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May 19, 2026

A pill helps you keep weight off after you come off weight-loss jabs – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Cork, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, Anglia Ruskin University

Weight-loss injections, such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, have transformed how we treat obesity. Around 1.6 million adults in Great Britain have used weight-loss drugs in the past year, with the vast majority of patients buying these drugs privately.

The issue with these weight-loss drugs is that, despite their success in shedding weight while patients are taking them, studies report significant weight regain when people come off them. What’s more, the health benefits seen when taking these drugs, such as reductions in blood pressure, blood glucose and lipids, also disappear.

In the UK, a private prescription for Mounjaro costs about £300 a month. And therein lies the issue. The ongoing cost is unsustainable for most patients.

The reason these drugs are so expensive is mainly due to the way they are made. First, the active components of these drugs are peptides – small proteins that are rapidly degraded in the stomach and digestive tract, meaning they must be administered via an injection. Second, the injector pens are expensive to make and they must be stored in a fridge.

Orforglipron (brand name: Foundayo), a once-daily pill-based weight-loss drug that targets the same GLP-1 system as Wegovy, has recently been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating obesity. Rather than the active compound being a peptide, it is instead a “small molecule”, meaning it can withstand the harsh environment of the digestive system and is much cheaper to make and store. (Most drugs, including aspirin, ibuprofen and statins, are small-molecule drugs.)

This makes orforglipron a promising new arrival on the weight-loss market, with the potential to democratise access to these important medications. In the US, the cost of a month’s supply of orforglipron is between US$149 and US$299 (£112-£224), compared with over US$1,000 for a monthly supply of Mounjaro.

Clinical trials have shown that orforglipron results in just over 15% body weight loss in adults with obesity, placing it on par with that seen with Wegovy, but significantly lower than the 21% weight loss seen with Mounjaro.

What is much more interesting, however, is the prospect that patients could use orforglipron to tackle the big problem of weight loss drugs: the rapid weight regain seen following their cessation.

Person stepping on a bathroom scale. — Keeping weight off is the tricky part.
Lee Charlie/Shutterstock.com

Keeping the weight off

Researchers recently published findings from a trial investigating whether weight loss achieved through either Wegovy or Mounjaro could be sustained by switching to orforglipron.

The study recruited patients who had successfully lost at least 5% of their body weight over 72 weeks while on one of the two existing weight-loss jabs. Patients were taken off their original medication and given either orforglipron or a placebo drug for 52 weeks.

Among patients who originally took Mounjaro, those on placebo regained just over 50% of the lost weight at week 52. In contrast, those who took orforglipron regained just 26%, with over two-fifths of participants maintaining over 80% of their body weight reduction.

Similar results were seen in patients who had originally taken Wegovy, with those taking a placebo pill regaining 62% of their lost body weight, compared to 21% weight regain in those taking orforglipron.

Across both groups, people who took orforglipron also saw lasting improvements in key health markers, including blood sugar, blood pressure, insulin and cholesterol levels.

The trial was small – just over 100 people in each group – but it suggests a promising path: that weight loss achieved through these medications can be maintained in the long term, along with their wider health benefits, in a way that may also be more affordable.

Orforglipron is not yet licensed in the UK for weight loss. Assuming it is approved by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, it is anticipated to be available late 2026 to early 2027.

Simon Cork 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. A pill helps you keep weight off after you come off weight-loss jabs – new study – https://theconversation.com/a-pill-helps-you-keep-weight-off-after-you-come-off-weight-loss-jabs-new-study-283034

May 19, 2026

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is associated with higher risk of suicide – here’s how we hope our new tool will help

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lynsay Matthews, Lecturer in Public Health, University of the West of Scotland

PMDD is often misdiagnosed or under-diagnosed. Prostock-studio/ Shutterstock

Every month, between 3% and 8% of women and people assigned female at birth will experience debilitating emotional, cognitive and sometimes physical symptoms in the week or two before menstruation.

This condition, known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), is a severe mood disorder that has a significant impact on life. It is also associated with increased risk of suicide.

The majority of those with PMDD experience suicidal thoughts before their period, around one in three attempt suicide and more than half engage in self-harm.

Research also suggests that people with PMDD may be seven times more likely to attempt suicide, and twice as likely to die by suicide than women and people assigned female at birth who don’t have PMDD.

Despite the serious impacts PMDD has, it typically remains under-diagnosed, misdiagnosed and often inappropriately managed. Sadly, in my work researching PMDD, I often hear from people seeking help – either for themselves, their daughters, sisters, partners or friends. Their common fear is risk of suicide, and the “desperate” lack of tailored support available.

My colleagues and I have developed a new tool to help health professionals understand suicidal behaviour in those with PMDD. We hope this leads to people receiving timely and tailored support.

Suicide risk in PMDD

There are a few key factors that researchers suggest could explain why people with PMDD are at a heightened risk of suicide.

The overarching factor is the menstrual cycle.

In people with PMDD, the brain appears unusually sensitive to normal hormone fluctuations. This can disrupt brain systems involved in regulating mood, emotion and impulse control during the luteal phase of the cycle (between ovulation and the first day of menstruation), making this a high-risk phase for suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

Emotional dysregulation, another core element of PMDD, may also have an influence. This is characterised by frightening mood changes, including low mood, anger, anxiety and hopelessness.

Emotional dysregulation means that people with PMDD have increased sensitivity to perceived rejection and heightened responses to relationship conflict, all of which may influence suicide risk in the weeks before menstruation.

Hormonal triggers may also play a role. Starting, stopping or changing the dose of hormonal treatments (such as hormonal contraception), the postpartum phase after pregnancy and perimenopause are commonly associated with mental health crises in people with PMDD. These triggers are important to understand so that people can be supported in the right way by health professionals.

Life circumstances may play a role as well, with research suggesting that past trauma significantly increases the likelihood of being diagnosed with PMDD. This is a potential mechanism for heightened suicide risk – a relationship that is well-established in other mental health conditions.

Research suggests a link between neurodiversity and PMDD, too. This is an interesting finding, given that people with autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) already have a higher risk of attempted and completed suicide than the general population. More studies are starting to explore this link to help us better understand suicide-related experiences of people with both neurodivergence and PMDD.

