Three months ago, Andy Burnham’s desk was filled with the business of running Greater Manchester. Buses. Housing. Policing. This mayoral region in the north of England is home to 3 million people and Burnham, a former minister in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has been its mayor for nearly a decade.

But after a whirlwind ten weeks, Burnham is due to travel to Buckingham Palace on July 20 to meet King Charles, who will appoint him as Britain’s next prime minister.

At the heart of Burnham’s plans for power lies Manchesterism, a political philosophy that centres on giving cities and towns outside London more political control. It’s about devolution, rooted in a sense of place, and culture. Burnham has also described it as “business-friendly socialism”.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we explore how running Greater Manchester shaped Andy Burnham’s politics with researchers Kirsty Fairclough and Philip Brown. They assess what Burnham achieved as mayor and discuss whether a philosophy designed around one city can work on a national level for the UK.

Brown, who interviewed Burnham for The Conversation in 2017, says that England is one of the most centralised countries in the world. “Almost everything like tax, housing, transport, health, they’re all controlled from the centre, from Westminster,” says Brown, a professor of housing and communities at the University of Huddersfield.

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Burnham pointed to hyper-centralisation as a root cause of England’s problems. Nearly a decade on, Brown says Burnham’s views on devolution have “hardened into a fully formed political philosophy for him”.

This episode is part of a series exploring how the northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. The series considers what has been dubbed Manchesterism might mean for the future of the UK.

Fairclough, a professor of screen studies at Manchester Metropolitan University and expert on Manchester’s culture, thinks that as mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham understood that culture was an essential part of the city and its identity. “People don’t simply vote based on economic indicators, they want to feel part of and proud of the place that they call home,” she says.

If Burnham does carry that philosophy on into national politics, she says “then I think Manchesterism becomes less about Manchester itself and about recognising that culture is fundamental infrastructure. It’s not the icing on the cake once everything else has been paid for.”

Listen to Fairclough and Brown on The Conversation Weekly podcast.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from Sky News, BBC News, Guardian News and Channel 4 News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Kirsty Fairclough is a member of the Greater Manchester Music Commission, set up by Andy Burnham. Philip Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/manchester-the-city-powering-andy-burnham-the-uks-incoming-prime-minister/

A new independent film called the People’s Emergency Briefing has been screened more than 1,400 times across the country in recent months. The 50-minute documentary, hosted by TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham, reviews and critiques the UK’s handling of the climate and nature crisis. After screenings, prompts given by the local screening host facilitate conversations that encourage the audience to debate and assess action plans among themselves.

Designed to resonate with people who have tuned out of conventional climate messaging, this film stems from the national emergency briefing on climate and nature that was presented to more than 1,200 MPs and influential leaders at Westminster in November 2025.

The film’s hardest job is not making people understand the climate crisis. Agreeing there’s a problem isn’t enough to trigger tangible change. The film’s success depends on leaving viewers feeling mobilised, not passive. There is a risk that in-depth discussions replaces a meaningful emergency response.

At the four screenings we attended (in a punk rock venue, a church hall, a community centre and a university lecture theatre), audiences agreed that someone else – like another generation or politician – should be watching this. This repetition from viewers to “inform the masses” shifts the call to action from active participation to passive viewership. It’s not about what was viewed, but who was present.

This predictable response is not a failure of the film, rather an outcome of how the public reacts to this type of information. Understanding why it happens is more important than assigning blame.

Through a series of vignettes, the film guides the audience along high-level issues from various positions: ecological, health, security and economy.

Read more:
What we told UK leaders about climate and nature at a national emergency briefing

The film is designed to change behaviour. It turns a distant, unseen threat into something tangible, concrete and nearby. People respond to specific and visible stimuli, not the wide-angle abstraction of climate change. For example, the film shows a graph of spikes in carbon dioxide concentrations since the industrial revolution. This highlights how the stable climate that has allowed civilisation to flourish is quickly untangling.

There’s precedent for visualisation leading to shifts in policy promoting positive environmental action. The gruesome removal of a plastic straw from a turtle’s nose inspired retailers to switch to paper straws, a bottom-up approach which led to formalised legislation.

On a much larger scale, images of a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica used in the media helped make an abstract chemistry problem more relatable to the public. Growing awareness of the problem led to the fastest introduction of an environmental treaty in history, the 1987 Montreal protocol, which phased out the chemicals destroying the ozone layer, putting it on a path to recovery.

People act when they have the tools to do something, a genuine chance to do it and a reason that motivates them.

The film gives people clear, digestible information about the crisis. Structured discussion that follows every screening can motivate viewers if the tone is deliberately hopeful rather than despairing.

In one example from the film, economist Angela Francis outlines the staggering financial benefits of transitioning to net zero. She highlights that the narrative of net zero’s financial burden is driven by those who stand to lose the most, the fossil fuel industry itself.

In another, Lt General Richard Nugee, reports that when farmers are economically burdened they can be recruited by terrorist organisations, which in turn effects food prices for the UK citizen. To make Britian safer, if the government improves legistation for clean energy, the country belong less reiliant on foregin oil.

The blame game

The gap between what the film encourages and what audiences actually do is a form of moral licensing. Watching the film and joining the discussion can serve as a symbolic moral act, allowing viewers to feel engaged without making real behaviour changes. People are drawn to defend approaches that are familiar to their beliefs, as these values feel more stable, safe and predictable than change.

In a climate context, this means some people justify high-impact decisions by relying on their previous eco-friendly actions.

The film shows eco-conscious parents recognising their environmental footprint and accepting extreme heat – yet they insist their own children deserve energy-intensive air conditioning. This mindset reinforces the very patterns the film aims to challenge. We need to look beyond the solutions we have always depended on, and approach the issue with a wider systematic mindset – that hinges on stopping doing what we have always done while expecting a different result.

Read more:
The UK’s year of climate U-turns exposes a deeper failure

The film suggests solutions like contacting MPs to improve environmental laws, but unintentionally shifts blame away from viewers to external entities. This displacement allows viewers to recognise their role in the crisis while implying that action lies with others, enabling them to feel somewhat accountable without compromising their sense of identity. Essentially, they think, “I am part of the solution because I am informed.”

In the screenings we attended, discussions frequently descended into debates over who should take action, resulting in a lack of personal commitments or consensus. This demonstrates that merely bringing people together does not address generational resentment. In fact, it can often intensify it. To effectively transition from talk to action, there needs to be a definitive next step that yields tangible results, rather than just good intentions.

Global action

Policy-based solutions are far more complex than shifts in personal lifestyle or community-based action. Any policy changes are often dictated by economic incentive and a tendency for short-term solutions in line with voting cycles. The Montreal protocol succeeded not because nations were concerned about the ozone layer, but because the cost-benefit lined up.

In contrast, the Kyoto protocol, a landmark treaty introduced in 1997 by the UN, stalled largely because it placed legally binding cuts to greenhouse gas emissions on developed nations but not on developing ones. This led to several major emitters dropping out of the agreement, mostly due to the perceived net loss of participation.

Meanwhile the UN’s Paris climate agreement softened the ask even more: suggesting nations volunteer pledges, on the assumption that peer pressure is a substitute for personal gain. Now, parties are falling short of even their own modest targets, with little sign that reputational pressure can close the gap.

That’s moral licensing at the treaty level: pledging substitutes for stronger commitments. At the community level, goodwill isn’t enough without structural support, like a council commitment or visible local stakes, to drive real change.

This begs the question, what can you do? To start, you should go see the film. Bring your friends, tell your neighbour and write to your MP. When the conversation starts, try exploring solutions that take you out of your comfort zone, and redirect any mention of blame towards actionable suggestions.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/new-climate-film-triggers-debate-heres-how-to-make-those-conversations-constructive/

Nigeria is grappling with banditry, kidnapping and insurgency amid renewed debates over community policing and the creation of state police. A Nollywood classic released more than 25 years ago remains strikingly relevant today.

Released in 1999, Issakaba was inspired by the real-life Bakassi Boys vigilante movement. It became one of Nollywood’s defining films, attracting audiences in Nigeria and across West Africa. The story centres on a community overwhelmed by violent crime and let down by an ineffective police force. When a vigilante group steps in to restore order, its success comes at the cost of operating outside the law. The film anticipated many of today’s debates about security, state authority and citizenship.

