Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Illingworth, Professor of Creative Pedagogies, Edinburgh Napier University

The discourse around climate change can lead to anxiety, detachment or resignation because it often stretches language in ways that make the world feel distant.

Global averages and abstract temperature thresholds make it harder for people to relate to climate change in their own specific location. And while the language of sustainable development appeals to rationality, it fails to engage people creatively and collectively.

But we have discovered that writing about local places that people are already connected to changes this dynamic and gives people a way to examine their own assumptions within a recognisable framework.

Read more:
How stories of personal experience cut through climate fatigue in ways that global negotiations can’t

Across our research in the UK and Sweden, grounding dialogue in the environments people know consistently improved understanding of climate issues and shifted the tone of discussion.

When participants begin with places they care about, they move away from remote fears and towards more constructive reflection. They draw on memory, observation and the granular details of daily life. Climate thinking becomes easier when it is tied to real places because it helps people connect abstract ideas to what they see and experience. This pattern appears across community projects, university teaching and collaborative studies.

The city of Lund in southern Sweden provides a distinctive perspective on this issue because it is shaped by mobility. Many students arrive, stay briefly, then move on. At the same time, the area’s gardens, parks, bike paths and nature reserves offer spaces for lingering and reflection.

Similarly, the city of Edinburgh in Scotland holds a transient student population alongside a deep sense of local community. This again creates a tension between movement and belonging.

Our work and other research shows that short exercises rooted in wetlands, coasts, gardens, museums or neighbourhoods can help people situate themselves in unfamiliar settings. Participants in our research are invited to write brief descriptions of what they notice, what appears to be changing and how this affects their own thinking. This creates space to test ideas without the defensiveness or polarisation that often accompanies climate debate.

A poem about a tidal line or a short essay about a street after heavy rain asks the writer to pay close attention. That attention becomes inquiry. It sharpens their observation, exposes assumptions and prompts questions about meaning and significance. This is analytical rather than sentimental.

The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.

Facts alone aren’t enough

Our shared work suggests that this approach localises the climate crisis without turning it into individual anecdote. Creative writing does not replace scientific explanation. It creates a structure through which readers relate evidence to the world they live in.

When someone writes about a familiar hill or a particular stretch of coastline, they are not claiming universal insight. They are sharing a real-life example. They are showing how climate data connects to a concrete place, which makes the discussion more accessible and helps others respond with observations from their own contexts.

This matters because climate communication sometimes assumes that information alone will drive change. Evidence shows that it rarely does. People need ways to integrate new knowledge with their own experience. Place-based writing provides that structure. It anchors reflection, keeps ideas from drifting into abstraction, and introduces creative constraints that demand clarity. Choosing which details carry meaning or which elements to omit reveals how people prioritise environmental concerns and interpret change.

Read more:
You don’t have to be a net zero hero – how focus on personal climate action can distract from systemic problems

Our teaching with undergraduates demonstrates this clearly. Students write short texts about specific places and discuss them in small groups. The task does not assess style. It assesses attention. People explain why they chose their place and what climate-related issues they observed or inferred. Listening to others exposes how local climate knowledge is produced, circulated and sometimes misread.

It highlights the tension between perception and evidence and requires each writer to discern which ecological questions feel most urgent in their own backyard.

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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.

– ref. How writing about places people know makes the climate crisis less abstract – https://theconversation.com/how-writing-about-places-people-know-makes-the-climate-crisis-less-abstract-270206

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Hutchinson, Professor, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow

The UK has added chickenpox to the routine childhood vaccination schedule for the first time, using a combined MMRV jab that also protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Here’s what parents need to know.

What is the new chickenpox vaccine?

The first thing to say is that the MMRV vaccine is not actually new. It’s been safely used in other countries (including the US, Australia and Germany) for decades, and has been available privately in the UK for some years. This year, MMRV is being introduced into the UK childhood vaccination schedule and will be available free of charge through the NHS.

The MMRV vaccine protects against four different viruses. For decades in the UK, the MMR vaccines have been used to safely protect children against a trio of particularly horrible infections: measles, mumps and rubella. The MMRV vaccine has one extra component, which protects children against the varicella zoster virus (VZV).