A persons's hand marks a calendar with frowny faces over five-days to depict menstruation. — The monthly nature of PMDD leaves many feeling hopeless.
Trismegist san/ Shutterstock

Experiences with health services can also be a source of distress for people with PMDD. Many experience repeated dismissal of their symptoms or misdiagnosis.

People report feeling “helpless” and like they’re trapped in a “vicious cycle.” For many people, these feelings can last from adolescence until menopause (around 40 years), leading to a build up of exhaustion.

When my colleagues and I speak with people with PMDD, they say they become so exhausted they “just want to disappear” – a sign of heightened suicide risk known as passive suicidality. Many of them describe how they don’t want to end their life, they “just need the cycle to stop for a while.” This is an important insight, given they will experience around 450 menstrual cycles in their lifetime.

Overall, people with PMDD describe feeling “out of control”. Many people tell us that their suicide attempts were “impulsive,” rather than planned – leaving them confused and frightened afterwards.

Preventing suicide

Despite suicide prevention being an important priority for different stakeholders, there are still limited PMDD-specific suicide prevention interventions.

And although treatments are available for PMDD, they may not work for everybody and may not address suicidality.

Alongside colleagues from the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow and University of the West of Scotland, we have tried to address this by developing a new model that we hope will support health professionals in understanding of PMDD and suicide risk.

We did this by applying PMDD to an existing model for identifying suicidal behaviour in the general population. Our new model demonstrates how predisposing factors (such as hormonal triggers) can lead to the formation of suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

The model will help health workers to understand how the timing of the menstrual cycle may influence risk assessment. It will also inform discussions with patients – such as asking “how often do you feel this way?” rather than “how long have you felt this way?” – and embed menstrual cycle tracking as routine practice.

Although our research has yet to be put into formal practice, we hope the model will help patients and professionals identify monthly patterns in suicide risk and ultimately improve care for those living with this frightening and exhausting disorder.

If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support:

In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123.

In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433.

In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14.

In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.

Lynsay Matthews receives (or has received) funding from Medical Research Scotland, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Research England, University of the West of Scotland, ESRC Impact Accelerator Award and National Institute for Health Research. She is affiliated with the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders UK (IAPMD UK).

– ref. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is associated with higher risk of suicide – here’s how we hope our new tool will help – https://theconversation.com/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-is-associated-with-higher-risk-of-suicide-heres-how-we-hope-our-new-tool-will-help-281818

May 19, 2026

Gut health: why food alone won’t fix childhood stunting

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Thulani P. Makhalanyane, Professor of Microbiology, Stellenbosch University

South Africa has a paradox when it comes to food availability. Its supermarkets are overflowing. But it continues to record high levels of stunted growth.

This seems to be a global problem. Data suggest that the world has produced more food in the last two decades and more wealth. Yet, roughly 150 million children under five remain stunted (too short for their age).

Stunted growth and poor cognitive development often stem from the same early-life problems, like poor nutrition, illness and unhealthy environments. These impediments to a child’s learning ability and physical growth have been shown to have serious long-term consequences for health and future economic prospects.

More concerning is that it appears that putting calories into mouths is not enough to prevent stunting. The science points to the role played by our intestinal microbiome – the trillions of microscopic organisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi, that live in and on us – and the inability to digest nutrients.

We – a microbiologist and a health economist – recently published a paper in which we outline emerging evidence demonstrating that poverty affects children’s physiology – the way their bodies work – not merely their access to resources. Addressing childhood stunting therefore requires moving beyond single interventions such as providing food. What’s needed are integrated approaches that simultaneously tackle sanitation, infection control, nutrition quality and early childhood stimulation.

Our findings support the growing scientific evidence that both physiological and environmental factors must be addressed together to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and developmental impairment. Nutrition is not the full story. The gut microbiome plays a complementary role by breaking down complex carbohydrates that our bodies cannot digest on their own, converting them into forms that may be absorbed and used for growth and development.

Diet provides the essential raw materials, while the microbiome helps unlock their nutritional value, thereby contributing to growth and development. There is also strong evidence that the environment shapes the microbiome’s ability to carry out these functions.

Gut microbes, poverty and stunting

Children’s growth is affected not only by what they eat, but also by how well their bodies can process and absorb nutrients.

Children living in informal settlements, where sanitation is generally poor, are exposed to microorganisms through dirt, toxic dust and sewage. This exposure may lead to a condition called environmental enteric dysfunction. This is when an inflamed intestine impairs the absorption of nutrients, including fats, proteins and vitamins.

The result is stunting. This may remain undiagnosed but can affect health negatively across a lifetime.

The prevalence of environmental enteric dysfunction in South Africa remains unclear. One reason is that there are no easily administered diagnostic tests. The other is the lack of large scale coordinated national studies.

Evidence from studies in Asia supports the potential role of the microbiome as a central contributor to stunting. These studies suggest that gut microbial communities of healthy children tend to follow predictable developmental milestones during the first two years of life. Failure to achieve these milestones may compromise the microbiome’s capacity to process food efficiently, with important implications for child growth and development.

In contrast, children with severe acute malnutrition often carry an immature gut community that does not mature in response to food or interventions focused on water, sanitation and hygiene services alone.

In a study done in Malawi, scientists transplanted gut bacteria from malnourished children into young animals and showed that the animals developed growth deficits. Conversely, microbes from healthy children could restore growth.

These studies show that an unhealthy gut community may be a cause – not just a consequence – of poor growth. Although the concept of a “healthy” microbiome has been the subject of extensive debate, there is increasing consensus that healthy microbiomes are typically characterised by high microbial diversity, the absence of dominance by a single organism, the capacity to remain stable, resilience and the ability to maintain essential functions even when community composition changes or is subject to environmental disturbance.

Studies that look directly at the small intestine have found that many stunted children have bacteria from the mouth growing in the wrong part of the gut. These bacteria may interfere with how the body absorbs fat, creating a direct link between the makeup of gut microbes and poor growth.

Other studies show that what really matters is what the microbes do – their ability to make vitamins and other building blocks – not just which species are present.