I research Nigerian theatre, film and popular culture, with a focus on how media and performance shape ideas about politics, governance and citizenship.

In my recent research on Issakaba, I analysed the film as a cultural text to examine how it represents justice, state authority and vigilantism. Rather than simply depicting crime and insecurity, the film explores the relationship between security, citizenship and the state. My analysis shows that it does more than dramatise crime fighting: it reveals how citizens negotiate legitimacy, justice and political authority when the state struggles to provide security.

My research drew on historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe’s work on power, violence and governance in postcolonial Africa. His work suggests that political authority is often fragmented and exercised through multiple centres of power rather than solely through formal state institutions. This helps explain why Issakaba portrays vigilante groups as acquiring legitimacy when the state is unable to provide security.

The film remains relevant because many of the conditions that gave rise to the Bakassi Boys persist. Across Nigeria, persistent insecurity has fuelled the emergence of vigilante groups like Amotekun, Ebube Agu and the Civilian Joint Task Force. Communities turn to these groups when they believe state security institutions have fallen short.

In many respects, the frustrations with state security that Issakaba captured in south-eastern Nigeria are now evident across other parts of the country.

Nollywood as a storyteller of governance

Nollywood is more than one of the world’s largest film industries. It is one of Africa’s most influential cultural industries. The films it produces contribute to public conversations about politics, justice and public life.

I found that Issakaba transformed the wave of armed robbery, violent crime and public distrust of the police that gripped south-eastern Nigeria in the late 1990s into a compelling political narrative. It did not present governance as an abstract concept. Instead, the film asks a practical question: who deserves public trust when the state can no longer guarantee security?

In the film, legitimacy depends less on formal authority than on performance. The vigilante heroes are portrayed as legitimate because they succeed where official institutions fail. Rather than presenting constitutional authority as the basis of legitimacy, the film suggests that governments earn public trust by protecting lives and property. Put simply, in times of crisis, people often judge governments more by whether they can provide security than by whether they possess formal authority.

Issakaba‘s appeal reflected more than its action-packed storytelling. It emerged at a time when many Nigerians were frustrated by rising insecurity and what they perceived as the failure of state security institutions. In the film, justice is presented as immediate and community-centred. The vigilante group identifies suspected criminals, acts swiftly against them, and restores order where the police have failed. At the same time, the film invites viewers to consider the ethical tension between effective security and the rule of law.

The film therefore offers an important insight into governance. Citizens judge institutions not only by their legal authority but also by their capacity to solve everyday problems. When governments are perceived as unable to provide security, alternative actors can acquire public legitimacy. This can happen even when their methods raise profound legal and ethical concerns.

My analysis also shows that Issakaba presents citizenship as an active rather than passive relationship with the state. Faced with insecurity, communities do not simply wait for government intervention. They organise, mobilise and participate in their own protection. This reflects broader realities across Nigeria and many African societies, where citizens frequently rely on collective action when public institutions appear inadequate.

At the same time, the film exposes a fundamental dilemma. If citizens lose confidence in formal institutions, should they support alternative systems of justice? The real-life history of the Bakassi Boys illustrates the risks of doing so. Human rights organisations documented allegations of torture, unlawful detention and extrajudicial killings linked to the movement. This demonstrates how groups established to protect communities can themselves become sources of abuse when accountability is absent.

Why the film still matters today

The questions raised by Issakaba remain remarkably relevant. Nigeria continues to face insecurity in many regions. Vigilante groups have emerged in response to banditry, kidnapping and communal violence. At the same time, policymakers continue to debate reforms, including the creation of state police forces under the control of individual state governments, as a way of strengthening local security.

More than 25 years after its release, Issakaba reminds us that public confidence in government depends not only on legal authority but also on the state’s ability to provide security effectively, fairly and in accordance with the rule of law. As Nigeria continues to debate policing reforms, Issakaba offers a timely reminder that security without accountability carries its own dangers.

Mark Tekena does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/issakaba-what-a-1999-nollywood-classic-reveals-about-nigerias-security-crisis-today/

Across Ghana, thousands of children start formal schooling every year full of promise. Yet many struggle to master basic reading and numeracy skills in the early grades.

Six in ten Primary 4 pupils in Ghana perform below basic proficiency in mathematics and half fall short in English. Primary 4 pupils are students in the fourth year of primary school, usually about 10 years old.

As researchers studying what helps young children learn better in Ghana, we wanted to understand something that is often overlooked: the home. Our study sheds new light on the importance of the resources available at home, the involvement of caregivers and the type of family structure.

We found that young children do better in school when their caregivers take an active role in their learning, even in families with fewer resources. The findings suggest that improving school performance in low-income settings may not always require expensive investments.

The early years are critical for children’s development. Skills acquired during kindergarten and the first years of primary school form the foundation for future learning. Children who struggle during these years often find it difficult to catch up later.

Home is where learning starts

In low-income countries, education discussions often focus on school resources and teachers. Learning does not begin and end in the classroom, however. Research has shown that learning begins long before a child goes to school, and caregivers are children’s first and most influential teachers.

Read more:
Parents who believe their children can have a better future are more likely to read and play with them – South African study

The home environment, including what children do after school and how caregivers support learning, plays a critical role.

Caregivers don’t always know what a difference they can make to their children’s learning, though, particularly if they have limited education themselves.

Parental involvement in early education thus remains relatively limited in Ghana.

Home and school in Ghana

The study collected data from 3,742 children aged 4-8 years in Kindergarten 1 to Primary 1. Pupils were sampled from 62 public and private schools in the Greater Accra and Central regions.

We examined several home-related factors, including household resources (books, toys, information technology devices and so on), caregiver engagement (reading to children or helping with homework), and family structure (living with parents).

Children’s academic performance was assessed using grade-specific workbooks aligned with the Ghana Education Service curriculum. We tested literacy, numeracy and reasoning skills appropriate for the three grade levels:

• simple matching activities, such as shapes, letters, animals, and picture halves (Kindergarten 1)

• matching, counting, identifying patterns, and selecting odd items (Kindergarten 2)

• matching, basic arithmetic, shape recognition, word formation, picture sequencing, identifying living and non-living things, and colour-by-number activities (Primary 1).

Not surprisingly, children from better-resourced households tended to perform better academically. Homes with books, toys or digital devices offer more opportunities for learning.

But what caregivers did at home significantly affected children’s learning.

Children whose caregivers read with them or helped with homework scored 9% higher on tests than children whose caregivers were not engaged, after accounting for factors like age, grade, and home resources. These interactions with caregivers likely stimulate children and help them practice what they learn in school.

Children in first grade scored higher than children in kindergarten, and the differences by grade were even greater for pupils whose caregivers were actively involved in their learning.

Read more:
Thinking aloud: what happens when children read for pleasure in classroom clubs

Reading with children was especially helpful in Kindergarten. Combining reading with helping with homework had the strongest positive association with performance in Primary 1.

Caregiver engagement partly explained why children from better-resourced households performed better. It also bridged the gap between resource-rich and resource-poor homes. This means that even in homes with limited resources, caregiver involvement can support learning.

Does family structure matter?

Children from single-parent households are sometimes expected to be disadvantaged in school. Our study, however, found no direct link between family structure and children’s academic performance. Children in two-parent, single-parent, or other living arrangements performed similarly once home resources and caregiver engagement were considered.

In sub-Saharan Africa, extended family systems often play an important role in child-rearing. Grandparents, aunts and older siblings may all contribute to a child’s learning, when a parent is absent.

Implications for policy and practice

Programmes aimed at improving early learning should not focus solely on schools. They should also provide practical guidance to caregivers on supporting children’s learning at home.

Read more:
Sharing picture books with kids can make them smarter and more attentive

Interventions do not need to be expensive. Encouraging caregivers to ensure a capable household member reads with children, talks about school, and monitors homework could have meaningful benefits.

Initiatives that empower families to be part of children’s development have the potential to yield lasting benefits for children, schools and society.

