Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Maha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow

Since the election last year, the UK government has said economic growth is its top priority, as a way to improve living standards, cut NHS waiting lists and ease pressure on household finances. But with the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting growth this year to be a below-average 1.5%, it seems things haven’t gone entirely to plan.

So would Rachel Reeves’ second budget provide any glimmers of hope? Here’s how our panel of experts reacted.

Tax-raising budget that may encourage growth – but doesn’t guarantee it

Maha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Glasgow

This is a substantially tax-raising budget, but one that tries to obscure where the burden will fall. Rather than confronting the need to raise the basic rate of income tax, the government has opted for a prolonged freeze in thresholds. This is, in effect, a sizeable stealth tax: as wages rise with inflation, more middle-earners are pulled into higher-rate bands.

However, this approach is still more weighted towards raising revenue from higher earners than a broad-based rise that would spread the load across the income distribution. A sharp break between the basic and higher rates – an unusual feature of the UK income tax setup – remains. Changes to national insurance follow a similar stealth logic. The rate remains unchanged, yet its scope has widened, particularly through restrictions on pension salary-sacrifice.

Whether these kinds of changes break Labour’s manifesto commitments not to raise taxes on “working people” is increasingly a matter of semantics. Many working people’s take-home pay will be less than it would have been, even if the headline tax rates have not changed.

One positive consequence of raising the revenue this way, however, is that individuals and households – not just employers – will carry much of the cost. Some measures that would have directly targeted businesses, like a bank windfall tax, have been abandoned.

This makes the budget more supportive of growth than early reports anticipated, because taxes that fall primarily on employers take funding away from things like opening new facilities or creating jobs.

Yet the growth forecasts remain weak because there is still no plan to raise productivity. Government investment in skills and infrastructure is lacking, and tighter immigration controls (which the government is also imposing) limit labour supply and impose other transaction costs on businesses. Growth requires broader changes to these other aspects of economic policy and cannot be generated through tax reform alone.

£3 trillion government debt weighs heavily on Reeves’ budget choices

Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City St George’s, University of London

The chancellor has announced measures to raise £26 billion in her budget statement. Driving her decision is the need to cap the size of the government’s debt, which, at £2.9 trillion amounts to 95% of the total size of the UK economy.

But also feeding into her choices is the need to abide by her self-imposed fiscal rules. These require her to cut the deficit (the difference between tax revenue and spending) every year for the next five years. An additional challenge is that the cost of paying interest on this huge national debt has gone up sharply in recent years, with the government now paying more in interest that it spends on education.

The fiscal rules are designed to reassure financial markets, which lend the government the money it needs, that the chancellor is prudent with the country’s finances. Tax rises were necessary to meet Reeves’ “ironclad” rules (based on the forecasts of spending watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility) with the aim of stabilising that huge debt.

The problem is that small changes in any of the forecasts can throw the government off course. As the former head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Robert Chote, noted: “The chances of any economic or fiscal forecast being accurate in every dimension are infinitesimally small.” However, Reeves has now left herself more “fiscal headroom” (the amount she can increase spending further without breaking her rules) – £21.7 billion.

She has gone some way to acknowledging the problem of predictions by making two changes in the fiscal rules. Last year she exempted investment spending – on building roads, power stations and houses – from the rules, in the hope of encouraging economic growth.

And this year, she has announced that the Treasury will produce a budget forecast only once a year. This will avoid the difficult spring statement she had to present this year.

But neither of these changes are guaranteed to give her the stability she needs to encourage economic growth and security. Relying on a single OBR forecast makes each budget a hostage to fortune. It might be wise to give a range of economic and revenue forecasts, as the Bank of England already does. The very concept of a fixed amount of “headroom” is probably too rigid and leads to continual changes in policies and taxes.

Since 1997 when fiscal rules were introduced, the Treasury has announced ten sets of rules with 28 different specific targets. For example, when once it was prudent to keep the debt below 40% of GDP, now 100% is an acceptable target. So it is clear that the markets themselves do not view the fiscal rules as immutable, and would probably like more stability and predictability in government spending and tax policy.

