SSE in the media Jan – Feb 2026
National and international coverage for SSE's academics and researchers across a range of media, from media, to online, to national broadcasters and press outlets.
Matthew Barnfield spoke on Greatest Hits Radio on Sunday 8 Feb about the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal, and he wrote a piece for The Conversation about what is and isn’t at risk for Reform UK in taking in Conservative defectors.
Jean-Francois Drolet spoke to Fred Harter about Reform's ICE-style deportation strategy in the Observer.
Leslie James appeared on the New Books Network podcast, speaking about her new book ‘The Moving Word: How the West African and Caribbean Press Shaped Black Political Thought, 1935-1960’.
Richard Johnson spoke on CNN on the Death of Jesse Jackson and ICE protests, and made numerous radio appearances, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s 'Today in Parliament' about political defectors, on BBC radio 5’s Matt Chorley Show about Andy Burnham, on BBC local radio on Labour NEC blocking Andy Burnham, and appeared on LBC’s Drivetime with Tom Swarbrick. He also contributed to the i newspaper’s 'Trump's menacing operation to bury the Epstein files for ever'.
Richard also appeared on the Politico Podcast Westminster Insider podcast on Labour regicide, The Spectator Podcast: Coffee House Shots podcast on political faithfuls/traitors, the Better Known Podcast where he made an appearance with Lee Evans, and continued to produce the Since Attlee & Churchill podcast.
Richard wrote four articles 'What does history tell us about treachery in British politics?' in the Telegraph, Nigel Farage's Shadow Cabinet for the Conversation, and 'Sacking Wes Streeting would only make Starmer more vulnerable', and 'Angela Rayner is now Keir Starmer’s greatest threat' for Unherd.
Niharika Pandit spoke to the independent online publication, The Contrapuntal about her new book ‘Occupying the Everyday’ for the article ‘A Feminist Reckoning with Kashmir’s Militarization’
Elke Schwarz’s piece ‘Tech Venture capital and the hype of war’ was published in Tech Policy and was also translated into Portuguese for Jacobin. Truthout drew extensively drawn on her research for ‘Venture Capitalists Are Using Profits From Genocide to Fund AI-Powered Weapons’, and The FT's startup publication "Sifted" quoted Elke from a discussion on Palantir as a model for European startups. Elke was quoted in the Observer in a piece on Palmer Luckey, and she wrote a piece on Anthropic and the Pentagon for the Conversation.
Andrew Smith was interviewed for a France24 article on President Macron's controversial appointment of his former Budget Minister to higher office, and he appeared on France24, speaking political violence in Lyon as a hotspot for 'political violence', ahead of a far-right rally.