Pearl S. Kyei received a research grant from the International Growth Centre that funded the survey used in this analysis.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/what-helps-young-children-learn-adults-who-take-an-interest-in-their-homework-and-reading/

Set in a suburban America, Avni Doshi’s new novel centres around an unnamed protagonist who thinks her world and her sense of self are stable. She knows herself and all that is to come in her life. She’s followed the pre-determined path of being a wife and a mother. She believes she has a marriage that is forever and a house that is safe. Hers is an identity that has already been carved in stone – or so she thinks.

However, First House starts with the ending of her marriage, something she did not see coming despite clear issues. This ending also marks the beginning of something the protagonist could never have imagined: her unravelling.

In astrology, the first house is the sign of self, the centre of one’s identity. This is where we begin the journey to finding our place in the world, where we belong, and who we really are. It is in the first house that we meet Doshi’s unnamed protagonist, herself a practising astrologist.

When her husband decides to leave her, suddenly she must start all over again and carve a new life. With this comes the discovery of a new identity and persona. But she has to fall apart first to find who she really can be.

The second part of the novel is a reckoning with who she was, and what she has become. She is folded back into her Indian parent’s lives once again, and back into the family home. Here she realises that this first house, the house where she was born and grew up, shaped her immeasurably.

What really is a marriage? This is a question that haunts her. Is it the marriage of her parents? Is it her father’s indifference to her mother, and her mother’s insecurities and feelings of emptiness?

There is a familiarity in her descriptions of the way marriages become an obligation in certain cultures, where secrets roam silent in the chasm between a couple, where people stay together forever because they are expected to, and where love does not exist in the ravines of loneliness.

In such marriages so many children, much like Doshi’s protagonist, grow up with a vision of married life where love does not matter, believing they do not need to love in order to stay married. These children grow up not even understanding love.

Here “marriage is a solution” and intimacy is merely “living alongside another body”. When home lives do not offer safety, these children grow up looking to be rescued, seeking safety at any cost, and “in exchange for any sacrifice”.

Carving a new life

And, finally in part three of the book, we see the embryo of a new identity emerging.

There are many books about divorce, about the liberation and freedom of separation, about marriage as an anti-feminist establishment. But there are very few good books about the unravelling of a marriage and the disintegration of a mind; this is one of them.

First House is about a woman who believed it was forever, who was given this “dream” and held fast to it. This is a woman who did not learn how to trust her own instincts or know her own desires. And even when she did, she pushed them away, buried them somewhere where they wouldn’t prod her or remind her of their existence.

She is a mother who loves her children, but did not want to have children. A wife who wants to stay married but is increasingly irritated by her husband, and imagines him dead or absent so she can be alone. But despite this, she chooses to stay married, and to have children, to continue the pretences of the roles she so despises.

These are the paradoxes that make this novel so potent: a fever-dream interspersed with myths and legends, with stories of cicadas who mate and die, of the way we somehow manage to decimate the very core of our own identity. There is a suffocation in the words, enveloping the reader like the putrid fragrance of a summer evening, when the heat becomes unbearable and the skin too clammy to touch.

Doshi’s writing is visceral and haunting, with a paradoxical weightiness in message and lightness in delivery. This is a story of finding love, desire and connection with our own selves. It is also the story of a woman who has to go mad and retreat into a yellow wallpapered room to discover that she is most comfortable with the burdens of her own body and mind – even when she was forced to dismiss and abandon the cry of her own longing for herself. This short book is intense but makes for engrossing reading.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Pragya Agarwal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/first-house-a-visceral-story-about-the-collapse-of-a-perfect-life-and-the-imagining-of-a-new-one/

Warm sticky nights are becoming more and more common in the UK.

Climate change is raising temperatures, but one factor that adds to that is often ignored. Walk down a city street and you see what would have been front gardens a decade or so ago have now been tarmacked over and turned into driveways.

Individually these changes might seem small, but as more and more gardens disappear this increase in hard driveways can alter the way neighbourhoods heat up during the day and cool down at night. It’s an issue that is suddenly on more people’s minds this summer as they struggle to sleep.

According to a UK’s Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) report in 2025, 42% of domestic garden space is now paved over, including 55% of front garden space.

In 2005, only about 8% of UK front gardens were fully paved. By 2015, that figure had tripled to roughly 24%.

Estimates from the RHS suggest there are 20.6 million domestic gardens (front and back) in the UK, covering around 502,757 hectares. The UK’s domestic gardens together cover an area around three times larger than all national nature reserves combined, giving them enormous potential to support wildlife.

Replacing vegetation with hard surfaces also shrinks habitat for plants and wildlife while increasing surface runoff and the risk of flooding.

The desire for more off-street parking may have contributed to this trend. The shift to electric vehicles could have created another incentive to pave front gardens, as goverment grants helped households finance home-charging points.

How paving stokes heat

Impervious surfaces including asphalt (which many driveways are made of) absorbs heat, raising ground and air temperatures. They both absorb up to 95% of incoming solar radiation during the day, reaching surface temperatures of 50-55°C, compared to 27-32°C for grass or tree-covered areas.

During the day, this heat is stored and slowly released after sunset. This is known as the urban heat island effect. The result is warmer night-time air temperatures, particularly during heatwaves. Unlike vegetation, these hard materials have little capacity to cool themselves through evaporation, and are making cities hotter.

This heat island effect can raise cities’ temperatures by 1-3°C compared to surrounding countryside. That’s why it always feels hotter in the city on summer nights.

Read more:
Heatwaves: how to close the UK’s cooling divide

And the result can also cause health problems. The 2018 summer heatwave saw an estimated 399 (of 785) heat-related deaths in the Greater London area attributable to this night-time effect.

Paved front gardens eliminate evaporative cooling (the process by which plants release water vapour), which lowers air temperatures. Plants and trees provide cooling through shading and evapotranspiration (defined as the combined loss of water to the atmosphere through two processes: evaporation and transpiration). In urban environments, green spaces release moisture into the air, which humidifies the atmosphere and significantly reduces air temperature, a mechanism entirely absent in paved areas.

What needs to change?

Changing front driveways back to grass can reduce daytime surface temperatures by 1.5-2.0°C and nighttime temperatures by 0.3-0.5°C. Adding trees doubles the benefit: daytime cooling of 2.0-3.0°C and nighttime reductions of 0.5-1.0°C. Therefore, increasing urban greenery by 10% – particularly planting trees – can lower average air temperatures by around 0.5°C.

Front gardens with plants rather than driveways can also reduce flood risk by absorbing rain, filter air pollutants, support biodiversity and improve mental wellbeing. The RHS estimates that restoring plant cover in one million front gardens could save millions of litres of stormwater run-off annually.

But there are ways to have a driveway that doesn’t create so much heat. London’s De-pave Your Garden campaign offers guidance on replacing concrete with permeable paving, gravel or planting strips, an approach that has since been promoted by London boroughs including Lambeth and Ealing.

Leeds City Council’s front garden design guide encourages householders to retain at least 30% green space.

Other things could help change people’s attitudes to front gardens and their value. Financial incentives, such as council tax rebates for depaving or grants for rain gardens, could accelerate change.

In the future, public policy must recognise private gardens as green infrastructure, not merely private amenities. Updating planning permission rules to encourage a mix of plants and gravel, for instance, would help.

The United Nations identifies urban greenery as a key way to reduce heat in cities. The benefits extend beyond gardens: green roofs and balcony gardens can lower indoor temperatures by up to 11°C.

No single garden will transform a city’s climate, but when thousands of gardens are protected and restored across neighbourhoods, the combined cooling effect would become significant.

As climate projections show more frequent, longer and hotter summers, every square metre of restored vegetation matters. Domestic gardens are frontline defences against intensifying heatwaves.

By not opting for a tarmacked driveway or replanting the existing one, households can help cool their streets, protect vulnerable neighbours and reclaim a piece of Britain’s vanishing green heritage.

Karina Corada-Pérez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/how-the-trend-for-turning-front-gardens-into-driveways-is-adding-to-night-time-heat/

Almost ten years ago – just weeks before he was elected as Greater Manchester’s first metro-mayor – I sat down with Andy Burnham and interviewed him for The Conversation.