Read more:
What the budget could mean for you – experts react to the chancellor’s announcement

Where is the investment in infrastructure and industry?

Phil Tomlinson, Professor of Industrial Strategy and Regional Development, University of Bath

Budget day can often feel like Groundhog day. The same old problems – chronic under-investment, crumbling infrastructure and weak productivity – continue to bedevil the UK economy, with low growth significantly reducing the chancellor’s room for fiscal manoeuvre. Hers is not the first government to find itself unable to break this doom loop.

So in her second budget, Rachel Reeves focused mainly on tax-raising measures. There was some mention of a commitment to raising investment in critical infrastructure for sectors like transport, energy and digital development, but the details were set out earlier this year.

Pre-budget announcements also included a commitment to employ an extra 350 planners to support the government’s ambitious plan to build 1.5 million homes over this parliament. As well as providing a boost to the construction industry, building more affordable homes should improve the mobility of the labour market.

And making it easier for workers to relocate to regions with better job opportunities (which align with their skills) will give a much needed boost to productivity. It may also attract new private investment in local industries and “left behind” regions of the UK.

The critical part of any infrastructure project is actually getting it done. But often major projects, after being announced to great fanfare, can become bogged down in delays caused by a lack of skilled labour and changing economic circumstances.

To be a success it is vital to ensure that project targets are set early, and resources are ring-fenced. There also needs to be sufficient funding set aside to support skills and training that align with long-term infrastructure priorities. The budget included little about this.

If the government wants drivers to switch to electric, it must be wary of the powers of dissuasion

David Bailey, Professor of Business Economics, University of Birmingham

From April 2027, fuel duty rates – frozen back in 2010 and then cut in 2022 – will rise again in line with inflation. This was inevitable. The freeze has cost the government something like £10 billion a year in lost revenue.

And as more drivers switch to electric vehicles, fuel duty (which even with the freeze raises some £35 billion a year for the government) will start to dry up. The government needs to find cash, and fuel duty is a lever it feels it can pull.

More positive news for drivers is the 2026 arrival of the “fuel finder” scheme which will force petrol forecourts to share real-time prices so that customers can shop around more easily.

As expected, a pay-per-mile tax for electric and hybrid vehicles will be introduced, from April 2028. And while a long-term shift to pay-per-mile could make a lot of sense, the devil is very much in the detail. Electric vehicle (EV) owners in rural areas, who typically drive longer distances, could be badly hit, and the move needs to be carefully thought through.

The Office for Budget Responsibility thinks this could bring in £1.1 billion by 2029. But it could also put some people off making the switch to EVs, which is probably why the government has expanded EV grants to encourage take up.

A big, missed opportunity to shift the dial on EVs came in the government failing to cut VAT on public charging from 20% to 5%, to match the VAT rate on domestic electricity. This means drivers who can’t charge at home will continue to pay more, something which really needs to be tackled if the government wants people without private parking to make the switch.

Read more:
Electric vehicle owners face new pay-per-mile tax – what could be the environmental costs?

Phil Tomlinson receives funding from the Innovation and Research Caucus (IRC).

David Bailey, Maha Rafi Atal, and Steve Schifferes 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.

– ref. What will the budget means for economic growth? Experts give their view – https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-budget-means-for-economic-growth-experts-give-their-view-270715

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jennifer Mathers, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, Aberystwyth University

Whether the various peace plans now under discussion bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine will depend largely on security guarantees. But securing an agreement between Ukraine, its allies and Russia about how Ukraine’s future security will be assured may prove to be the most difficult part of any peace deal.

Ukraine already has bitter experience of what happens when a security guarantee turns out to be no guarantee at all.

Back in 1994, Ukraine reluctantly put its faith in the vague assurances of the Budapest memorandum. According to the terms of that agreement, Ukraine gave up the Soviet-era nuclear weapons stationed on its territory and pledged to sign the non-proliferation treaty and remain a non-nuclear country.