Put simply, the microbiome can help determine whether the food a child eats is used to grow body tissue or is wasted.

Knowledge gaps

Progress in tackling stunting has been slow for a number of reasons.

Firstly, traditional interventions focused on food provision and sanitation without understanding the underlying biological damage that impairs how nutrients are absorbed.

Secondly, the evidence base relies on studies from high-income contexts where nutrition alone may be the primary constraint. In lower and middle income countries the biological mechanisms driving stunting involve multiple interacting pathways.

Part of the answer is geography of research. Many of the early groundbreaking studies come from Asia and south Asia and from a few sites in east Africa and Malawi. Large multicountry cohorts such as the MAL-ED project and several studies in Bangladesh have provided strong evidence about enteric pathogens and their links to growth.

But sub-Saharan Africa remains under represented in longitudinal microbiome studies despite carrying a large burden of stunting. That gap has real world consequences. We know that the gut microbiome varies considerably and is influenced by several factors including diet and geography.

Children in different places have different diets, different exposures and different baseline microbes. Interventions that work in one region may fail in another.

The answers

What’s needed is African led research that samples African children across geography to understand what will work on the continent.

This requires a change in approaches to policy and research.

First, policy makers must stop treating food availability as synonymous with nutritional success. Food security matters but it is not sufficient.

Secondly, routine growth must be monitored better at primary healthcare level so stunting is not missed in communities where short stature looks normal to the eye.

Third, studies must measure gut function – not only weight and height. This will show who is failing to extract the benefit of food.

Fourth, water, sanitation and hygiene must be integrated.

Finally, build African capacity for this work, and fund African research.

Where the science could lead

Research into the microbiome can shift strategies from treating hunger to restoring lifelong health.

For example, it may be possible to identify new microbes that block fat absorption or those that degrade essential vitamins. We may begin to map how early disruptions in gut function influence metabolism and increase the risk of non-communicable diseases later in life.

We may also learn to use simple stool or blood markers to identify children who, despite having enough food, will not grow without gut-directed therapy.

Thulani P. Makhalanyane receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation, The European Union Horizon 2020 Program, and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Ronelle Burger receives funding from the South African Research Foundation, the DG Murray Trust, the South African Medical Research Council, and the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation for research on child stunting and housing.

– ref. Gut health: why food alone won’t fix childhood stunting – https://theconversation.com/gut-health-why-food-alone-wont-fix-childhood-stunting-273395

May 19, 2026

Fish can pass Pfas safety limits one chemical at a time, but cocktail effects reveal a bigger unseen risk – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Henry Obanya, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Environmental Toxicology,, University of Portsmouth

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Pfas), often called “forever chemicals”, are now found almost everywhere scientists look. They have been detected in rivers, oceans, wildlife, food and even human blood.

These synthetic chemicals have been used since the 1950s in products ranging from waterproof clothing and non-stick cookware to firefighting foams and food packaging. Their strength comes from their resistance to heat, grease and water. But that same durability means they barely break down once released into the environment.

Our new study of the Solent, the stretch of sea between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in southern England, builds on our previous research. It shows how deeply these chemicals have entered a protected coastal ecosystem. We found Pfas in surface waters, sediments, treated wastewater effluent and marine wildlife. This included seaweeds, invertebrates, fish and harbour porpoises.

But the most important finding was not that Pfas were present. It was that current regulation may be missing the bigger picture.

Most environmental rules still assess Pfas one chemical at a time. In the UK and Europe, monitoring and legal thresholds focus more on compounds such as perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Yet, in the real world, wildlife and people are exposed to mixtures of many Pfas simultaneously. When we assessed our Solent samples using individual chemical thresholds, most species appeared to fall within existing legal limits. Harbour porpoise liver was the major exception. It contained PFOS concentrations far above the ecological standard.

But when we applied a mixture-based approach, the picture changed substantially. We combined the toxicity of multiple Pfas into a single “PFOA equivalent” measure. Many more samples exceeded a European Food Safety Authority health benchmark.

In other words, an organism can appear compliant under single chemical regulation while still carrying a potentially concerning mixture burden.

That matters because Pfas do not enter coastal ecosystems from a single source. The Solent is surrounded by wastewater treatment infrastructure, combined sewer overflows, urban runoff and hundreds of historic landfill sites. We identified around 194 combined sewer overflow outlets and more than 500 historic landfills close to the coastline.

We also found that treated wastewater from two major local treatment plants still contained a broad range of Pfas after processing. Conventional wastewater treatment systems are not designed to remove these chemicals effectively. This means they can continue entering rivers and coastal waters even after treatment. Some Pfas behave differently once released. Long-chain Pfas compounds (made up of six or more carbon atoms) such as PFOS tend to accumulate in sediments and animal tissues. Short-chain replacements (compounds which have fewer carbon atoms in their structure) are often more mobile in water. They can spread more widely and more easily through rivers, estuaries and coastal waters.

That difference was visible in our results. Sediments and marine mammals were dominated by PFOS and other long chain compounds. Wastewater, surface waters and some seaweeds contained a broader mixture that included newer short-chain Pfas.

The highest concentrations we recorded were in harbour porpoise liver tissue. Fish and invertebrates generally contained lower levels, but Pfas were still widespread across the food web. We also found evidence that some seaweeds and small invertebrates contained short-chain Pfas and precursor compounds. This likely facilitates the movement of contamination through coastal ecosystems.

underwater green yellow seaweeds — Pfas can build up in seaweeds.
Robert Harding Video/Shutterstock

The Solent is internationally important for wildlife. It contains protected habitats, saltmarshes, seagrass beds and feeding grounds for birds and marine mammals. Yet it also sits alongside one of the most densely populated and industrialised stretches of coastline in southern England.

Growing concerns

Our findings arrive as concern about Pfas is growing internationally. The Environment Agency has recently reviewed the challenges of destroying Pfas safely. It noted that conventional disposal routes such as landfilling and wastewater treatment do not eliminate them. Natural England has warned that many Pfas remain poorly monitored in protected marine areas. Meanwhile, the EU is moving towards broader restrictions on Pfas use across thousands of products.