Back then he was making the transition from Westminster cabinet minister to regional politician, swapping the shadow front bench for a role that most people at the time considered a consolation prize.

It didn’t look that way for very long.

Read more:
Manchester, devolution and Brexit – Andy Burnham Q&A

Looking back over our conversation, a few things stand out. Firstly, he saw Brexit coming – but not quite in the way people remember.

Before he had been elected mayor, Burnham was already framing the Brexit result as a symptom of England’s hyper-centralisation around London and the M25. Policies made in Westminster, he argued, simply did not speak to communities in Bolton, Leigh or Oldham.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

That analysis has aged well. Look at the geography of the 2024 Reform surge. The communities that swung hardest away from Labour – post-industrial towns like Wigan, where Reform took 24 of the 25 available seats, and Tameside, where they took 18 of 19 – map more or less neatly onto the pattern Burnham described in 2017. He was identifying the problem that would define the next decade of English politics, while others were focused on trade deals.

Andy Burnham Q&A in 2017

His answer at the time was devolution: as a practical mechanism to make policy that worked for specific places. That framing also sat at the core of his pitch for the Labour leadership.

On transport, he delivered

Burnham’s promise to bring Manchester’s buses back under public control was met with scepticism, legal challenge, and considerable institutional resistance.

Bus operators Stagecoach and Rotala fought the franchising plans through the courts. He won in the High Court in 2022. By September 2023, Greater Manchester became the first place in England to reverse bus deregulation after nearly four decades.

The Bee Network was launched. It boasted integrated fares, capped £2 adult single fares, and free travel for 16-18-year-olds. Burnham flagged this in our original interview as a tool for social inclusion.

National satisfaction survey data shows that Greater Manchester saw the largest increase in passenger satisfaction of any area in England in the first full year of the Bee Network, with value for money perceptions rising sharply. It is probably his clearest policy success.

On rough sleeping, the picture is complicated

Burnham pledged to end rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020. He missed that target and said so publicly in late 2019.

The record since has been mixed. Numbers fell from a peak of 268 in 2017 to a low of 89 in 2021, which should be celebrated.

This was driven partly by the national pandemic-era Everyone In policy and partly by Burnham’s own A Bed Every Night scheme, which provides emergency shelter across all ten boroughs.

The Housing First programme, which gives rough sleepers a permanent home immediately with wraparound support – rather than making housing conditional on sobriety or compliance – has supported 426 people since its 2019 launch. Around 78% of those housed were still in their homes 18 months later; a huge outcome for people who tend to have highly complex needs and experiences.

But that trajectory has since reversed. Rough sleeping has risen for four consecutive years, reaching 197 on the official autumn 2025 count. That’s more than double the 2021 low, and edging back toward the 268 recorded when Burnham took office.

This can, though, be partly attributed to national factors like frozen Local Housing Allowance rates, increased evictions from asylum accommodation and unmet health and social care needs.

Those structural explanations play a huge role, but four years of rising figures may lead some to see Burnham’s record of success in more binary terms.

On housing, his powers ran out

Burnham spoke in 2017 about the need for truly affordable homes to rent and criticised the decades-long national obsession with owner-occupation. He wanted to use Greater Manchester’s housing fund to regenerate post-industrial towns in the north of the city region through high-quality residential development. He wanted to target towns like Leigh, his own previous constituency.

But progress was limited for most of his mayoralty. The 2023 Trailblazer devolution deal brought meaningful new powers, £150 million in brownfield funding, local control of the affordable homes programme, and new rights to act against poor-performing private landlords.

But these powers came six years into his tenure. By 2023/24, there were 13,422 social lettings across Greater Manchester, half the number available a decade earlier. There were also over 5,400 households (including nearly 8,000 children) who were living in temporary accommodation.

His pledge to build 10,000 new council homes only came after his third election victory in 2024. The housing crisis deepened on his watch, even if the causes were largely national.

COVID was the making of him nationally

The interview predates the pandemic, but any assessment of Burnham’s mayoralty has to reckon with the Tier 3 stand-off in October 2020. When the government attempted to impose the tightest restrictions on Greater Manchester without adequate financial support, Burnham refused.

He held press conferences outside Manchester Town Hall. He made the argument publicly, repeatedly and in plain English that what was being offered was insufficient and that the city region was being treated as an afterthought.

He was publicly told via social media, mid-press conference, that restrictions would be imposed regardless. It was a textbook illustration of precisely the centralisation problem he had identified in our 2017 interview. That moment did more to build his national political profile than anything else in his nine years as mayor.

Did he make Greater Manchester great?

The Conversation interview we had was never about grand promises. What he spoke about was inclusive growth, economic progress felt across all ten boroughs, not concentrated in the city centre, and a politics of place that could speak to communities London had forgotten.

Greater Manchester’s economy grew faster than the national average throughout Burnham’s mayoralty, though that trajectory was already established before he took office in 2017.

His contribution was to sustain it and to articulate a more explicit theory of inclusive growth, culminating in the £1 billion Good Growth Fund launched in late 2025, which directs investment to priority projects across all ten boroughs. It is too early to assess its impact.

The honest assessment is that Burnham leaves Greater Manchester in a stronger position than he found it on economic and transport measures, and with a clearer policy framework than existed before.

Whether growth has genuinely reached the towns he spoke about in 2017 – places like Bolton, Oldham and Leigh – is a harder question. Although the Good Growth Fund is implicitly an admission that it has not.

None of this provides a perfect or complete record for Burnham. The housing crisis remains, inequality within the city region persists, the northern towns he spoke about in 2017 still face structural challenges that no metro-mayor can solve alone.

But the question he implicitly posed in that interview was whether devolution could be a vehicle for a genuinely different kind of politics, one that starts from the needs of places rather than the priorities of Whitehall.

On that, his answer was yes. The question now is whether Manchesterism can survive the journey to Westminster and whether he can unpick the structural challenges holding the regions back.

Philip Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/andy-burnham-promised-to-change-greater-manchester-almost-ten-years-on-how-did-he-do/

Pollsters recently asked a sample of adults in Britain who they would prefer to win the byelection in Clacton. The rather surprising answers showed that 33% favoured “comedy” candidate Count Binface, compared to just 21% who would back Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

The resignation earlier this month of Farage as MP for the Essex seat triggered the byelection on August 13. According to the Ipsos poll, Count Binface (writer and comedian Jon Harvey is the man under the bin) has nearly a 60% advantage over Farage. But more to the point, 45% of the respondents either want neither candidate to win or don’t know who they prefer.

A separate question asked about satisfaction with the performance of various political leaders. Farage turned out to be rather unpopular. He came second behind Keir Starmer as the most unpopular leader, with 26% of respondents satisfied and 63% dissatisfied with his leadership.

In relation to voting intentions, the Ipsos survey shows that Reform is on 26%, two points ahead of Labour on 24% and eight points ahead of the Conservatives on 18%. The survey also asked about Andy Burnham – 30% thought he would make the best prime minister, while 16% thought this about Farage and 13% about the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.

Comparing these ratings with those from another Ipsos survey conducted in June 2025 shows a dip in support for Reform. At that time, Farage scored 34% satisfied and 49% dissatisfied on the leadership question. And the party scored 34% in voting intentions, with Labour on 25% and the Conservatives on 15%.

So it looks like Burnham could put Labour in prime position in voting intentions when he enters Downing Street. But what might be responsible for this decline in support for Reform?

Four reasons for the Reform slide

Some key issues stand out when it comes to explaining why Reform and its leader are losing support. First, there is the scandal over the party’s finances. The party has received large donations from Bitcoin billionaire Christopher Harborne, who lives in Thailand, including £5 million given to Farage personally. He failed to report the latter to the parliamentary watchdog when he won the Clacton seat in 2024. Farage has stated that it was a personal gift and therefore did not need to be declared.

The regulations state that new MPs “must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election within one month of their election”.

This has undoubtedly damaged the party and its leader. It is a stretch to imagine that working-class voters in the north of England who voted for Reform in the general election will sympathise with a party leader who accepts large sums of money from such sources.

A second problem is that Reform’s narrative that it opposes the “crooked” establishment is looking threadbare. According to the Ipsos poll on Clacton, the party is seen by many voters as being part of the establishment rather than an alternative to it. The poll asked: “Do you think the following political parties are more on the side of the people or more on the side of the establishment?”