In exchange, Russia, Britain and the US promised to respect the independence, sovereignty and borders of Ukraine and not to use force against that country.

But the only commitments that Moscow, London and Washington made was to seek action by the UN security council to support Ukraine – and then only if Ukraine were attacked or threatened with attack by nuclear weapons. The memorandum made no mention of what should happen if Ukraine faced an attack using conventional forces.

As Ukraine’s then-president, Leonid Kuchma, remarked after the deal was done: “If tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow.”

Twenty years later, Kuchma’s prediction came true. In 2014, Russian troops occupied strategic points in Crimea. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, then engineered a widely discredited referendum on the region’s future status and claimed it as part of the territory of the Russian Federation.

Russia went on to arm, fund and direct local militias in eastern Ukraine and covertly sent its own soldiers to fight with them to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Britain and the US – among other western countries – imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided training, funding and supplies to the Ukrainian armed forces. This material support accelerated rapidly after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. But these measures have not stopped Russia’s aggression or guaranteed Ukraine’s security.

Now, as the full-scale conflict in Ukraine nears its fourth anniversary, the success of a new set of peace deals will, in large part, hinge on whether Kyiv can rely on its allies to come to the rescue if Russia decides to resume hostilities at some future stage.

Empty promises

In 2023, former US president Bill Clinton expressed his regrets at his role in the Budapest Memorandum. He revealed that back in 2011 Putin had told him that Russia’s leaders did not consider themselves to be bound by the agreement.

In the 1990s, Ukraine’s leaders had a variety of reasons for actively choosing to relinquish nuclear weapons. These included the promise of much-needed economic assistance from the west and the Ukrainians’ own experience of the devastating impact of nuclear technology in the shape of the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

Read more:
Thirty years ago, Ukrainians got rid of their nuclear arsenal – now most of them regret that decision

There was also a strong consensus in Ukrainian society in favour of non-nuclear status. But recently released archival documents demonstrate that the country’s leaders had serious reservations about how Ukraine’s security would be ensured after nuclear weapons were removed from its territory.

The Budapest Memorandum is an example of an agreement shaped by short-term considerations with long-term consequences very different from the ones that at least some of the signatories anticipated. Western countries, led by the US, were focused on confining the thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons to one country to reduce the chances that they might end up in the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states.

In the mid 1990s any future threat that Russia might pose to Ukraine was outweighed in the eyes of the west by two other considerations. The first was optimism that Russia would develop into a democracy and become a partner rather than an adversary.

The second was that Russia was too weak to pose a threat in the foreseeable future. The absence of genuine security guarantees in the Budapest agreement, therefore, reflected the predominant view in the west that pledges of good will would be sufficient to protect Ukraine.

Hard choices for Zelensky

With this history in mind and faced with the prospect of having to agree to a negotiated settlement, the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelensky, has been insistent that Ukraine will only be truly secure inside Nato. Opposition to Nato membership for Ukraine from Russia – but also from several members of the alliance, especially the US – has led the Ukrainians and their allies to search for alternatives.

Read more:
Any peace deal in Ukraine must be just and fair – the plan proposed by the US and Russia was neither

The “coalition of the willing” – a group of countries supporting Ukraine including the UK, various European nations, Canada and Turkey – have indicated their willingness to provide forces in the air, at sea and even on the ground to deter further aggression. But the plan for a multilateral peacekeeping force relies on the participation of the US for much of its credibility.

It’s not clear whether Washington will be willing to provide such assurances. Previously the Trump administration has played down any commitment to providing security guarantees for Ukraine.

For Russia, on the contrary, the Budapest Memorandum appears to be the precedent that it is following in crafting security assurances for Ukraine. The peace plan currently under discussion – which we now know that Russian official Kirill Dmitriev had a large role in drafting – offers only a bland assurance that Ukraine would receive reliable security guarantees.