The UK has started paying closer attention too. Evidence submitted to ongoing parliamentary inquiries has warned about the risks Pfas pose to marine ecosystems and human health. Drinking water guidance has recently been updated to expand monitoring requirements. But regulation still largely focuses on a relatively small number of compounds, despite there being thousands of Pfas in commercial use.

There are important limits to our study. Some datasets came from different monitoring programmes with different detection limits. Our surface water sampling was also limited in terms of the number of tests so it’s hard to make direct conclusions about the direct risks to people eating seafood.

But the broader message is difficult to ignore. Pfas contamination is not confined to one species, one pollution source or one part of the food web. It is now embedded across coastal ecosystems.

If regulation continues to assess forever chemicals one compound at a time, we may continue underestimating the true scale of exposure.

Alex Ford has received funding from UKRI research councils, EU, charities and industrial partners including the water industry.

Henry Obanya 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. Fish can pass Pfas safety limits one chemical at a time, but cocktail effects reveal a bigger unseen risk – new study – https://theconversation.com/fish-can-pass-pfas-safety-limits-one-chemical-at-a-time-but-cocktail-effects-reveal-a-bigger-unseen-risk-new-study-282797

May 19, 2026

NATO would survive a US withdrawal. But what kind of alliance would it become?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Gorana Grgić, Head of Global Security, Center for Security Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; University of Sydney

As NATO counts down to its annual summit in Turkey in July, the alliance is facing perhaps the biggest challenge in its history – what a potential future without the United States, or US security guarantees, would look like.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has taken a series of steps widely interpreted in European capitals as retaliation for allies’ reluctance to more strongly support the US position in the Iran war. It has announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops out of Germany, halted the deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland and even reportedly considered moves to suspend Spain from the alliance.

Europe was already uneasy about Washington’s broader strategic intentions. Increasingly, NATO allies are realising they can no longer depend on the United States for their security and will have to shoulder far greater responsibility themselves.

NATO 3.0

US President Donald Trump’s narrow understanding of the value of alliances has long been known. Now, his vision for a new NATO is coming into view.

At a NATO defence minister meeting in February, the US under secretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, introduced the idea of “NATO 3.0”. This would entail Europeans assuming a much larger role in conventional deterrence. The US, meanwhile, would prioritise strategic competition with China and supporting European security more selectively and from greater distance.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Elbridge Colby speaking at NATO in February.

At the same time, the White House has reportedly been pushing to roll back decades of NATO’s mission expansion and keep Ukraine and NATO’s four Indo-Pacific partners (Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) out of the annual summit in July.

This reflects a broader transformation in US strategic thinking. NATO is no longer viewed as a political community and a pillar of the liberal international order. Increasingly, it is seen as a narrower military arrangement whose value depends on whether Europeans can shoulder more of the burden themselves and remain compliant with Trump’s agenda.

In this new paradigm, the United States is not simply asking European allies to spend more. It is telling Europe to do more with less American hardware, a looser political alignment, and fewer guarantees.

Plus, there’s a deeper problem: the erosion of trust within the alliance and the assumptions that have underpinned NATO’s deterrence posture for decades.

The result is a “Europeanised NATO” emerging by necessity rather than design. What such an alliance would actually look like remains unclear.

A focus on collective defence

One thing is certain: one single country won’t simply replace the United States as alliance leader. No European power possesses the capabilities, resources or political legitimacy to fill that role alone. Instead, leadership will likely come from the most capable states acting together.

That trend is already visible in “Europe’s minilateral moment”. The E3 group (Britain, France and Germany) and newer E5 coalition (with Italy and Poland), for example, have begun accelerating coordination among Europe’s leading military powers.

These arrangements are not alternatives to NATO. Rather, they may become the mechanisms through which a stronger European focus inside NATO is organised.

But this is where the uncertainties begin. A more Europeanised NATO is far from guaranteed to become a more cohesive NATO. The alliance has long struggled with the strategic cacophony of its 32 members, driven by divergent threat perceptions, regional priorities and strategic cultures. As American leadership recedes, those differences may become even sharper and harder to manage.

A more Europeanised alliance is, at least initially, likely to narrow its focus on collective defence and deterrence to counter Russia’s militarism and its ongoing war against Ukraine.

The broader agenda that expanded after the Cold War to include crisis management and cooperative security may increasingly become secondary. This included efforts to address global security challenges (such as supporting capacity building in countries affected by violent conflict), counter-terrorism operations, and enhancing energy and maritime security.

Yet, many NATO allies, particularly those on NATO’s southern flank, continue to argue that crisis management and cooperative security must remain core alliance functions. For countries facing instability across North Africa and the Middle East, migration pressures, terrorism and maritime insecurity, NATO cannot be concerned only with Russia.

NATO’s cooperative security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific are also increasingly important, even though they are no longer openly supported by the US administration.

Cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand (known as the IP4) has emerged as perhaps NATO’s most promising cooperative-security framework, precisely because it strengthens the alliance’s core deterrence mission.

Unlike many earlier partnership initiatives, this is tied directly to defence-industrial cooperation, technological resilience, security of supply chains for defence-critical materials, and strategic signalling.

The new reality

The “new NATO” is by no means a settled compact. It is an alliance caught between competing visions, profoundly uncertain political commitments from erstwhile supporters, and unresolved strategic questions.

Europe is moving towards greater responsibility for its security, but without a clear consensus on what greater strategic autonomy ultimately means.

The central question facing NATO today is not whether the alliance survives. It almost certainly will in some form, as one should never underestimate the binding power of bureaucracies.

The real question is what kind of alliance emerges and how credible it remains. Will it be a narrower military pact laser-focused on continental defence? Or a broader political-security community capable of managing the full spectrum of crises affecting Europe?

Gorana Grgić was previously a recipient of research and teaching funding from NATO.