VZV might sound unfamiliar, but it causes some very familiar diseases. If you have ever had chickenpox, that was the point at which you caught VZV. Chickenpox is a short illness, but VZV is incurable – the virus will remain hiding in your nervous system for the rest of your life. In about one-third of people, it will eventually reactivate, causing a large, painful patch of infected skin known as shingles.

Recent research has shown that VZV reactivations also increase the risk of dementia in older adults.

Is the vaccine safe?

The MMRV vaccine has been used safely for decades. Like all vaccines, it was only approved for use because any risks from getting the vaccine are much less than the risks from having an infection.

How will the vaccine be given?

The MMRV vaccine is given as an injection in the upper arm or thigh. Typically, two doses are required for full protection. The NHS provides details of the vaccination.

When will children receive it?

In the future, children will be offered the vaccine alongside other childhood vaccines at 12 and 18 months. If your child was born before January 1, 2026 different timings may apply.

What if my child has already had chickenpox?

Children over six years are already likely to have caught chickenpox. You can’t normally catch VZV twice, so they will not normally be offered the new vaccine. If your child is over six but hasn’t had chickenpox, you may wish to consider getting the vaccine privately.

Why is the NHS introducing a chickenpox vaccine now?

The UK waited longer than many countries to introduce chickenpox vaccination, partly because of debates about the cost, and partly because it was unclear how long-lasting the protection would be.

Data from the US, where the vaccine has been used since the mid-1990s, now shows that the vaccine does provide robust, long-lasting protection.

There were also arguments about shingles. If you are infected with VZV, your immunity against the virus is boosted each time you encounter someone with chickenpox, and this can help unvaccinated people prevent VZV reactivations. The fact that there is now a shingles vaccine means that this is less of a problem than it used to be.

Is chickenpox really a serious illness?

Most cases of chickenpox are uncomfortable but resolve without severe illness, though some scarring is common. In rare cases, though, chickenpox can progress to cause very severe disease involving the lungs or brain, which can cause lifelong effects or even be fatal.

Even if chickenpox itself proves to be merely unpleasant – which in itself is worth protecting against – the fact that VZV is incurable and can cause serious diseases such as shingles and dementia in later life makes the chickenpox vaccine worth taking.

If you already had chickenpox – and if you are an adult who didn’t have the chickenpox vaccine, you probably did – there are other vaccines that can prevent your VZV reactivating, an event that would cause shingles and could increase your risk of dementia.

These shingles vaccines are freely available through the NHS if you are over 65, or if you have a weakened immune system.

Will the vaccine stop chickenpox completely?

Chickenpox is highly contagious and, at the moment, global elimination seems a long way off. However, with widespread use of the MMRV vaccine, the UK could join the group of countries where chickenpox – and the diseases that follow it – change from being nearly universal to rare events.

Ed Hutchinson receives grant funding from UKRI and the Wellcome Trust. He is the Chair of the Microbiology Society’s Virus Division, a Board Member of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza, an unpaid scientific advisor to Pinpoint Medical, and has sat on an advisory board for Seqirus.

– ref. MMRV: what families need to know about the UK’s new chickenpox vaccine – https://theconversation.com/mmrv-what-families-need-to-know-about-the-uks-new-chickenpox-vaccine-272691

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Flinders, Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics, University of Sheffield

The British media’s obsession with the end of Keir Starmer’s premiership continues, with New Year’s coverage focusing on whether the prime minister will survive 2026.

Starmer began the year by telling BBC broadcaster Laura Kuenssberg that he can – and even that he will lead the Labour party into the next general election. But unless the most unradical of politicians does something very radical very quickly, the elections in May 2026 are likely to produce a leadership challenge.

However, leadership is not the core problem that the Labour party – or indeed, any party – really needs to focus on. The problem is that British politics is trapped in a “doom loop” that is, to some extent, of its own making.

It is lost in a self-reinforcing negative feedback cycle in which an initial problem triggers responses that worsen the original problem, locking the system into a spiral of decline.

Poor economic performance since the 2008 global financial crisis and a marked slowdown in productivity growth has led to poor UK performance in real wage growth and living standards. Low growth, high taxes and rising debt interest leads to declining confidence on the bond markets which leads to higher borrowing costs which, in turn, stifle growth and make deficits harder to tackle.