At the same time it imposes a limit on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces. It also prevents it from joining Nato and bans the troops of Nato member states on its territory. All of which would severely undermine Ukraine’s security.

As a result, each of the interested parties have very different views about the nature of security guarantees that would be sufficient. Ukraine is pushing for Nato membership. Russia is vehemently opposed. The Europeans are trying to find a pragmatic halfway house. The Trump administration is reluctant to commit American resources to much of anything.

The chances a negotiated settlement to this war will be reached quickly or easily by negotiations remain remote, at best.

Jennifer Mathers 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.

– ref. Ukraine peace deal will hinge on security guarantees – but Kyiv has been there before – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-peace-deal-will-hinge-on-security-guarantees-but-kyiv-has-been-there-before-270614

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amin Al-Habaibeh, Professor of Intelligent Engineering Systems, Nottingham Trent University

Modern electric vehicles are transforming the roads with low noise, rapid acceleration and zero exhaust emissions. However, drivers of electric vehicles in the UK will now face a new 3p per mile charge and drivers of hybrid vehicles a 1.5p per mile charge.

In her speech, chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “All cars contribute to the wear and tear on our roads, drivers will taxed on how much they drive not just on the type of car they own.”

This new EV tax would add up to an extra cost of £300 annually, based on a vehicle travelling 10,000 miles per year. The government argues that this tax is needed to compensate for the reduction in fuel duty from the transition to electric vehicles, and because of its budget deficit.

Given that electric vehicles are more expensive than petrol or diesel vehicles and they require further investment for home EV charging stations, it was previously considered important to provide incentives or grants to encourage the move to electric vehicles.

There are three main scenarios that can show the potential effect on the environment.

Scenario 1: the environmental champions

Let’s consider a family that has an EV and likes to do things that are good for the environment. They may prefer to continue using electric vehicles to support net zero and clean air in their cities, despite the tax rise.

The chancellor’s decision would increase the cost of using their EV. But if the monthly increase of running the EV exceeds the cost of public transport, this environmentally conscious family might consider using their car less and using public transport more.

In this way the family will still contribute to the economy with the new tax, but by choosing a more sustainable transport option they will reduce their energy use, as well as the tyre and brake particle pollution their EV creates.

Scenario 2: the financially driven

In another scenario, a financially conscious couple might have bought their EV because they liked driving but wanted to avoid paying so much for petrol, tax and congestion charges.

Alongside the new pay-per-mile tax, congestion charges for EVs are rising. In London, for instance, the 100% cleaner vehicle discount for electric vehicles will be replaced the end of December with a 25% discount for electric cars and 50% for vans until March 2030. This does at least offer some saving over petrol and diesel still.

The cost analysis will depend on many factors. These include purchase cost, vehicle excise duty, road tax, costs of congestion charges and low emissions zones, maintenance costs, mileage per year, style of use, business tax, fuel or electricity costs, depreciation, location of electric charging (home or public), and any other expected additional taxes or related interest rates.

According to research, for an average annual distance of 10,000 miles, the annual cost of running an electric vehicle is about £1,154. This is about 50% less than the estimated £2,316 equivalent cost to run a conventional petrol car for the same period. With the extra 3p per mile tax, the annual running cost would be £1,454 so the EV could still be an attractive option.

However, on average, electric vehicles in 2025 were 18% more expensive up front than petrol or diesel vehicles. According to OneEv Group, an EV app company, the cost of buying an electric vehicle is £39,000 compared with a petrol vehicle at £33,000.

And based on fuel and electricity prices, the cost of ownership for three years is reported to be around £41,650 and £38,445, respectively. This means EV ownership over three years is already more expensive by £3,205. If the car is driven 10,000 miles per year, with the new 3p per mile tax the total difference would come to £4,105 over three years.

Based on the above, if they carry on travelling the same number of miles, but don’t change their car, there are some financial downsides but no additional environmental consequences.