– ref. NATO would survive a US withdrawal. But what kind of alliance would it become? – https://theconversation.com/nato-would-survive-a-us-withdrawal-but-what-kind-of-alliance-would-it-become-282723

May 19, 2026

Ebola strain spreading in Congo and Uganda has no approved vaccine

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Klinger Soares Faico Filho, Professor da Disciplina de Clínica Médica e Medicina Laboratorial, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)

A man washes his hands before being screened to enter Kyeshero Hospital in Goma, Congo, on May 18, 2026. Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images

As a deadly outbreak of Ebola virus spreads in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on May 17, 2026, that it is transferring “a small number of Americans” who were in Congo and who were exposed to the virus.

Some of these exposures are classified as high-risk, and among them is an American doctor who has been evacuated to Germany, health officials said.

On May 18, the U.S. also announced a ban on people who have recently traveled to Ebola-affected countries from entering the country.

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak to be an international health emergency on May 17. However, the CDC says the risk to the United States remains low.

As an infectious disease scientist who has studied multiple epidemics around the world, I agree that this reassurance is justified. But one key aspect of this outbreak is highly concerning: There is more than one Ebola virus, and this outbreak is caused by one for which the world has no vaccine.

On May 17, 2026, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.”

A familiar name, an unfamiliar virus

First identified in 1976, Ebola viruses have caused dozens of outbreaks across Africa.

The group of viruses that cause the disease, called orthoebolaviruses, consists of six known species, but three cause most large outbreaks: Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo. The tools the world developed over the past decade – the licensed vaccine Ervebo and monoclonal antibody treatments – were designed against the Zaire species, which is by far the most common.

The current outbreak, by contrast, is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, first identified in 2007 in Uganda. It is only the third documented Bundibugyo outbreak on record – and the largest.

There are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo virus. That’s because its genetic makeup differs significantly from other orthoebolaviruses. When the Bundibugyo virus was first described, scientists warned that this divergence would complicate efforts to design diagnostics and vaccines against it. An immune response to the Zaire species, elicited by a vaccine, is unlikely to protect against Bundibugyo.

An outbreak that grew in the dark

The most worrying feature about the current outbreak is not the virus itself but how large it already was when it was recognized.

It took the WHO until May 15 to identify the Bundibugyo strain as the cause of the outbreak. By May 16, the health organization had identified 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths in the DRC’s Ituri province. Recent Zaire outbreaks were often declared with only a handful of community deaths.

One reason for the delay is technical: The rapid field tests used for screening are calibrated for the Zaire species and often miss Bundibugyo. Early samples in this outbreak tested negative for Ebola; only genomic sequencing at a reference laboratory in Kinshasa identified the species. An outbreak that spreads invisibly is far harder to contain because contact tracing is always one step behind.

Geography compounds the danger – and explains why the WHO moved so fast after identifying the cause of the outbreak to declare it an emergency. Ituri has porous borders with Uganda and South Sudan as well as a highly mobile population. It is also in the grip of a humanitarian and security crisis due to prolonged armed conflict in eastern Congo.

A person in protective gear checks the temperature of people in a white van. — A visitor has their temperature checked at a checkpoint before entering Kyeshero Hospital in Goma, Congo, on May 18, 2026.
Jospin Mwisha/AFP via Getty Images

The outbreak’s hot spots include mining towns with constant worker turnover, and cases have already reached Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, where more than 1.5 million people are connected to the world by an international airport. That is the international community’s central fear: not the remote village, but the virus reaching dense, highly connected urban hubs from which it can travel along trade and air routes across borders.

An outbreak that stays rural can be contained; one that reaches the transit network – as seems to be the case now – becomes everyone’s problem.

How Ebola spreads – and why health workers’ risk is high

There is also a less intuitive route. After recovery, the virus can persist for months in sites such as the testes, eyes and central nervous system, which infectious disease experts call “immune-privileged” sites. This means they don’t tend to experience strong responses from the immune system when they are invaded by foreign substances.

For the Zaire species, this has produced documented cases of sexual transmission from male survivors whose blood had long since cleared the virus. This is why the WHO now advises male survivors to abstain from sex or use condoms until semen tests negative twice.

How far this applies to Bundibugyo is not yet established, but it is one more reason that a “contained” outbreak is rarely the end of the story.

A revealing detail of the current outbreak: Among the first identified cases were four health workers, who died within days. This points to transmission inside health facilities, a classic pattern when protective equipment and infection control fall short.

What this outbreak is really testing

With no specific vaccine or antiviral, the response depends entirely on classic public health measures: early detection, case isolation, contact tracing, safe burials, infection control and community engagement. These work, but they are labor-intensive and fragile in a conflict zone.

The encouraging news is that early supportive care – fluids and blood-pressure and oxygen management – saves lives even without a targeted drug. Experimental Bundibugyo vaccines have also shown promise in primates, though they are not yet proved in humans.

There is a final point that should resonate in the United States: Some epidemiologists have raised the question of whether cuts to global health programs contributed to the delay in this outbreak’s detection. Whatever the answer, the lesson is the same: With the existing Ebola vaccine, the world built a narrow defense against one species of a virus that comes in several.

The Americans now being flown out of Congo are a reminder that in an interconnected world, no outbreak is ever entirely someone else’s problem.

Klinger Soares Faico Filho is the founder and editor in chief of InfectoCast, a medical education platform on infectious diseases based in Brazil offering a podcast, courses, a subscription-based app, events, and content aimed at healthcare professionalsInfectoCast had no role in the preparation, review, or publication of this article

– ref. Ebola strain spreading in Congo and Uganda has no approved vaccine – https://theconversation.com/ebola-strain-spreading-in-congo-and-uganda-has-no-approved-vaccine-283221

May 18, 2026

Battleground state with few combatants – why Pennsylvania’s primaries lack competition

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristin Kanthak, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania is only 1 of 13 American states that holds closed primary elections. REBECCA DROKE/AFP Collection via Getty Images

At a time when hard-fought primary elections in Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana and Ohio are making national news, perennial battleground Pennsylvania seems to be nodding through one of the sleepiest primary seasons in a long time.

I’m an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. My research focuses on how political institutions like political parties and state and local governments affect political representation.

In statewide races, only the Republican lieutenant governor slot is contested, a race between GOP-endorsed attorney Jason Richey and newcomer John Ventre. In the state Senate, less than a third of incumbents drew a challenger. Only 21 of the 203 state Assembly seats see an incumbent facing an in-party challenge. So why does Pennsylvania, usually a hotbed of political strife, appear to be sitting this midterm primary season out?

