Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Guy Guppy, Lecturer in Performance Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, Kingston University

When Matt Damon recently credited his weight loss to going gluten-free, it reignited a familiar debate about this divisive dietary approach. But while The Odyssey star’s claims have sparked discussion, the science behind weight loss tells a far more nuanced story than simply cutting out a single protein.

Gluten is a naturally occurring protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye, which means it’s commonly consumed in everyday foods like bread, pasta and cereal. For most people, gluten doesn’t cause any health problems.

But for those with coeliac disease – which affects about 1% of people – avoiding it is essential. This autoimmune condition triggers an immune response to gluten, damaging the small intestine’s lining, impairing nutrient absorption.

Then there’s gluten intolerance, or non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, a condition associated with symptoms like bloating and reflux. People with this condition also commonly experience problems beyond the digestive system, including headaches and skin rashes.

Despite growing numbers of people reporting such symptoms, gluten intolerance remains hotly debated in terms of its causes and management. Currently, the only recommended approach is to adopt a gluten-free diet.

For everyone else – those without coeliac disease or gluten intolerance – avoiding gluten-rich foods may be unnecessary and potentially problematic.

Foods high in gluten, such as bread, pasta and cereal, don’t just provide carbohydrates, they’re also excellent sources of fibre and B vitamins.

Removing these foods may inadvertently contribute towards nutrient deficiencies. Yet the market for gluten-free products continues to surge, with projections suggesting it will reach US$13.7 billion (£10.2 billion) by 2030.

Given that Damon didn’t disclose any medical condition when discussing his weight loss goals, the likely explanation for his results lies in his overall diet and behaviour rather than gluten itself. Research published in Nutrients found no significant differences between gluten-free and gluten-rich diets in body fat or body weight among healthy adults.

Mechanics, not magic

The weight loss many people experience on gluten-free diets often comes down to mechanics rather than magic. Because gluten is in many energy-dense, carbohydrate-based foods, people eliminating it typically cut out items like pizza, fast food and pasta.

This carbohydrate restriction leads to a reduction in glycogen – the stored form of carbohydrate in the human body. When glycogen is stored, water is stored alongside it.

So when glycogen levels drop, water weight follows, creating the illusion of rapid fat loss. This phenomenon explains why people often see dramatic results in the first week or two of any new diet or exercise programme.

Beyond reduced carbohydrate intake, people following gluten-free diets often shift towards consuming more naturally gluten-free whole foods. This dietary restructuring often results in fewer calories being consumed overall.

A small preliminary study, published in Frontiers of Sports and Active Living, found that adhering to a gluten-free diet for six weeks led to significant reductions in body weight compared to a control diet. But these changes were probably the result of a calorie deficit and fluid loss, rather than any metabolic advantage from removing gluten.

There’s another factor at play. Wheat-based carbohydrates contain fermentable sugars called fructans, which are broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. This fermentation produces gas that can cause bloating, pain and changes in bowel movements. When these foods are removed, symptoms subside and the stomach can appear flatter – an aesthetic change that people may mistake for fat loss.

Gluten may have health benefits

Adopting a gluten-free diet that isn’t medically necessary could actually increase health risks. A large study published in the BMJ found an association between higher gluten intake and reduced heart disease risk.

Similarly, research has revealed a link between low gluten intake and increased type 2 diabetes risk.

The culprit behind these concerning links may well be the gluten-free products lining supermarket shelves. When gluten is removed from a product, it changes the texture and palatability of the food. To compensate, manufacturers add other ingredients to improve taste and consistency.

The result? Gluten-free products have been shown to contain significantly less protein, higher saturated fat, lower fibre and higher sugar than their conventional counterparts. Over time, this nutritional profile may lead to poor diets and hence poor health.

So while people may believe that going gluten-free causes weight loss, the reality is usually different. Subtle changes in diet structure and composition, alongside behavioural modifications, are typically the real reason.

Guy Guppy 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. Can you really lose weight by cutting gluten from your diet, as Matt Damon claims? – https://theconversation.com/can-you-really-lose-weight-by-cutting-gluten-from-your-diet-as-matt-damon-claims-273392

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Santa Kravcenko, Lecturer in Management, University of Lancashire

“Please tell me where to go? A 14-year-old teenager has been possessed by a demon … we tried healers, but they couldn’t help … has anyone encountered this? Moscow region.” This is one of many similar pleas that have been circulating in Russia’s online communities in recent years.

According to reports in Russian media outlets such as Gazeta.ru, thousands of people in Russia are actively discussing exorcisms on social media. This is a spiritual ritual performed by a handful of Russian priests to expel spirits or demons from a person who is believed to be possessed.