Looking at respondents who thought that parties were on the side of the people, 27% thought this about Labour, 13% about the Conservatives, 33% for the Liberal Democrats, 39% for the Greens and 28% for Reform. In contrast, 36% thought that Reform was on the side of the establishment. The party does better than its main rival, the Conservatives, but it is seen as being similar to Labour and more part of the establishment than either the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.

The third reason for Reform’s decline is Farage’s mistake in triggering the byelection in the first place. Voters were asked about this, and altogether 16% thought he was right to resign as an MP and to stand in the contest. But while a further 16% thought he should not have called it, 54% thought he should have resigned and left parliament.

Farage has been accused of calling the byelection to halt the parliamentary investigation into his undeclared gifts. Farage has said it is because he wants the people of Clacton to judge him.

In the survey, respondents were asked if the parliamentary standards committee should investigate whether he broke rules by not declaring the £5 million gift. A total of 74% thought the investigation should continue, with only 14% opposing this.

Finally, there is Farage’s miscalculation about what the other mainstream parties would do in the byelection. From his point of view, the best outcome would have been for them to stand and for Reform to defeat them all. This would have allowed him to argue that the “people” support him even if the “establishment” does not. But the fact that the mainstream parties withdrew, leaving Reform up against what the Telegraph newspaper has called “joke parties” is embarrassing, particularly if they do well.

There is a long history of eccentric candidates standing in byelections as a joke. They differ from small parties and independents by making fun of the whole exercise while seeking publicity. In the 2024 general election Count Binface got 308 votes in the Richmond and Northallerton constituency when he stood as a candidate. He is likely to do better in Clacton and may even win – although this is a long shot, despite Farage’s woes.

The leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony party, Howling Laud Hope, also plans to stand. His party is much older than the Binface party and fielded 22 candidates, winning nearly 6,000 votes in the 2024 general election. It will be interesting to see if he wins more votes than Count Binface.

Politics is no joke, but the participation of these candidates in elections adds to the gaiety. When Reform – which has its sights set on winning the next general election – loses votes to them it suggests that the party is on the slide.

Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/could-count-binface-actually-win/

In January 1924, two young women on a Toronto Queen St. streetcar caught sight of Ernest Hemingway’s battered green hat.

They giggled among themselves that he might be Red Ryan, the city’s fugitive bank robber.

So reported John Hadley in the Toronto Star story “The Freiburg Fedora: Must Wear Hats Like Other Folks If You Live in Toronto” on Jan. 19, 1924. Hadley was Hemingway’s wife’s name, and John, the name of their infant son.
Today, it’s clear that Hemingway wrote the story. Journalist and literary historian William White first collected many of Hemingway’s Toronto Star pieces in Dateline: Toronto (1985).

Journalist William Burrill, author of Hemingway: The Toronto Years (1994), later uncovered some 30 additional long-lost stories, including several written under pseudonyms like John Hadley or Peter Jackson. By cross-referencing Hemingway’s papers at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Burrill demonstrated that “The Freiburg Fedora” was indeed Hemingway’s.

As Burrill notes, Hemingway adopted pseudonyms after reaching his quota with the Star, allowing him to sell additional stories and earn much-needed income for his young family. He first used the John Hadley signature only weeks after the birth of his first son.

With scholars gathering in Toronto in July 2026 to re-examine Hemingway’s Canadian years, “The Freiburg Fedora” offers a compelling opportunity to revisit a neglected moment in Hemingway’s literary development.

Evolution of fiction strategies

The significance of “The Freiburg Fedora” extends beyond its authorship.

Under the guise of Hadley, Hemingway was able to explore the less appealing aspects of himself. The sketch captures him at a pivotal moment when newspaper reporting begins to evolve into literary self-fashioning, anticipating themes and narrative strategies that would later define his fiction.

Although researchers established Hemingway’s authorship of the story decades ago, it has received remarkably little literary attention. During the July 2026 Toronto Hemingway conference, visitors to the Toronto Reference Library (where the Toronto Star collections are held), can see the original newspaper story on display.

The making of an outsider

Hemingway had covered Red Ryan’s escape for the Toronto Star, making the comparison he explored in “The Freiburg Fedora” especially apt. Contemporary newspaper photographs of Ryan wearing a fedora bear a striking resemblance to the young Hemingway.

The “Freiburg Fedora” opens with the wry observation: “There is one thing Toronto demands in clothes. That thing is conformation.” This first-person piece goes on to see “John Hadley” narrate Hemingway’s irritation in being mocked by the two women. Where another traveller might have laughed at the comparison, Hemingway’s alter ego begins to prepare a counterattack.

The story quickly becomes a satire of Toronto itself. On the eve of his return to Paris, Hemingway used the protection of a pseudonym to mock what he presents as the city’s social conformity and provincialism.

The hat is pivotal in this transformation. “John Hadley” never defends its appearance. Instead, he recounts its travels. It has weathered “the hot sun of the Thracian desert,” been worn beneath heavy snow glasses and even landed in “the sunbaked sand of the bull ring.”

The hat becomes almost a passport, bearing the marks of experience rather than fashion. What the Toronto passengers dismiss as an oddity, Hemingway presents as the visible trace of an adventurous life deliberately lived beyond convention. The battered fedora embodies the identity of a young writer consciously fashioning himself as an outsider character.

From streetcar quarrel to literary technique

Recent scholarship has increasingly emphasized the continuities between Hemingway’s journalism and fiction. Marcos Todeschin, for example, argued in his doctoral thesis that Hemingway’s newspaper writing and fiction should be understood as part of the same evolving literary practice. “The Freiburg Fedora” offers one of the clearest examples of that transition.

The fedora story reveals a characteristic that would recur throughout Hemingway’s fiction: the tendency to transform minor social encounters into contests of will. Rather than inviting sympathy, the Hemingway character steadily escalates the exchange through increasingly extravagant claims. He depicts himself as a provocateur who seems almost compelled to intensify the conflict.

He insists the hat was a gift from the late Emperor Charles of Austria, provoking fellow passengers by invoking the recently defeated First World War enemy who had died in exile. This prompts a male passenger to threaten him with “a sock on the jaw.”

At the height of the “Freiburg Fedora” confrontation, Hemingway steps off the streetcar at Queen and Bay streets, announcing that he has “an appointment with the new mayor.” Toronto readers would immediately have recognized the reference. Mayor William Wesley Hiltz had taken office only days earlier.

Whether Hemingway, as a reporter, had business at Old City Hall or simply fashioned a theatrical exit for his first-person narrator is impossible to know. Either way, he leaves the streetcar, and the argument, entirely on his own terms.

From journalism to fiction

“The Freiburg Fedora” introduces a narrative pattern that would become central to Hemingway’s later fiction. Social encounters become tests of will.

“The Freiburg Fedora” displays the irony, character construction and carefully controlled endings that would later distinguish Hemingway’s fiction. The newspaper story begins to assume the shape of literature while Hemingway simultaneously turns himself into an anti-hero of his own autobiographical narrative.

It also overturns the Toronto Star Weekly’s carefully cultivated public image of Hemingway. A staff profile published on May 6, 1922, presented him as a medal-decorated war veteran, who was “tall, dark, of distinguished appearance” and “a general favourite by his ability and his bonhomie.”

A strikingly different self-portrait emerges. Here, Hemingway depicts himself as quarrelsome, provocative and quick to escalate conflict rather than defuse it. Instead of reassuring readers, he leaves confusion in his wake.

Toronto’s lasting legacy

“The Freiburg Fedora” also reshapes understanding of Toronto’s place in literary development.

During his four years with the Toronto Star, Hemingway produced nearly 200 pieces, 170 under his own name plus around 30 with verified pseudonym bylines. These satirical pieces and literary reportage, including many short, character-driven autobiographical sketches, reveal a writer already experimenting with narrative voice, characterization and dramatic conflict.

On the pages of the Toronto Star Weekly, Hemingway also reflected on William Butler Yeats’s Nobel Prize in Literature. In a Nov. 24, 1923, column, he lamented that his literary hero, Joseph Conrad, had not received the honour and observed that “no American author has won the Nobel Prize.”

