Welcome to Ukania

This weekly newsletter will cover a range of issues related to the state of the United Kingdom, its nations and regions. Ukania, a term originally coined by the late Tom Nairn, seems to me the best description of our post-Brexit trauma, in a failing state where things don’t seem to work any more. You don’t have to sign up fully to Tom Nairn’s view of history and national development, and I don’t, to find the term Ukania useful. The traumas of Austerity, Brexit, and Covid - the great ABC of crises - have accelerated and compounded long-term problems of the state. This crisis has been a long time coming.

We need to map those challenges and build hope for a better future, which will obviously demand, among other things, a more resilient state ready to address the climate crisis. So my posts will touch on challenges to public leadership as well as the state of the country.

I will also write occasionally about the governance and regulation of Big Tech. I’ve published on this in academic journals and collections, as well as my book on Facebook, but the timescales of academic publishing run far behind the need for political intervention.

Posts will draw on my research, my teaching, and my political experience over time.

While I will seek to post more widely under the main theme, I am also starting a sub-theme, Once upon a time in Wales, with a focus on the subject of my next book, the history of the Government of Wales. Again I intend to post weekly about that as I develop my work.

I do not currently have plans to charge for the newsletter, which at this stage (April 2024) is an adjunct to my academic work.

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