Uncontested primaries are normal

According to political scientists Shigeo Hirano and James M. Snyder Jr., uncontested primaries, and uncontested elections in general, are normal – and can even be a good thing. They argue it’s because high quality candidates do not tend to draw a challenge. This means that an uncontested primary signifies the district has no potential candidates who both want the job and think they can win against the incumbent.

The biggest reason challengers stay home is because of a well-dug-in incumbent, and Pennsylvania had plenty of those this cycle. Unlike in Indiana, no wave of anti-establishment energy is giving long-shot challengers a fighting chance.

A man in a suit stands in front of a microphone outside. — Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican, protested against the government shutdown in January 2026.
Mark Makela/Stringer Collection via Getty Images

Interestingly, the moderate Trump foe and incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican state representative from Bucks County, managed to avoid a primary challenge this year. Fitzpatrick was one of only two Republicans to vote against the H.R. 1 Act – also known as President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

The only other dissenting vote came from Kentucky’s Thomas Massie — and the President responded by personally recruiting a primary challenger to run against him.

Why Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick got a pass

So how did Fitzpatrick manage to avoid Trump’s notice? It helps to compare his political fortunes with Massie’s.

Massie’s district is solidly red. He typically wins at least 60% of his general election vote. In 2024, no Democrat even ran against him.

Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, hails from a decidedly “purple” district where the vote could go in either party’s direction. He rarely wins more than 55% of the vote, and is perennially on the list of the most at-risk Republican incumbents.

In other words, in a midterm election in which Republicans face strong competition and fear losing the House of Representatives, Republicans need Fitzpatrick more than they need Massie. Without Fitzpatrick, his district is much more likely to fall in the Democratic column. Without Massie, Republicans can still expect to keep the seat red.

Pennsylvania parties hold the key

Pennsylvania incumbents have mostly been able to avoid finding themselves part of a larger conflict.

Some of the most contested primaries this election cycle stem from disputes centered on President Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional district lines. But the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with its closely divided state legislature, is not going to change its electoral map anytime soon. So the Commonwealth was left out of partisan gerrymandering disputes.

Pennsylvania remains one of only 13 American states that holds closed primary elections. That means voters must already be registered as party members to vote in that party’s primary. In an open, or even semi-open, primary state like Michigan and Iowa, potential challengers can try to win a primary election by relying on new voters choosing to align with the party only for that election day, or even for that specific election.

Three young women hold signs about voting while standing outside. — In order to vote in Pennsylvania’s primary on May 19, 2026, voters must already be registered as members within their party.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP Collection via Getty Images

A closed party system gives party regulars, and the party organization itself, enormous sway over who gets nominated. Potential candidates in closed-party states are much better off working within the party organization and waiting for an incumbent to step down before throwing their hats in the ring.

Pennsylvania is a closed-party state and a swing state. In an election cycle in which political parties from West Virginia’s Republicans to California’s Democrats seem to be turning on their own members, Democrats and Republicans in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have managed to keep their parties more unified.

The desire for party fealty is strong, but not as strong as the need to win in the general election. Pennsylvania parties are powerful, and they are staying cautious until November. An uncontested primary, in other words, isn’t a sign of apathy. In Pennsylvania, it’s strategy.

Kristin Kanthak 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.

– ref. Battleground state with few combatants – why Pennsylvania’s primaries lack competition – https://theconversation.com/battleground-state-with-few-combatants-why-pennsylvanias-primaries-lack-competition-283219

May 18, 2026

Hurricane forecasts have improved dramatically, saving lives, but federal cuts threaten to stretch NOAA to the breaking point

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian Tang, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University at Albany, State University of New York

One of NOAA’s WP-3D Orion hurricane hunters, dubbed Miss Piggy, flies over Tropical Storm Idalia on Aug. 28, 2023. Nick Underwood/NOAA

The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1, and while a developing El Niño might result in a tamer season than in the past few years, all it takes is one big storm hitting a populated area to make it a bad hurricane season.

Every year, Americans rely on accurate forecasts when hurricanes might be developing to know when to stock up on supplies, prepare for power outages or evacuate.

Those forecasts have improved dramatically in recent decades, but the improvements can’t be taken for granted. Over the past year, federal funding cuts and job losses in the very programs that are helping make Americans safer from extreme weather threaten to stall progress and stretch forecasting resources to the breaking point.

How storm tracks have improved. — Hurricane track forecasts have become more accurate over the past three decades. For example, recent forecasts showing where a storm is expected to be in 96 hours have been, on average, about as accurate as a 24-hour track forecast was in the early 1990s. That gives people more time to evacuate. The lines show how many miles off the National Hurricane Center’s official storm tracks were.
National Hurricane Center

I am an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on hurricanes, including how and why they intensify or weaken. I also work with scientists at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, NOAA, to analyze observations collected by reconnaissance aircraft and evaluate computer model forecasts of hurricanes.

Here’s what forecasters rely on during hurricane season and why investing in science, forecasting technologies and the people who run them matters.

Flying through hurricanes

To have the best chance of an accurate hurricane forecast, computer models and meteorologists need to know about the location, intensity and structure of a hurricane, along with the environment that surrounds it. Satellites are crucial for tracking storms from above, but many details can be collected only inside the storm, where satellites can’t see.

That’s why NOAA relies on “hurricane hunters” – a group of skilled pilots and scientists who fly through storms all season long to collect storm data, which is quickly transmitted to forecasters and computer models.

A scientists in a flight suit sits at a computer in an airplane talking on a headset. — Flight Director Quinn Kalen at his work station during a flight into Hurricane Lee on Sept. 8, 2023.
Lt Cmdr Utama/NOAA Corps

A radar screen with an airplane in the center of a storm circulation. — A radar display shows NOAA’s Miss Piggy hurricane hunter aircraft in the center of Tropical Storm Idalia on Aug. 28, 2023.
Nick Underwood/NOAA

When storms are developing, the U.S. Air Force Reserve and NOAA conduct several hurricane hunter flights per day to provide the most up-to-date storm information. During these missions, the crews often fly directly into the storm, through screaming winds and heavy rain, to release instrument packages called dropsondes.