Three decades later, in 1954, Hemingway himself received it. The Nobel Committee praised him “for his mastery of the art of narrative” and for “the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.”

The foundation for that mastery was laid not only in Paris but also in Toronto.

“The Freiburg Fedora” deserves to be read not simply as an amusing newspaper sketch but as one of the earliest literary examples of Hemingway beginning to invent the writer he would become.

Irene Gammel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/how-a-forgotten-toronto-story-shows-hemingway-beginning-to-invent-himself-as-a-fiction-writer/

With record numbers of runners lacing up to run marathons, more of them will face the infamous experience of “hitting the wall.” Hitting the wall is the phenomenon where runners experience a sudden onset of debilitating fatigue, difficulty keeping pace, and often, a shift away from their goal pace towards surviving until the finish line.

The wall is brought on by a depletion of the body’s energy stores after prolonged physical exertion, often around the 34-kilometre mark of the marathon. While nutrition and pacing may prevent the wall, about 50 per cent of recreational marathon runners, especially novice ones, report being acquainted with this running “rite of passage.”

Even if runners avoid the wall, most runners will experience fatigue and discomfort over the course of a marathon. The fatigue and suffering can feel like an unfair payoff after months of training.

Hitting the wall

I have run 10 marathons and during some, I hit the wall. As an exercise psychology researcher, I was disappointed that I didn’t cope better when I first encountered the wall. My initial response involved typical negative thoughts (for example, I will never finish), emotions (despair, panic) and a desire to quit. Like many other runners do, I tried to distract myself, deny what was happening and suppress my negative thoughts and emotions.

This didn’t work well and research explains why. Such coping strategies can use up cognitive resources, paradoxically increasing rumination and undermining performance.

Since those early marathons, I have learned a lot about mindfulness through my research and teaching at the University of Manitoba. I was able to bring mindfulness to a recent marathon where I was reunited with the wall. This approach offered me an alternative to trying to suppress and control my thoughts and feelings, which allowed me to cope better.

Rather than trying to change what is happening, mindfulness involves changing our relationship with what is happening. When mindful, we intentionally pay attention to and allow whatever is happening, without judgment. Mindfulness allows us to be objective observers of our present experience which creates distance from, rather than entanglement with, our experience.

Using mindfulness to get over the wall

What might it look like to bring mindfulness to the experience of hitting the wall?

1. Observe without judging

Notice the present moment without judgment.
Get curious about what is happening and try not to judge things as good or bad — just observe them. Upon noticing the sudden onset of fatigue, runners may ask themselves, “what does fatigue feel like?”, or “where in my body do I feel fatigue the most?” In answering these questions, runners can maintain objectivity by describing what they feel such as, “my legs feel heavy” instead of inserting judgment (for example, “my legs are shot”). This objective stance may help runners stay present with the experience and not get carried away interpreting and judging what is going on.

This curious and objective noticing can also be applied to thoughts and feelings, which can often become catastrophic when runners hit the wall. A runner may observe themselves thinking, “This is terrible. I will never finish.” They can aim to notice the difference from the discomfort they feel and the stories they tell themselves about this discomfort, which are not absolute truths. By noticing thoughts and feelings, runners are less likely to get carried away by them; mindfulness has been shown to help people cope with dysfunctional thoughts and feelings.

2. Focus on the present

Bring your attention back to the present moment. Runners may also notice when their attention shifts from the present to the past (what they could have done differently) or the future (the entire distance they still must run). When facing the wall, it may help runners to anchor their attention in aspects of the present, such as physiological sensations, the rhythm of their steps or the immediate sights and sounds. The last time I hit the wall, I found it helpful to limit my focus to the kilometre I was running, rather than thinking about those I had yet to run.

3. Accept the present moment

Mindfulness also involves accepting the present moment. For marathon runners, this acceptance can be extended to the discomfort associated with hitting the wall. Given that hitting the wall is common, especially for novice runners, runners can accurately interpret the phenomenon as what happens when the body runs low on energy — rather than some catastrophic sign that all is lost. Phrases like “this is the hard part” or “this is part of running a marathon” may help runners accept rather than ruminate about the wall.

Mindfulness and endurance

While I offer these strategies to marathon runners who hit the wall, they can be applied to the general fatigue and discomfort inherent to any endurance activity. Mindfulness has been associated with many positive outcomes for endurance athletes including flow experiences, mental toughness, improved running economy, reduced catastrophizing about pain and reduced performance deficits.

Furthermore, the benefits of mindfulness have been established broadly, beyond the athlete population.

Much like marathon training, mindfulness is best developed through ongoing training. Runners who regularly practise mindfulness — whether through a daily meditation, everyday mindfulness or both — will more easily apply this skill when needed.

In my experience applying mindfulness to the wall, it did not make the wall go away, but it helped me keep a level head while I approached the rest of my race one kilometre at a time, and ensured I had a good enough experience to sign up for another one!

Shaelyn Strachan receives funding from The Canadian Institutes for Health Research and The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/mindfulness-may-help-marathon-runners-cope-with-hitting-the-wall-3-strategies-for-endurance/

Another tournament, another agonising chapter in English football’s long catalogue of glorious disappointments.

England were dumped out of the World Cup by Argentina following a capitulation that will echo through the annals of English footballing folklore. Having taken the lead just shy of the hour mark, this one really stung.

But the irony is that this late collapse has stitched another thread of continuity into the long tapestry of England’s footballing heritage.

As a researcher of cultural heritage, I’ve always thought of football as so much more than the results on the pitch. Indeed, what makes the beautiful game such a powerful cultural phenomenon are the stories supporters inherit and pass on. The things that connect fans to team.

Long before most people fully understand the tactics or even the rules of the game, they begin learning its narratives. They hear about legendary players, miraculous victories, controversial refereeing decisions and – especially in the case of England – devastating defeats. Over time, these a form a shared cultural inheritance.

This is why football can be understood as a form of living heritage. Heritage is not confined to castles, monuments or museum collections. It also exists in intangible things too like traditions that communities continually recreate and transmit from one generation to the next.

Football support works in precisely this way. Every generation inherits a repertoire of stories before adding new chapters of its own and passing them on again. Football culture is thus sustained by an ongoing conversation between past, present and future.

These stories have a vital cultural function. They create identities by giving supporters – and players – a shared understanding of who they are. They bind strangers into communities through common memories and references. And they provide continuity, allowing football cultures to evolve without losing their sense of themselves.

Football matches come and go. The stories endure. It is those stories, continually retold and reinterpreted, that transform football from entertainment into one of Britain’s most powerful forms of living heritage.

Nowhere is this clearer than in England’s relationship with its men’s national team and in the never ending quest for football to finally “come home”. England’s defining story is not simply one of repeated failure, but of a peculiar cycle in which hope and disappointment continually reproduce one another.

Each generation inherits the emotional landmarks of previous tournaments. Of course there is the totemic memory of 1966 when England won the World Cup at Wembley Stadium. But the country’s subsequent experiences of heartbreak loom even larger in the collective imagination.

They are painfully memorable. Gazza’s tears in Turin in 1990 when a yellow card in a semi meant Paul Gascoigne wouldn’t be able to play in the final. The various penalty shoot-out defeats, and the unfulfilled promise of the “golden generation” of England’s 2006 World Cup team. And of course, the recent near misses under Gareth Southgate, as England have contrived to find ever more creative ways to miss out on a second major trophy.

Crucially, this tragic inheritance has not produced a culture of resignation or cynicism. Instead, every tournament begins with the same familiar ritual. Supporters convince themselves that the draw has opened up, that this squad is different, that this manager has found the answer. They do so partly in earnest and partly with a knowing smile, fully aware there is likely heartbreak to come.

For all the criticism it attracts – particularly abroad as an expression of arrogance in England’s self-perception as founder and home of modern football – the idea of football coming home is actually couched in a deep self-awareness. It is an expression of belief against the evidence, of an ability to hope despite knowing how the story will end.

