Tommaso Sabbatini
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tommsabb.bsky.social
Tommaso Sabbatini
@tommsabb.bsky.social
Writer, music historian, volunteer lock-keeper. Pour le pain, la paix, la liberté.
Book: liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9780197267738; https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/98059
Pinned
19th-Century Music special film issue just dropped! 🥳🥳🥳🥳
With an article by yours truly on Louise — the Charpentier opera and the Gance film.
(Let me know if you are interested but don't have access!)

online.ucpress.edu/ncm/issue/48...
Volume 48 Issue 1-2 | 19th-Century Music | University of California Press
online.ucpress.edu
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
I'm old enough to remember (I'm over one year old) when we were all told to shut up about labour's left wing credentials because the renters rights and employment rights bills were on the way. how are those going lxds? how are my rights looking?
NEW: The UK Government have abandoned plans to give workers day-one protection against unfair dismissal in a bid to ensure it’s Employment Rights Bill makes it through Parliament 👇
Labour scrap day-one protection from unfair dismissal manifesto pledge in U-turn
www.thenational.scot
November 27, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Les actes du colloque “Chanter sur l’air de…” sont en ligne. Édités par les Publications numériques du CÉRÉdI, sous la dir. de M. Belly, J. le Blanc, B. Porot, A. Tacaille & J. Vignes, avec la collaboration de C. Sicard, ils sont disponibles à l’adresse : publis-shs.univ-rouen.fr/ceredi/1771....
Chanter sur l’air de… Usages et pratiques des timbres du Moyen Âge à nos jours | Sommaire
publis-shs.univ-rouen.fr
November 27, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
[email protected] on what really went wrong at the BBC: “Just as Gaza has proved to be a place where the failings of Western political institutions are exposed, the BBC has itself come unstuck.”
Inside the BBC’s Gaza Fiasco • EQUATOR
How the world’s most trusted media organisation fell apart
www.equator.org
November 20, 2025 at 11:00 PM
I wrote a book about féerie, thé highly spectacular, music-heavy, unabashedly commercial French stage genre, at the fin de siècle. Singing vegetables, space travel, and it's free to download, what's not to like?
library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...
November 27, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Obviously this government are wantonly reckless and idiotic and their treatment of universities, and see this as a disciplining of an out of touch elite.
But what all of this unwillingness to intervene means is that a critical industry will collapse and a lot of ordinary people will be unemployed.
"A system built on specialisation, efficiency", that right there is the death knell for the current university system in the UK, if (big if) government pushes it through. They actively don't want HE to grow, they will intervene, apparently, to help it shrink.

per this morning's education committee.
November 25, 2025 at 12:51 PM
👇🏻
"A system built on specialisation, efficiency", that right there is the death knell for the current university system in the UK, if (big if) government pushes it through. They actively don't want HE to grow, they will intervene, apparently, to help it shrink.

per this morning's education committee.
November 25, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
"Reform would be worse" is both entirely correct and entirely irrelevant until polling day 2029. What matters right now is that Labour's approach is morally repugnant on its own terms, *and is empowering Reform*. As things stand today, its not Labour or Reform. Its Labour *then* Reform.
While it feels like I'm repeatedly slamming my head against a brick wall repeating this massively simple concept. Saying "Reform would be worse" doesn't make what Labour is doing better. Labour is now the most anti-immigration, anti-any marginalised group, government we have seen in decades. 1/
Very long thread: As with many of Labour's anti-immigration policies, this isn't new. British police have been stationed in other countries for this purpose for a long time
It does however show how Labour is pushing more on anti-immigration than previous governments. 1/
www.lbc.co.uk/article/shab...
November 22, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Cute overload! 🥹
Seal cam is here!

Watch the daily lives of England's largest grey seal colony as pupping season takes place this winter.

Thousands of pups will be born over the coming weeks and you can see it all unfold LIVE on YouTube. Tune in now: buff.ly/MF2t3OS

Photo: Rob Coleman
November 21, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
🚨 En ce moment à Paris, sous la ligne 2, des identitaires britanniques font le tour des campements de personnes exilées, afin de créer du contenu pour les réseaux sociaux. Sur fond de propos racistes, l’objectif est clair : alimenter la peur et la haine chez leurs compatriotes.
November 20, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Help! @frenchhistory.bsky.social really wanted this for journal cover next year (we’ve got exciting things coming on quantitative and computational methods) but it’s a challenge finding higher res versions/rights holder.
Do YOU have suggestions to track these down OR alternative, similar images? 🙏🏻 🗃️
November 20, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
L’indignité. La vraie. Afin de continuer à recevoir des financements britanniques, la France ne sait plus quoi inventer pour tenter de faire cesser les traversées de la Manche à la frontière franco-britannique, au risque de mettre encore plus en danger les personnes.
November 19, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
‘The sections of “Restoring Order and Control” that mention children are chilling, suggesting that many asylum seekers bring their children not because they love and care for them but as a “fact” to “exploit ... in order to thwart removal”.’