Although Rishi Sunak fought the 2024 election on the basis that it was possible to “reverse the creeping acceptance of a narrative of decline”, the public was not convinced.

In opposition, Starmer rejected the need for grand narratives or ideological ties. And he did not “win” the election thanks to a positive vision for Britain but largely due to the weight of disillusionment with the chaos of successive Conservative governments.

If anything, the doom loop has simply continued under Starmer, this time as what would become known as “miserabilism”. His governing style has been based around dampening expectations, emphasising national crises and blaming previous governments.

A perceived lack of ambition and a style and persona that emphasised grim necessity over hope and belief has exacerbated the problem. The paradox of such a pessimistic approach is that it has only added to a narrative of “broken Britain” that has increased populist pressures.

The problem is not (just) Starmer. The deeper problem is that none of the main contenders to replace him seem capable of offering a bold story of renewal and achievement that can stimulate collective confidence and national self-belief. Nor, if we are honest, are the leaders of the main opposition parties.

Towards the end of 2025 the doom loop was almost deafening. In October, BBC Radio 4 asked its listeners, “What kind of a state are we actually in?” before summarising their responses in the following terms:

If you pull out the kaleidoscope there are record delays for court cases, prisoners are being released, doctors are striking, water companies are pumping raw sewage wherever they can (preferably into lakes, rivers and the sea, that’s where they like to put it). We are one of the world’s richest seven economies and yet it does not feel like that by listening to the news … Bins on the streets, rats in the kitchen, gangs running prisons, knifes in the schools, university system broken, asylum system broken, benefits system broken, social housing system broken, politics broken, broken railways, poisoned rivers, failing high streets … you’d head for the hills if they weren’t strewn with rubbish.

An absence of ideas in response to these problems has created the political vacuum that Nigel Farage’s Reform party has exploited with such zeal. For Farage the story is simple – the UK is stuck in a spiral of decline that can only be broken by a combination of economic nationalism, cultural conservatism and populist politics.

Whether you believe in Farage’s diagnosis of the problem or prescriptions for reform, what he offers is a vaunted solution to the doom loop problem that is clear and confident.

The power of narrative

As academics Alex Prior and Clara Eroukhmanoff have argued, political leaders not only need a clear narrative but they also have to be compelling characters within that narrative. Margaret Thatcher offered both the narrative and persona. She acknowledged the existence of challenges while telling a story about how she intended to fix them.

Tony Blair did the same. Meanwhile, the loss of a Conservative majority in 2017 was attributed to Theresa May “performing neither the narrative nor the persona”.

Starmer is not, and never has been, a storyteller. The limits of his performative competence were demonstrated in his 2026 New Year “things will get better” message to the British public. His argument that “decline” really will be “reversed” was unconvincing, his body language and facial expressions betrayed a lack of inner belief and the whole video has a tragi-comic dimension that is difficult to miss.

It’s easy to dismiss political storytelling as spin or selective framing – to call it propaganda or a manipulative tool for circumnavigating rational thought. But humans are storytelling animals. Understanding and ideas evolve through narratives.

Stories are sense-making and sense-giving modes of communication. They frame issues and they have an emotional appeal that resonates with their audiences. The “story paradox” is that they can bind people together and they can tear communities apart.

The dominant narrative in British politics is destructive, cynical and polarising. It focuses on failure and perpetuates the doom loop.

The question for 2026 is less about Starmer’s future and more about whether the political class can rebut this dominant and dangerous narrative of “broken Britain” with a positive and inclusive story about nurturing social change, building flourishing communities, generating inclusive growth and playing a role in the emergent world order.

But most of all this story must connect with the day-to-day concerns and lived experiences of voters and be able to radically reshape the tone of public debate. Britain urgently needs to tell a different story.

Matthew Flinders 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. How can Labour escape the doom loop in 2026? – https://theconversation.com/how-can-labour-escape-the-doom-loop-in-2026-272758

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London

This year the V&A opens its new outpost in east London. In 2025 it unveiled the so-called Storehouse, and its new V&A East Museum opens in April 2026. V&A East is part of a new cultural campus, on the site of the 2012 Summer Olympics, dedicated to collections, education and policy.

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the architecture firm best known for the giant Shed at the end of Manhattan’s High Line, the Storehouse serves as the new home for hundreds of thousands of objects that are not on display in the Museum’s main galleries in South Kensington.