In this way, England’s Sisyphean quest to finally bring football home is the narrative engine that animates the country’s footballing culture. England’s footballing living heritage is the repeated performance of hoping against hope – the willingness, however irrationally, to believe that this might finally be the year.

Each near miss, each cruel twist, becomes another story to be woven into a shared mythology that gives England fandom its remarkable continuity. The national footballing identity has never been forged by glory, but by a collective experience of its doomed pursuit of a second major trophy. The 60 years of hurt has become home.

So, as I try to emotionally recover from England’s latest heartbreak, I can take some comfort in the idea that this defeat has at least sustained a crucial continuity at the heart of this nation’s footballing heritage.

Perhaps football never will come home. But perhaps we don’t need it to. Because the quest has already given generations of England supporters something every bit as valuable: a shared story through which to understand who we are.

Josh Bland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/england-defeat-maybe-footballs-never-coming-home/

In everyday life, people often joke about “stalking” someone on social media, or describe someone’s behaviour as a bit “stalky”. But these casual uses of the word can blur the reality of stalking as a serious crime.

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, around 1.4 million people aged 16 and over experienced stalking in the year ending March 2025. Yet our recent research suggests young people might not recognise what stalking is, particularly when it comes from someone they know.

Stalking features in many domestic abuse cases, and it is often present in the lead up to domestic homicide. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has reported record levels of stalking offences being charged. The increase in cases is partly due to better awareness of what stalking is.

The legal landscape around stalking is at a moment of change, with new protections, a review of how police respond to cases, and a stalking action plan underway within the CPS to enhance identification of stalking cases.

Why is stalking often misunderstood?

Stalking is a complex crime. In much of the guidance, the term “stalking” is grouped together with “harassment”, which reflects the current legal framework under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

The primary difference is that stalking involves a fixation on a person, and that the fixated, obsessive behaviour causes fear or distress. But there is evidence of confusion about cases in practice.

The shift from stalking “and” harassment to stalking “or” harassment in the wording of the current College of Policing consultation represents an important evolution towards seeing this behaviour as different and specifying how it is dealt with.

Technology has also transformed what stalking can look like. A person no longer needs to follow someone home or wait outside their workplace. Social media, location sharing, messaging apps and fake online accounts can all be used to monitor someone’s movements, relationships and activities.

Research suggests these forms of cyberstalking are becoming more common, particularly among younger age groups. But young people don’t necessarily recognise them as stalking.

That uncertainty is understandable. Digital technology has blurred boundaries in ways that previous generations did not have to navigate. Constant online connection can make intrusive behaviour seem ordinary, even when it crosses into stalking.

For our research, we spoke with 84 young people aged 16 to 24 in workshops across Wales. We found that while many could identify individual stalking behaviour, their overall picture of what stalking might look like was often incomplete.

Participants did associate stalking with behaviour such as following someone, creating fake social media accounts, monitoring someone’s online activity, taking photographs without consent, repeatedly contacting someone or refusing to leave them alone.

But when they described the person they imagined as a stalker, many pictured a stranger. It was someone “creepy”, a sex offender, “paedo” or a man lurking in a dark alley. Far fewer recognised that stalking is often carried out by someone the victim already knows. Several young people told us they would be less likely to identify stalking if it came from someone they saw every day, such as a classmate.

That finding stood out to us. Popular culture has long portrayed stalkers as mysterious strangers. In reality, stalking is often committed by current or former partners, acquaintances or people already known to the victim, in addition to strangers. When young people do not recognise that, they may dismiss warning signs, delay seeking help or accept that controlling behaviour is simply part of modern relationships.

Discussions also revealed uncertainty about seeking help. Some young people were not confident that they would talk to someone about concerns, or that the help they would receive would make any difference. There was a general lack of awareness of specialist services that might help with stalking.

Better education

Perhaps the clearest message from the young people we spoke to was what they wanted to see happen next. They wanted more education about stalking, such as what it is, how to recognise it, how it differs from other harmful behaviour and where to get help. They also wanted more clarity on the terminology used to describe stalking.

They wanted education to be in multiple formats, both digital and in-person. In other words, they wanted a diverse approach, which is supported by the findings of other studies about what works.

A number of young people had either received very limited or no education on stalking, despite being in one of the age groups most at risk. Conversations about relationships and safety should include stalking alongside coercive control, consent and being active online, rather than treating it as an issue that only affects adults. Teachers, youth workers, university staff, police officers, parents and carers also need the confidence to recognise stalking and respond appropriately when young people raise concerns.

If society wants to prevent stalking, it cannot wait until young people experience it before talking about it. Recognising the early signs, understanding how stalking behaviour is evolving and listening to young people’s experiences are all essential if prevention is to keep pace with the reality they face.

Sophia Kier-Byfield currently receives research funding from Health and Care Research Wales, Safer Merthyr Tydfil and South Wales Police. She has previously received funding from the VISION Consortium/UKPRP Small Projects Fund, Calan DVS and Welsh Government.

Sarah Wallace currently receives research funding from Health and Care Research Wales, Safer Merthyr Tydfil, Cardiff Council. She has previously received research grant and commercial research/evaluation funding from the VISION Consortium/UKPRP Small Projects Fund, Calan DVS, Welsh Government, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner North Wales, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and the All-Wales Policing Academic Collaboration.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/young-people-are-among-the-most-at-risk-of-stalking-but-many-dont-recognise-it/

Copyright is built on the idea that human creativity deserves protection. Legally, this is known as “originality”. The principle is simple: people create valuable cultural works and the law protects that effort.

But artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging one of copyright law’s most basic assumptions. In doing so, it may force us to rethink what we mean by intellectual property.

AI can now generate songs, images, novels and artworks in seconds. Many of these works are already being streamed, licensed and sold. This raises an increasingly important question: should works produced without direct human authorship receive copyright protection?

Most legal systems currently say no. They continue to place human creativity at the centre of copyright. But the history of copyright suggests things may not remain that way for long.

In the US case Thaler v Perlmutter (2023), a federal court confirmed that copyright requires a human creator. European law takes a similar approach. The Court of Justice of the European Union defines originality as the author’s “own intellectual creation”.

So, at first glance, that appears to settle the issue. But copyright has never evolved according to a single, consistent theory of creativity. Again and again, it has adapted to new technology and commercial pressures. AI is not the first disruptive technology to force a rethink. The history of sound recordings offers a revealing example.

When recordings weren’t considered creative

When recording technology emerged in the late 19th century, it transformed how people experienced music. Before Thomas Edison’s phonograph appeared in 1877, music was largely encountered through live performance or written notation.

Recordings changed that. Performances could be captured, copied and distributed by machines. Today, recordings feel like an obvious form of creative property. But that was not how they were initially viewed.

Early recordings were often seen as mechanical reproductions rather than original works. They copied music rather than creating it. By the standards of traditional copyright thinking, they struggled to satisfy the ideal of originality. As a result, recordings were denied copyright protection for decades.

It took 34 years for English and Welsh law to recognise them in the Copyright Act 1911. The US did not grant federal protection until the Sound Recording Amendment of 1971. France waited until 1985.

As the recording industry grew, copyright law changed with it. Gradually, lawmakers abandoned the view that recordings were merely technical reproductions. Instead, they became recognised as a form of protected intellectual property.

Technically, sound recordings are protected through neighbouring rights rather than traditional authors’ rights. In practice, however, they sit at the heart of the modern music industry. Economic importance succeeded where strict theories of originality could not. AI-generated works may be following a similar path.

Many experts argue that AI outputs differ from sound recordings because they lack human creativity. But history suggests that copyright’s boundaries have often shifted when new technology becomes economically valuable.

The signs of this are already visible in the UK. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 states that for computer-generated literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, “the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken”.

The law was written long before modern generative AI. Even so, it shows that copyright has not always depended on a traditional understanding of human authorship.

The UK government’s recent consultation on copyright and AI points in a similar direction. While it emphasises protecting creators (whoever they are), it also frames copyright as a tool for growth, innovation, investment and competitiveness.

Is copyright still ‘intellectual’ property?

Copyright appears to have evolved through successive technological phases. First, the protection of sheet music, then sound recordings and maybe in the future, AI-generated works too.

Each stage has been reflective of copyright’s capacity to adapt to technological and economic change. Each time challenging the idea of “intellectual” property.