The dropsonde is a feat of science and engineering, able to accurately measure the temperature, humidity, wind and pressure in hostile conditions. This data is radioed back to the aircraft. From there, it is processed and transmitted to NOAA, where forecasters analyze it and computer models use it to initialize forecasts.

A NOAA scientist explains how hurricane forecasters use dropsondes.

I and many hurricane scientists have used dropsonde data collected over the years to build a better understanding of how hurricanes behave. A recent study showed that computer model forecasts of hurricane tracks were up to 24% more accurate when they included dropsonde data than those that didn’t.

Simulating hurricanes

A big reason hurricane forecasts have gotten better has been federal investments in computer models that can simulate these storms.

In 2008 the U.S. government funded the NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, leading to substantial advancements in computer modeling and forecast accuracy. Computer models got better at incorporating the observations gathered by aircraft, showing air movements and rain bands in greater detail.

A radar showing a hurricane's swirling form. — A HAFS radar forecast shows Hurricane Melissa as it approaches Jamaica in October 2025. The HAFS model performed well in forecasting the intensification and extreme strength of the Category 5 storm in the days leading up to its landfall in Jamaica.
NOAA/AOML/HRD

The flagship NOAA hurricane model is now the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, which does a better job of predicting rapid intensification, among other things, than its predecessors.

When storms rapidly intensify, as several have done in recent years, they can pose an acute risk to coastal communities. More accurate forecasts give people and communities better information to decide how to prepare and when they need to evacuate. Improvements since 2007 have resulted in an estimated US$2 billion in savings per hurricane landfall and many lives saved.

That’s a huge return on investment. In 2024, NOAA’s entire budget was $6.7 billion.

Keeping an eye on the storms ahead

There are some exciting developments ahead in hurricane observations and modeling.

NOAA in 2024 ordered two new aircraft, expected to be delivered by 2030, to begin replacing its aging hurricane hunter fleet so fights and their data collection can continue.

Private companies working with NOAA have deployed and tested autonomous drones – both in the air and sail drones on the ocean surface – that can collect data in areas where quality observations are hard to get.

Additionally, artificial intelligence weather models have emerged, such as Google DeepMind, which made a big splash as the most accurate forecast model of the 2025 hurricane season.

Some lingering dark clouds

Despite these promising developments, a different storm is eroding the bedrock upon which the national weather forecast enterprise sits.

Cuts in funding and staffing have stressed NOAA’s ability to collect critical observations. Last year, retired NOAA scientists volunteered to staff hurricane hunter reconnaissance flights so the missions could still be flown.

Debris and damage homes across a town with the Gulf waters in the background. — Knowing when to evacuate is crucial. Hurricane Helene made a mess in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., on Sept. 28, 2024. The storm was blamed for at least 250 deaths across six states.
Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration proposed cutting NOAA’s budget by more than a quarter, including dismantling its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Congress rejected many of the administration’s proposed budget cuts, ultimately approving a $6.1 billion budget in March 2026, still down from the previous budget.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, which led the development of computer models and dropsonde technology, has also been targeted by the Trump administration to be dismantled. The American Meteorological Society warns this decision “will harm meteorological research and innovation in the United States with severe consequences to current and future efforts of the weather enterprise to protect life, property, and the nation’s economy.”

I worry about the funding and staff cuts stressing systems that keep scientific progress marching forward and warn Americans about hazardous weather. Losing staff and support raises the risk of critical failures, such as delayed severe weather warnings and broken equipment causing new blind spots when storms threaten. In the long run, failing to invest risks stagnation or even reversing the hard-fought progress the U.S. has made in advancing weather prediction.

With coastal populations and development expanding over the past few decades, and storms becoming stronger, the vulnerability of the U.S. to costly, damaging hurricanes has increased dramatically. It is more important than ever that public investment in hurricane science and forecasting continue.

Brian Tang receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes. He has research collaborations with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society.

– ref. Hurricane forecasts have improved dramatically, saving lives, but federal cuts threaten to stretch NOAA to the breaking point – https://theconversation.com/hurricane-forecasts-have-improved-dramatically-saving-lives-but-federal-cuts-threaten-to-stretch-noaa-to-the-breaking-point-280242

May 18, 2026

Chelsea football club must find its feet after a very expensive Premier League season

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christina Philippou, Associate Professor in Accounting and Sport Finance, University of Portsmouth

Chelsea FC losing the 2026 FA Cup final 1-0 to Manchester City will have been disappointing for the club’s fans. But perhaps the result was not hugely surprising, as the London club hasn’t had a brilliant season on the pitch.

Off the pitch, you could argue it’s been even worse.

Moments of anguish have included the expensive sacking in April 2026 of manager Liam Rosenior after just 106 days in the job. He was the side’s fifth manager (or head coach) in three years.

A month before that, Chelsea was fined over £10 million by the Premier League for breaching financial regulations – the biggest fine the league has ever imposed.

Added to (or taken away from) this, Chelsea then also posted the largest ever pre-tax financial loss in Premier League history. This amounted to £262.2 million in the 2024-25 season.

Not all of these events can be blamed on the club’s current owners, the US consortium known as BlueCo. Previously owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, Chelsea was sold in 2022 as a “distressed asset”, meaning that it needed to be sold quickly (and probably not for its full worth). This was because Abramovich’s assets had been frozen over his links to Vladimir Putin following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

When the new owners bought the club, they started combing through the financial books and found evidence of breaches of Premier League regulations which the club itself reported.

Part of this related to just over £47 million worth of undisclosed payments to unregistered agents and others as part of their plans to buy in new players. According to league rules, all payments relating to transfers need to go through the club books for reasons of fairness.

Leaving tens of millions of pounds out of the records means that the club shows fewer expenses than it should. This in turn could potentially shield it from breaking the league’s “profitability and sustainability” (PSR) rules, which are designed to force clubs into being financially sound businesses.