It will be joined by the V&A East Museum, which will aim to spotlight making and the power of creativity to drive social change. It will open with the exhibition The Music Is Black: A British Story, which will reveal how Black British music has shaped British culture.

When the V&A East Storehouse opened it was met with both critical and popular acclaim, offering a beleaguered museum sector a glimpse of what London’s deputy mayor for culture called “the museum of the future”. However, if the V&A has created a new kind of institution, it’s fair to say, it has done so by going “back to the future”.

Indeed, that was the title of one of the early presentations I myself helped to create in 2016, when I was the V&A’s director of research and collections, to secure the approval of both the Museum’s Board of Trustees and London’s Mayor.

Read more:
How the new V&A Storehouse is reshaping public access to museum collections

We drew inspiration from our recent record. As it happens, the three-year period during which V&A East was conceived saw three of the most successful exhibitions in the Museum’s history – David Bowie Is (2013), Disobedient Objects (2014) and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2015). Each of these exhibitions was a masterclass in museology (the practice of organising, arranging and managing museums) devoted to subjects once seen as difficult if not impossible to display.

We also met with people who had designed ambitious commercial and cultural infrastructures, including one of Germany’s largest hardware chains and one of Australia’s busiest public libraries. We visited other institutions devoted to giving new access to non-displayed collections such as Glasgow’s Museums Resource Centre and Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, whose dramatic Depot opened in 2021 as “the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility.”

These new projects pointed us, in turn, to a history that stretched back to the middle of the 19th century, when the V&A grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851. This first World’s Fair attracted more than six million visitors and provided both collections and capital for the South Kensington Museum (the precursor to the V&A and the Science Museum). This institution was the first to offer food to visitors and evening hours. It was also supported by the first system of artificial lighting.

The decades that followed the fair saw pioneering developments in how museums were run. There were strides in technologies of reproduction such as photography and plaster casts. There was increasing circulation of collections to remote locations. Makers and artists were incorporated more into the galleries. There was also a core commitment to integrating research and teaching in the museum.

In those years, the Victoria and Albert Museum became part of a campus (known half-jokingly as Albertopolis) bringing together complementary institutions devoted to collections, education and policy. This was the explicit model not only for V&A East but for the redevelopment of the entire Queen Elizabeth Park in the wake of the 2012 Summer Olympics. In planning both the Storehouse and the new museum that will open next spring, we worked closely with partners (first UCL and the Smithsonian and later Sadler’s Wells, London College of Fashion, BBC Symphony Orchestra and others) who could create new synergies with old collections.

The V&A East Storehouse may well be the world’s largest cabinet of curiosities. It is certainly the most democratic: the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new facility in East London is free to visit and sits at the intersection of four of the UK’s most diverse and deprived neighbourhoods.

“It holds everything,” according to the V&A’s website, “from the pins used to secure a 17th century ruff to a two-storey section of a maisonette flat from the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate, demolished in 2017.” Other artefacts include The Kaufmann Office, the only complete interior by architect Frank Lloyd Wright outside of the US.

Visitors can not only see these “reserve collections” through a dizzying vista of open shelving but can order up to five items for a closer look. They can explore displays made by artists-in-residence and members of the community. They can look down through the glass-panelled floor into a state-of-the-art conservation lab. The project puts a national collection into the hands of the people and makes the experience no more daunting than a trip to the local Ikea, or, for that matter, the Westfield Shopping Centre, through which most people will pass on their short walk from Stratford Station.

When the project was conceived, Martin Roth, the V&A’s Director, asked us to turn the museum inside out, giving our visitors new insights into how collections are made, preserved and shown. Gus Casely-Hayford, the Director of V&A East, wants to bring a different demographic to the V&A, including local people who may never have been to a museum.

Its opening will complete East London’s new cultural campus. Only time will tell if the experiment of V&A East is as successful as Prince Albert’s visionary model in South Kensington.

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Bill Sherman receives funding from Research England.

– ref. V&A East: the spirit of the 19th-century cultural campus of ‘Albertopolis’ lives on – https://theconversation.com/vanda-east-the-spirit-of-the-19th-century-cultural-campus-of-albertopolis-lives-on-272103