Scenario 3: the late adopters

All new cars will have to be electric or hybrid from 2030. But people who are currently driving petrol or diesel cars still might not switch to electric vehicles due to the additional costs.

There are already estimates of around 440,000 fewer EV sales because of the new pay-per-mile tax. In this case, the expected government shift to net zero by 2050 might have to be delayed. And pollution levels would be reduced by less.

Therefore, it is with this group of people that there might be the biggest environmental consequences.

Environmental effect and car sales

How big might the effects of the new tax be in a worst-case scenario? We can work out a rough potential estimate for EV drivers switching back to internal combustion engines.

There are about 36.2 million cars in the UK, of which there are 1.3 million EVs. And 13.9% of UK vehicles drive more than 10,000 miles, based on available data from 2021.

If a similar proportion of the 1.3 million EV drivers decided to move to internal combustion engine vehicles because they would suffer most from the new tax, this could mean 180,700 more petrol and diesel cars on the road. Assuming an equal split between petrol and diesel, this could result in over 433,680 extra tonnes of CO2 emmitted per year (based on 240g of CO2 per mile).

Similarly, calculating particulate matter at 0.005g/km (0.008g/mile), the extra cars would equate to around 14.45 more tonnes of particulate matter. Using the same method, the same number of cars could create 346.9 tonnes per year of nitrogen oxide gases (based on 0.192g/mile). This would mean significant additional air pollution.

In addition to the possible increased air pollution, engine oil change could require on average an additional five litres per year per vehicle. This would be about 903,500 additional litres of engine oil.

Any increase in petrol or diesel use could also create an increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses related to pollution in cities.

We don’t know that this scenario will come to pass but it gives a sense of how environmental impacts can add up when many people react to different incentives. However, if the same number of people in this scenario carried on using EVs, and some drove less, then there would be no increase in air pollution levels. And potentially the particulate level could decrease because of fewer journeys.

What remains the biggest threat to the environment is if a large group of people who were thinking of buying EVs choose not to do so.

Amin Al-Habaibeh receives funding from Innovate UK, The British Council, The Royal academy of Engineering, EPSRC, AHRC, The British Academy and the European Commission.

– ref. Electric vehicle owners face new pay-per-mile tax – what could be the environmental costs? – https://theconversation.com/electric-vehicle-owners-face-new-pay-per-mile-tax-what-could-be-the-environmental-costs-270193

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Burlinson, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sheffield

UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has made some significant reforms in her latest budget. Notably, she has committed to easing living cost pressures with widespread energy bill support, higher taxes for the most expensive homes, and axing the two-child cap on certain benefits.

In a speech to Labour MPs a couple of days before the announcement, she made clear that her tax and spend decisions were a package and not a “pick-and-mix” from which backbenchers could choose the measures they liked. While Reeves will no doubt face further opposition, it may be that many of the things she has announced largely align with what Labour backbenchers had been hoping to hear.

Here’s what our panel of experts made of her plans.

Help with energy bills in a bid to tame inflation

Andrew Burlinson, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sheffield

Typical household energy bills (at £1,725 per year) remain more than £450 higher than pre-crisis levels. Reeves is therefore pledging to “grip the cost of living” with a package of short- and long-term solutions.

Instead of axing the 5% VAT paid on energy bills, as had been widely trailed, Reeves has removed certain social and environmental levies from electricity bills, which she says will save households up to £150. These levies funded government policies supporting vulnerable people and low-carbon technology adoption, which will now be paid for through general taxation.

This is a welcome progressive shift. Sharing these costs across all households disproportionately hurt people on lower incomes who paid the same percentage in levies as wealthier customers. What’s more, while these levies represent a relatively small chunk of people’s bills (about 16%) compared to wholesale costs, removing them will help bring down energy-related inflation.

The chancellor is also rightly extending the warm homes discount scheme, which takes an additional £150 off some people’s electricity bills and which will now reach six million households. Yet the temporary discount does not reverse a decade of low, even substandard, government-backed energy-efficiency schemes.