Those rules mean that clubs are allowed to build up footballing losses of no more than £105 million over a three-year period. Given Chelsea have been making losses for years, correctly recording expenses would increase those losses and potentially put them in breach of the PSR rules.

A fine of £10.75m is no small matter. It brings Chelsea closer to the PSR limit for the coming year, leaving more belt-tightening around spending decisions.

At the time, the club said in a statement: “From the outset of this process, the club has treated these matters with the utmost seriousness, providing full cooperation to all relevant regulators.”

But it is not just Chelsea that is affected. Football is a highly interconnected industry.

While clubs compete against each other, they are also very dependent on each other for matches (otherwise there would be nothing to watch and no tickets to sell) and for players. They also often suffer losses, with cash flow issues and other financial problems common. So having a competitor spend more than they should can negatively affect other clubs.

Football blues

Chelsea have also led the way in doing clever things within accounting rules, which others have followed. In 2023, the club started offering new players very long-term contracts which allowed them to spread their declared costs over a longer period.

So for example, a player bought for £90 million might be given a nine-year contract, meaning the annual cost can be recorded as £10 million.

This can help a club to stay within within PSR boundaries. But it also comes with financial risk (with big spending and time commitments), so to avoid other clubs following suit, both Uefa and the Premier League have now limited (to five) the number of years that can be used in the spending calculation.

Chelsea also effectively sold its women’s team to itself by switching ownership to Chelsea’s parent company for almost £200 million. This shows up as a decent profit for Chelsea, providing another benefit in terms of staying within PSR boundaries. The idea caught on, with Aston Villa and Everton doing the same thing before the Premier League closed this loophole too.

So from a financial perspective it will be interesting to see what tactics Chelsea comes up with next. The fans though will surely be more interested in the tactics chosen by the club’s latest signing, manager Xabi Alonso. And if he gets the club winning again, they’ll happily write off this season’s considerable losses.

Christina Philippou 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. Chelsea football club must find its feet after a very expensive Premier League season – https://theconversation.com/chelsea-football-club-must-find-its-feet-after-a-very-expensive-premier-league-season-278690

May 18, 2026

Even if the UK changes prime minister, voters now expect to hear the language of populism

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Coleman, Emeritus Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds

Beyond the high drama surrounding the Makerfield by-election and the contest to be the UK prime minister lies a more fundamental battle. It is the struggle between the incremental pragmatism of mainstream politics and the magical thinking of populism.

The great catchword of recent UK politics has been “change”. Brexit, it was said, would change the country’s declining position in the world. Boris Johnson said after his landslide electoral victory in 2019 that he was going to take on “the problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before”.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, entitled “Change”, declared that a Starmer-led government would “stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country”.

But people have different ideas of what change means and how fast it can happen.
In a world full of entrenched, unequal social structures and complex, intractable
global problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to be in the business of long-term evaluation.

Similarly, they are not impressed by graphs showing that the UK economy is currently the fastest-growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment in England are at their lowest level in more than three years.

There are undoubtedly better ways of communicating long-term change and
identifying quick wins than the current government has adopted. However, the real battle is not between rival tellers of the mainstream narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. Remembering this will be crucial for Andy Burnham when he takes on Reform UK in the Makerfield by-election in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party and his job as prime minister.

Feelings over facts

Populist leaders are successful not because they have more convincing policies for house-building, ending child poverty or realising energy security. The change they offer appeals to visceral feelings rather than material needs. “Imagine how you will feel on the day that we come to power,” they say. “Think of how shattered all of those people who have ignored you, talked down to you, taken your jobs and pushed ahead of you in the queue for services will feel.”

Populists such as Reform UK (according to current polls the most likely party to win the next UK general election) are less interested in setting out a policy programme than in connecting with voters’ raw nerves.

That is why the most crucial lesson for Labour from the 2026 local elections
was not their devastating defeat, but the unstoppable surge of Reform’s appeal to
voters that threatened to leave them in the margins in the next general election.
Labour’s reflex response was to look at deposing its leader. And possibly at least one of Starmer’s rivals for the job would be more effective at taking on this new form of political opposition.

More important, however, is to be clear what is involved in taking on
populism. A new prime minister will be faced with exactly the same challenges as
the current one and will not be able to deliver transformative change simply by force of an appealing personality.

Europe will still be involved in its longest war since 1945. The US will continue to be an unreliable partner. The climate emergency will go on wreaking havoc. Social care for an ageing population will remain a massive challenge. National debt will still limit the capacity for public investment. Regional disparities and indefensible social inequalities will still exist.

andy burnham holding a microphone and addressing an audience. — Graphs aren’t enough – Andy Burnham will have to show that he can speak to voters’ fears and frustrations.
R Heilig/Shutterstock

All of these challenges and more will result in sections of the electorate feeling alienated and disappointed – the very sentiments upon which populism depends.

The big question for whoever is going to be prime minister in the next three years is not just about policy and delivery (although it is also very much about that), but about offering an alternative to the psychic appeal of populism. That will entail adopting a three-point strategy.

First, politicians need to acknowledge the depth of disappointment felt by people whose parents and grandparents had once believed that the government was there to look after them in times of need. The prime minister should declare an urgent mission to build an infrastructure of cradle-to-grave care, which exists not to tell people how they should be feeling, but to be democratically accountable to their needs and priorities as individuals and communities.

Second, there is a need for a complete overhaul of political language, led by the prime minister’s example, eschewing the lexicon of technocratic cliche and adopting the conversational tone of speaking with rather than speaking at people.

Third, there is a need for boldness in calling out the ugly sentiments of populism and appealing explicitly to the more generous, positive feelings and beliefs of the majority that are too often excluded from the domain of hardheaded politics.

A new prime minister will need to be imaginative in demonstrating that populists are not the only ones who can appeal to people’s deepest apprehensions and desires. And they will have to show that politics can be more like an inclusive conversation than a PowerPoint presentation. In that case, then perhaps the recent soap opera will not be as inconsequential as many people perceive it to be.

Stephen Coleman 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. Even if the UK changes prime minister, voters now expect to hear the language of populism – https://theconversation.com/even-if-the-uk-changes-prime-minister-voters-now-expect-to-hear-the-language-of-populism-283088