Christopher Bertram:

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...
Christopher Bertram | ‘Core Protection’
Refugeehood is not supposed to be like this. The ideal envisaged by the Refugee Convention is that refugee status should...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 8:15 PM
The fact that the person defending Labour is someone who reposts homophobic, AI-generated anti-Trump memes is almost too perfect to be true.
You care about your fellow human beings? GROW UP.
We’ll see how that comment looks when we have a reform government. I’ll pass you hankies as you watch them all dragged to their boats and planes. You’ll come over all Corbyn, This is an abomination as they are just SENT BACK! It’s not too late to grow up
November 19, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
These are the voters that Labour strategists have made very clear over a long period of time that they don't want any more, and it's a message that has now been heard
I've been out canvassing quite a lot in London lately. Labour's vote has absolutely evaporated.... it is quite extraordinary to go to places where Labour were on 50-60% of the vote at the last locals and find nobody, or virtually nobody, supporting them.

The phrase 'I voted Labour last time, but...
November 18, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Rob's anecdote is backed by council by-election results. Labour's support has collapsed. Next May will be a bloodbath.
I've been out canvassing quite a lot in London lately. Labour's vote has absolutely evaporated.... it is quite extraordinary to go to places where Labour were on 50-60% of the vote at the last locals and find nobody, or virtually nobody, supporting them.

The phrase 'I voted Labour last time, but...
November 18, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Looking forward to a debate on EU nationals where Labour say we're filthy foreigners, but we're mostly white; Reform says we're mostly white, but we're filthy foreigners; Labour caves in and puts us in camps; and Polly Toynbee writes an opinion piece about how nice it is they banned plastic straws.
Reform’s plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims – UK politics live
Reform’s plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims – UK politics live
As Reform announces what it claims are £25bn in savings through cuts, Labour says ‘Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up’ Good morning. Yesterday, as the government announced drastic plans to curb the number of asylum seekers able to stay in the UK, it was accused of adopting the politics of Reform UK, the anti-immigration party with a big lead in the opinion polls. In response, ministers argued that Labour would be doing even worse if it just ignored the legitimate concerns of voters who are supporting Nigel Farage’s party. But, when mainstream parties move on to the territory of the more extreme parties, they often respond with a further lurch to the right, and we will see an example of that today. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference where he is going to announce proposals that cover immigration and the budget (the other huge announcement preoccupying Westminster politics at the moment). As Peter Walker reports, Farage will propose spending cuts which he clams would save £25bn a year. The virtual elimination of all foreign aid spending. Currently aid spending runs at almost £14bn a year, but Reform would slash this to £1bn. Removing the right of EU nationals living in the UK to claim benefits, which Reform UK says would save £6bn. Increasing the cost of the NHS surcharge, the fee paid by non-UK residents when they get a visa to stay in the UK. This would rise form £1,035 to £2,718 a year, which Reform UK says would save £5bn. Nigel Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up, and he’d leave British taxpayers footing a hefty bill. Farage is happy to slap British shoppers with higher prices at the checkouts by risking a trade war with Europe. He’d betray working people and hammer British businesses who want to trade with the EU. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
My Nan had a fairly extensive care and medication schedule when she came out of hospital. Pages of stuff to do and not do. My sis in her wisdom asked AI to summarise. It was nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. It missed out some vital stuff and added in others. Just read it kids.
November 17, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Oh, no, I've chosen the alternative to socialism and turns out it's barbarism? Who could have predicted that?
November 17, 2025 at 11:21 AM
No idea who this is, but he does the same thing that Mahmood did on Kuenssberg: he is asked a question on refugees, *does not answer* and delivers his prepared talking points on ‘illegal immigration’ (a different subject!) instead. Journalists need to challenge this.
So you've come to the UK fleeing war or persecution, you're granted refugee status, you live here for 18 years during which time you build a life, career and family, and then the govt deems the country you came from safe and deports you.
November 17, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
An absolute 🤯 at every level
November 16, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
I predicted this. So did lots of other people who paid the tiniest amount of attention. Weird how none of them have jobs explaining politics to the public, and it's all these people performing uncomprehension and amazement for the camera instead.
“on article 8 of the ECHR in particular the right to family life ..we want to constrain in legislation the way that that is applied in immigration cases” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood tells Sky’s Trevor Philips

Who would have imagined we would ever hear this from a Labour government
November 16, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposting for no particular reason.
-56 net popularity is Macron territory but of course the man to beat is François Hollande (-66).
November 16, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Tommaso Sabbatini
Today is not the day to argue "oh so you want Reform to win then" as an argument for Labour's indefensible and inhumane anti-asylum policies. At least be honest and own that you're defending racist policies promoted with genuinely far right talking points. Don't try and pretend this is "progressive"
November 16, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Be a chad like Fridtjof Nansen, protect refugees!
November 15, 2025 at 8:09 PM