However, the warm homes plan, which aims to improve energy efficiency in homes, will now receive an extra £1.5 billion to tackle fuel poverty. Done properly, investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies can cut bills, improve people’s health and reduce emissions – a “win-win-win”.

A ‘mansion tax’ for the most expensive properties

Alper Kara, Professor of Banking and Finance, Brunel University of London

The government announced a new council tax surcharge on the most expensive properties in England and Wales from April 2028. The “mansion tax” will be levied annually, costing £2,500 for properties worth more than £2 million and £7,500 for those worth over £5 million.

Around 145,000 homes will be affected, mostly in London and south-east England. The value of those properties will probably go down a little.

But more broadly, the measure – which it is claimed will raise £400 million by 2031 – risks adding further complexity to the council tax system without resolving long-standing weaknesses such as its out-dated and unfair valuations.

And while the mansion tax targets wealthier homeowners, the actual revenue earned may end up being lower than planned due to things like “price bunching”, where buyers and sellers keep valuations just below the bands, distorting the market. There might also be a decline in high-value property sales which would reduce stamp duty revenue for the Treasury.

A further measure with implications for housing is the 2% rise in tax on property income, which will cut landlords’ profits and may persuade some to leave the market. This in turn could easily reduce the supply of rental homes available, potentially increasing rents where demand is high. It may also limit investment in maintenance and improvements, leading to a decline in the quality of rental accommodation.

An end to the two-child benefit cap but more anti-poverty measures needed

Ruth Patrick, Professor in Social and Public Policy, University of Glasgow

Scrapping the two-child limit is an incredibly welcome reform that starts the urgent work needed to drive down what remain high levels of child poverty. Four-and-a-half million children in the UK faced poverty in 2022-23, and too many will still face hardship without further investment and reform from this government.

At this year’s Labour conference, Prime Minister Keir Starmer ambitiously pledged that he wanted his government to end child poverty. To realise this, he will need to usher in change on a much greater scale than has been announced.

The two-child limit was an ill-designed and arguably cruel policy which assigned children to poverty simply (and only) because of the number of siblings they had. The charity Child Poverty Action Group estimates that 109 children each day are born into households affected by the cap, purely because they have two or more elder siblings.

Removing the two-child limit restores the historic link between need and entitlement to support, which the policy had eroded. But the same problem remains for the wider benefit cap, which limits the amount of social security people can receive and currently leaves many subsisting far below the poverty line.

Any day now we will see the publication of a UK-wide child poverty strategy – the first in almost a decade. My hope is that this builds on the chancellor’s announcements, and points to a future where all children can be protected from poverty.

Andrew Burlinson previously received funding from UKERC (UKRI) and relevant funding from EPSRC.

Ruth Patrick is a member of the Labour Party.

Alper Kara 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.

– ref. What the budget could mean for you – experts react to the chancellor’s announcement – https://theconversation.com/what-the-budget-could-mean-for-you-experts-react-to-the-chancellors-announcement-270699

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chantal Gautier, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Sex and Relationship Therapist, University of Westminster

If you’re looking for a film that’s daring and emotionally layered, then Harry Lighton’s debut feature Pillion absolutely hits the mark. The film follows Colin (Harry Melling), a shy suburban guy stuck in routine and Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a magnetic unreadable biker whose presence exudes both aloofness and intrigue.

What starts as a rough transactional alleyway hook-up, quickly shifts into a 24/7 BDSM (best understood when read in three pairs: bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism) dynamic built on power, ritual and control.

Within the broader framework of BDSM, Pillion situates Colin and Ray’s dynamic inside the concept of consensual total power exchange: a structured voluntarily arrangement in which a submissive (or “slave”) offers continuous obedience and service to a dominant (or “master”) extending beyond “scenes” and into daily life.

At its core Pillion explores power, eroticism, masculinity and identity. Lighton doesn’t shy away from the erotic elements. In fact, Lighton uses them as a springboard for deeper questions of self-definition. As we witness moments of submission and humiliation rituals (shot with a mix of tension and tenderness), we follow Colin’s emotional journey. From confusion to curiosity and eventually, a sense of charged enjoyment he didn’t expect, Colin finds himself surrendering in ways he never imagined.