Read more:
Can a rhythm be owned? What a reggaeton lawsuit reveals about how copyright misunderstands music

If that pattern continues, the central question may soon change. The debate may no longer be whether AI-generated works deserve legal protection. Instead, society may find itself asking whether copyright can still be described as a form of intellectual property if human intellect is no longer essential to what it protects.

In that sort of future, intellectual property could gradually become little more than property, a system shaped less by creative principles than by commercial interests. That outcome is not inevitable, however. Copyright’s connection to human creativity can survive. But it will survive only if it is actively defended, rather than simply assumed.

Anna Monnereau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/who-owns-an-ai-generated-song-what-we-can-learn-from-the-phonograph-and-the-evolution-of-copyright-laws/

The 2026 men’s football World Cup has provided great goals, shock results and plenty of entertainment. It has also been extremely lucrative, earning Fifa billions of dollars in broadcasting rights, ticket sales and commercial sponsorship.

Those commercial partnerships include alcohol producers, whose brands have appeared across television broadcasts, digital platforms, social media and stadiums.

For example, Fifa has a long-standing sponsorship arrangement with the world’s biggest beer company. AB InBev owns Budweiser, which is the tournament’s official beer, and Michelob Ultra, the sponsor of the player of the match awards.

AB InBev and Fifa are delighted with the strength of their long-standing partnership and the World Cup’s ability to connect brands with millions of fans worldwide. From a business perspective, it is one of sport’s most successful sponsorship arrangements.

But from a public health perspective, what does it mean for the millions of children and young people who have been watching the tournament? For alcohol sponsorship has become an increasingly prominent feature of elite sport.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, branding was largely confined to adverts on TV or pitch-side boards, or some tournament sponsorship, such as the Carling Cup (now known as the Carabo Cup after the Thai energy drink brand that sponsors it).

But in 2026, marketing is far more sophisticated. Alcohol brands are heavily integrated into the fan experience, appearing in digital content, interactive promotions, fan zones and social media feeds that extend far beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch.

This evolution reflects broader changes in sports marketing, where sponsors have moved beyond being simply advertisers. Now they have become partners in creating the emotional experience surrounding major events.

But research consistently shows that greater exposure to alcohol marketing is associated with earlier drinking among adolescents, and increased alcohol consumption among those who already drink.

Marketing also increases positive attitudes towards alcohol, strengthens brand recognition and reinforces the perception that drinking is a normal part of sport and celebration.

Normalisation

Yet recent research my colleagues and I conducted suggests that some young people have quite a sophisticated understanding of alcohol sponsorship.

Many recognise that companies sponsor football and rugby because they attract huge audiences and create positive emotional associations with brands. As one participant put it: “People see [the product] – they want to get it.”

Lots of our research participants described how commonplace alcohol branding had become, saying they encountered it every time they watched football or rugby, at the stadium, on television and social media.

And many of the 44 young people aged 11 to 17 in Scotland we spoke to questioned why alcohol was linked to sport at all. They described the relationship as “confusing” and “ironic”, struggling to reconcile elite athletes and healthy lifestyles with unhealthy products that can increase the risk of cancer and liver disease.

At the same time, though, they understood why companies invest so heavily in sport.

Football is one of the few global events watched by entire families, meaning children are exposed to alcohol branding from an early age simply by watching matches with parents and siblings. As one young person observed: “If you’ve got it shown to you from a young age, it’s going to be more hardwired into your brain.”

This reflects decades of evidence showing that marketing works through repeated exposure rather than any single advertisement. Sponsorship links brands with excitement, belonging, celebration and national pride, making those associations part of people’s memories of the event itself.

The challenge is becoming even more complex as alcohol companies increasingly promote zero-alcohol products and use “alibi” marketing that relies on familiar colours, logos and slogans rather than explicit references to alcohol. Although these sponsorship campaigns are often presented as more responsible, our research suggests many young people do not distinguish them from advertising for alcoholic drinks.

As one participant explained: “I just saw the alcohol brand, I never really thought of the zeros.” Others viewed these campaigns as a way of working around advertising restrictions while continuing to promote core alcohol brands.

None of this means that every child who watches football will go on to drink alcohol. Young people’s behaviour is shaped by families, peers, culture and many other influences. But alcohol marketing is one of those influences, and unlike many others, it is something governments can regulate.

Our research shows that young people themselves recognise the disconnect between promoting healthy sport while surrounding it with alcohol branding. If they can see that contradiction, perhaps the people who run international football should too.

Richard Purves has received funding from Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/the-2026-world-cup-has-been-a-tournament-where-alcohol-brands-hoped-to-win-influence-through-sponsorship/

The artificial intelligence boom in the United States is being matched by a data center building boom. There are more than 3,000 data centers in the U.S. and another 1,500 in development, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

While President Donald Trump has promoted AI advancement, calling it crucial to economic and national security, polling shows that 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their communities, citing higher utility bills, pollution, noise and the loss of green space. These centers, which hold computer servers that process words, images and lines of code for large language models such as ChatGPT, also use high amounts of water and electricity.

There is growing opposition to the infrastructure surrounding them, too, particularly the transmission lines needed to power them, which often must cross land belonging to private citizens.

Where private citizens refuse to sell their land, companies are turning to eminent domain, the government’s inherent power to seize private property without a landowner’s consent. But does a line built to serve a private data center qualify?

I’m a legal scholar who studies eminent domain issues, and I interpret today’s disputes over seizure of property for the benefit of AI infrastructure as the latest incarnation of a long-standing debate about the limits of taking private property for public use.

Why is expansion needed?

Data centers have massive power needs that can stress electrical grids and threaten their reliability. In 2024 they accounted for more than 4% of the nation’s total electricity use. Demand will grow as more are built. To meet this demand, power companies must build more transmission lines – and acquire land to put them on.

Across the U.S. – in states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania – power companies have looked to eminent domain to facilitate these goals.

What is eminent domain?

Power companies can approach landowners to purchase easements for transmission lines; if landowners refuse, the government might force a sale.

The government may take private land without consent if the seizure is for “public use” and if the landowner is given “just compensation,” according to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While the federal government has the power to initiate eminent domain actions – also called condemnations – most are done by state and local governments.

Governments can also delegate this power to private entities or “common carriers,” such as power and water companies, though every state has its own rules for whether and how these utilities can exercise eminent domain. In Texas, for example, the state Supreme Court has held that a project must “serve the public” and “cannot be built only for the builder’s exclusive use” in order to qualify as a common carrier.

What is the ‘public use’ standard?

While property may be taken only for “public use,” the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted that requirement permissively. In its 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision, the court held that economic development qualified, allowing New London, Connecticut, to seize homes for private development around a Pfizer facility. That redevelopment, however, never happened, and Pfizer eventually left New London.

In response to that decision – and the public backlash that followed – 45 states enacted eminent domain reform laws.

In addition to reform laws, some state supreme courts interpret the eminent domain provisions of their own state constitutions more restrictively. The supreme courts of Michigan, Ohio and Oklahoma have all prohibited seizing private property to give it to another private party purely for economic development.

This means private landowners may have more success challenging condemnation actions under their state constitutions than in federal court. Still, courts typically permit exercise of eminent domain by utilities such as power companies.

What does this mean for data center expansion?

Suits challenging the seizure of property for transmission lines on the grounds of public use have mixed results.

For example, the supreme courts of South Dakota and Vermont have each affirmed seizures by power companies, determining that providing at least some energy and improved power grid reliability to in-state customers were valid public uses.

But this argument changes if transmission lines, some of which cross state lines, don’t benefit anyone in the state.

In 1984, for example, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected a power company’s condemnation action because the transmission line in question would have run from Mississippi into Louisiana without benefiting any Mississippi customers.

These decisions suggest that as data centers increase energy demand and stress current infrastructure, seizing land to improve power grid reliability will likely qualify as public use, especially if the intention is to secure reliability for in-state customers.

Still, arguments around whether additional transmission lines actually serve in-state customers may give landowners grounds for a challenge.

Aaron Walayat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/can-a-power-company-take-your-land-to-support-a-data-center-it-depends/