.ly
November 16, 2025 at 12:04 AM
It’s hard to even know where to begin with this. Professor Falk is in his 90s and one of the world’s most prominent international legal scholars. It beggars belief that he could even remotely be considered a threat to Canada.
Wow this is proper John Adams stuff.
Weird that our government here in the UK is supposed to be left-leaning and has a gigantic parliamentary majority and yet spends all of its time doing Nigel Farage's bidding www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Weird that our government here in the UK is supposed to be left-leaning and has a gigantic parliamentary majority and yet spends all of its time doing Nigel Farage's bidding www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Refugees to face 20-year wait to settle permanently under asylum reforms
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to announce major reforms to the asylum system on Monday.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Wow this is proper John Adams stuff.
Weird that our government here in the UK is supposed to be left-leaning and has a gigantic parliamentary majority and yet spends all of its time doing Nigel Farage's bidding www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Weird that our government here in the UK is supposed to be left-leaning and has a gigantic parliamentary majority and yet spends all of its time doing Nigel Farage's bidding www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Trump was impeached in January 2021 for attempting to incite an insurrection; the Senate was too cowardly to convict him, which would have barred him from running again & spared us the current nightmare, but the claim that the BBC misreported his intention to steal the 2020 election is *fake news*
November 12, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Trump was impeached in January 2021 for attempting to incite an insurrection; the Senate was too cowardly to convict him, which would have barred him from running again & spared us the current nightmare, but the claim that the BBC misreported his intention to steal the 2020 election is *fake news*
Truly hilarious that Starmer's best argument for saving his own skin is that ditching him as prime minister would threaten the UK's close relationship with....Donald Trump
![The prime minister's supporters are telling Labour MPs they should be careful
what they wish for. They argue a leadership contest would plunge the party into the chaos associated with the final years of the Conservative Party's stint in office which came to an end last year, and install a leader who does not have their own
mandate from the country. They are trying to convince their colleagues that a contest could destabilise the international markets too, and would jeopardise the good relationship the
prime minister has established with President Trump. But others, including some ministers, fret about what they perceive to be the
desperate position the government is in. "It's terrible. He [Starmer] is hated out there. It is worse than it got under
Corbyn. I don't see how this is sustainable until May," one minister said. Opinion polls suggest Sir Keir is deeply unpopular, perhaps even the most
unpopular British prime minister in the history of modern opinion polling. Polls also suggest the Labour Party has commanded the support of no more
than a fifth of the electorate in recent months.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ubpa7xyv7bwtkm5jnru3dksl/bafkreiamyncczhit7si4kknk7nxby56fdobxrfrb4ojycl2aog437lnkpa@jpeg)
November 11, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Truly hilarious that Starmer's best argument for saving his own skin is that ditching him as prime minister would threaten the UK's close relationship with....Donald Trump
The BBC’s core problem is that, like the NHS, it models the benefits and virtues of a not-for-profit public service in a world of rapacious corporate greed and unstinting right-wing hostility to the idea of the public good www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...
Why the BBC Is Facing Its Gravest Crisis in Decades
www.nytimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:25 PM
The BBC’s core problem is that, like the NHS, it models the benefits and virtues of a not-for-profit public service in a world of rapacious corporate greed and unstinting right-wing hostility to the idea of the public good www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...
ICYMI the Telegraph's reporting on the BBC bias 'crisis' included the fantastical claim that the right-wing and unabashedly anti-woke History Reclaimed website is a legitimate arbiter either of historical fact or political balance
November 10, 2025 at 9:10 AM
ICYMI the Telegraph's reporting on the BBC bias 'crisis' included the fantastical claim that the right-wing and unabashedly anti-woke History Reclaimed website is a legitimate arbiter either of historical fact or political balance
An orchestrated right-wing campaign against our public broadcaster is destroying the BBC while our supposedly left-leaning government with its massive majority either sits on its hands or cheers on the vandals
November 10, 2025 at 7:56 AM
An orchestrated right-wing campaign against our public broadcaster is destroying the BBC while our supposedly left-leaning government with its massive majority either sits on its hands or cheers on the vandals
wondering how many seconds Trump can go without mentioning Zohran
November 5, 2025 at 6:47 PM
wondering how many seconds Trump can go without mentioning Zohran
Hilarious to watch Starmer’s allies this morning pretending that they haven’t really heard of Zohran Mamdani
November 5, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Hilarious to watch Starmer’s allies this morning pretending that they haven’t really heard of Zohran Mamdani
Cannot be overstated that the liberal political and media establishment in the UK has spent the past ten users scorching the earth on the left while insisting that the very very best you'll ever get in elected politics is a Starmer/Cuomo type
November 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Cannot be overstated that the liberal political and media establishment in the UK has spent the past ten users scorching the earth on the left while insisting that the very very best you'll ever get in elected politics is a Starmer/Cuomo type
No surprise that the establishment media here in the UK are coming for Mamdani this morning. The boldness of his vision shows up our Labour government for what it is: timid, in hock to wealthy donors, and totally devoid of progressive energy www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
No free bus passes for under 22s, says goverment - BBC News
The Commons Transport Committee recommended scrapping bus fares for young people in August.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 9:28 AM
No surprise that the establishment media here in the UK are coming for Mamdani this morning. The boldness of his vision shows up our Labour government for what it is: timid, in hock to wealthy donors, and totally devoid of progressive energy www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
If you have half an hour to kill this sounds like a great party
November 5, 2025 at 1:20 AM
If you have half an hour to kill this sounds like a great party
An amazing exploration of the fusion of creativity and progressive politics which has inspired so many people, both within and far beyond NYC
watching the Mamdani campaign from afar during the primary, so many things were impressive, among them the incredible work his online video team was doing to spread the message in fun, creative, educational, invigorating ways that spoke to people
this is my story about how they did it
this is my story about how they did it
Selling Zohran | Defector
On a cool Sunday in November, a few days after Donald Trump’s re-election, Zohran Mamdani stood on a street corner in Jamaica, Queens, holding up a hastily drawn cardboard sign that read “DID YOU VOTE...
defector.com
November 4, 2025 at 2:41 PM
An amazing exploration of the fusion of creativity and progressive politics which has inspired so many people, both within and far beyond NYC
Cannot be said often enough that the political figure who inaugurated our age of lawlessness, arbitrary power and authoritarianism was not Donald Trump but Dick Cheney
November 4, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Cannot be said often enough that the political figure who inaugurated our age of lawlessness, arbitrary power and authoritarianism was not Donald Trump but Dick Cheney
Cambridge friends: come join us on Wednesday 12th November for a chat with Jim Zirin - lawyer, talk show host, and author of PLAINTIFF IN CHIEF: A PORTRAIT OF DONALD TRUMP IN 3500 LAWSUITS. Tickets free but going fast - here's the link www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/events/autoc...
Autocracy in America: Law and Politics in the Second Trump Administration
James D. Zirin, lawyer, author and talk-show host, explores the upheavals in American law and politics since the January inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
www.alumni.cam.ac.uk
November 3, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Cambridge friends: come join us on Wednesday 12th November for a chat with Jim Zirin - lawyer, talk show host, and author of PLAINTIFF IN CHIEF: A PORTRAIT OF DONALD TRUMP IN 3500 LAWSUITS. Tickets free but going fast - here's the link www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/events/autoc...