One of the film’s most memorable sequences places submissives lined up face-down with bare backsides on picnic tables in the middle of a forest. Colin’s despair is unmistakable. It’s in these moments the film’s title snaps into sharp focus, clarifying who leads, who submits, and who rides pillion (the “bottom” in queer discourse).

Lighton solidifies dominant-submissive slave devotion with an unexpected sense of groundedness. The involvement of real-life members of the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club amplifies the scene’s credibility, giving it a charged, lived-in authenticity.

Beneath the leather mask

But what symbolic or emotional function does control serve for Ray (if there is one, it might simply be this is what Ray is into – what we call their erotic template).

The film offers two compelling possibilities. First, the symbolic elements of BDSM (collars, rituals and rules) create a relationship framework that reaffirms the dominant-submissive bond of unity. For Ray, this connection doesn’t stem from emotional openness but from the stability he maintains through structure and control.

BDSM becomes a space where instructing Colin allows Ray to assert his identity through a style of masculinity that values control. Ray has deliberately curbed his emotional expression. At his core, he is someone who does not allow himself to need. So, for Ray, the dominant-submissive slave dynamic, becomes a mechanism for keeping vulnerability at bay.

Second, research on attachment styles suggest dominance within BDSM can offer the kind of predictability and structure that people with avoidant attachment styles often experience as safe. People like Ray who are uneasy with emotional closeness or unpredictability, may find reassurance in the clearly defined expectations of these dynamics. With emotional disclosure minimised and expectations clarified, the dominant role creates conditions that shield Ray from the forms of vulnerability he finds threatening.

The film’s exploration of masculinity deepens, revealing how societal and cultural norms shape what is considered “manly”. Ray embodies commonly held masculine ideals, including stoicism, self-control, confidence and a sculpted physique. Colin’s more submissive, compliant energy challenges these expectations, revealing masculinity as culturally shaped rather than fixed.

Awakening of self

In his “slave” role, Colin embodies both conventional and unconventional masculinity. His surrender emerges as strength – endurance, discipline, sexual stamina. Because submissive roles demand patience, obedience and the resilience to meet discomfort (consensually), they cultivate qualities that expand, rather than diminish, the boundaries of masculinity, providing a more fluid and expansive understanding of masculine identity.

For Colin, the dominant-submissive slave journey becomes a path of self-discovery, allowing him to recognise what he wants, what he excels at – his “aptitude for devotion” – and ultimately who he is. His evolving masculine identity takes shape as he embraces the newly uncovered self, not with shame, but with authenticity.

The film makes clear that BDSM dynamics, despite popular assumptions, are not bound by gender. And while Pillion concentrates on a gay male relationship, the emotional terrain it explores – power, vulnerability and identity – resonate across genders.

Eventually, in pursuit of greater happiness Colin begins to question the arrangement, perhaps prompted by those rare fleeting moments when Ray lets his guard down. Summoning newfound courage, he asks for a “day off” from their daily dominant-submissive dynamic. After a chaotic and rebellious detour, Ray agrees to the new terms. But a question lingers at the film’s emotional core: can Ray allow himself to experience emotional closeness beyond his role as “master”?

Pillion is an emotionally intelligent multi-layered film, rich with moments of humour, wonder and rawness. Boldly provocative it immerses viewers in a world of BDSM, while challenging conventional assumptions about desire, relationships and identity. Lighton delivers a film anchored by exceptional performances from both its main cast and its supporting ensemble, crafting a story that sticks with you long after the credits rolls.

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Chantal Gautier 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.

– ref. Pillion: what a sex therapy expert thinks of this domination-themed queer rom-com – https://theconversation.com/pillion-what-a-sex-therapy-expert-thinks-of-this-domination-themed-queer-rom-com-270224