Some people are travelling to well-known “exorcism destinations” such as Oryol Oblast about 400km south of Moscow. A priest there called Father Igor, the official exorcist of the local diocese, performs a ritual called otchitka. The ritual involves the priest reciting a set of prayers to help those deemed to be under the influence of spirits.

Other people are turning to the informal “exorcism economy”, which is offered by local mediums. Some have reported paying between 10,000 rubles (£98) and 20,000 rubles (£196) just for an initial consultation to determine whether they are truly possessed. Russia’s Orthodox Church warns that exorcism attempts should be left to members of the clergy.

Exorcism is embedded in the Orthodox tradition, with exorcism prayers first brought into Russian religious practice in the 17th century by Archbishop Peter Mogila. However, exorcisms remained rare until the late Soviet period.

The most influential modern exorcist in Russia was Father German, a priest who began practising near Moscow in the 1980s. His reputation spread through word of mouth. Igumen Philaret, a man who knew Father German, described witnessing the following scene at one of his exorcisms:

One little boy was screaming terribly. He ripped away all his clothes and was rolling naked on the floor … ‘Mama, mama! Pull the tail out of my mouth!’ … Father sprinkled him with holy water … Then it became clear – as is often the cause of demonic possession in children – his mother had not repented of her abortions.

But what happened in the 1980s to spur the interest in exorcisms in Russia? According to some researchers, such as Pavel Nosachev of HSE University in Moscow, the emotional strain caused by the gradual collapse of the Soviet Union led people to “search for spirituality”.

As communist ideology waned, underground religious groups flourished and the Orthodox Church revived after decades of repression. Hypnotists and self-proclaimed psychic healers, such as Anatoly Kashpirovsky, also became prominent on television. A crisis in shared meaning produced a boom both in religious ritual and occult experimentation. This included exorcism.

Media reporting suggests that the business of “banishing demons” seen in present-day Russia is also reflective of a society under strain – but, in this case, one grappling with the effects of the war in Ukraine.

According to research on how humans cope with awareness of their death, religion works as a shield against existential anxieties. This can intensify during times of crisis, such as war. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, for example, church attendance increased worldwide and Bible sales soared.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s appointment of Vladimir Putin as “chief exorcist” in 2022 could also help explain why some Russians have been drawn into a fight with their inner demons. The Russian president’s appointment came after the Kremlin called for Ukraine to be “desatanised”.

‘Exorcism tourism’

The renewed interest in exorcism within Russia may represent a broader cultural response to political and personal instability – echoing the turbulence of the 1980s. But the country has also long nurtured an appetite for the paranormal.

Russian audiences have spent nearly two decades watching the popular television show, Battle of the Psychics. This show showcases the supposed paranormal abilities of self-proclaimed healers, witches and mediums in various competitive challenges. A recent episode even featured a live exorcism.

Just as Battle of Psychics spawned a multimillion-ruble industry of celebrity healers, Russia’s wartime exorcism surge reveals a similar monetisation of fear and uncertainty. What was once a localised ritual appears to be evolving into a structured commercial service – a phenomenon I call “exorcism tourism”.

As Nosachev observed in 2023: “Largely due to the connection with business – tours for otchitkas or donations for an exorcism session – this practice is now perceived as a commodity in a spiritual supermarket, which is characteristic of the consumer culture that has become a basis of the New Age.”

This commercialisation is visible in organised trips. Among the many adverts I have seen in recent years, a tour encouraging people “facing difficult life circumstances or physical and spiritual illnesses” to travel from Belarus to Russia “for exorcism” stands out.

The itinerary includes a consultation and private conversation with well-known “media exorcist” Father Gusev, as well as an application for an exorcism. Father Gusev fronts a rock band called “The Exorcist”, with the tour’s website claiming he has performed more than 15,000 exorcisms in 26 years.

In a country unsettled by war, uncertainty and spiritual volatility, Russia’s exorcism economy looks to be advancing. For some Russians, it seems that exorcisms offer not just a ritual but a sense of control amid everyday chaos.

Santa Kravcenko 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. The Ukraine war has given rise to an ‘exorcism economy’ in Russia – https://theconversation.com/the-ukraine-war-has-given-rise-to-an-exorcism-economy-in-russia-271037

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anton Roberts, Sociologist and Social Policy Researcher at the Policy Evaluation and Researcher Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Metropolitan University

The government’s recently announced grand plan to end homelessness in England is the latest instalment in a long line of promises (and failures) by governments across the UK. This latest strategy, published in December, promises billions in investment in rough sleeping services, alongside a previous commitment to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this parliament.

It’s an attempt to address the UK’s acute housing crisis. On the surface, there is plenty to praise in the plan, and these proposals are already receiving support from the wider sector.

For example, the scrapping of the two-child benefit limit will lift many vulnerable children out of poverty. And the strategy hints at more preventative approaches to the problem of homelessness.

But there’s a problem. Can the government achieve this objective within the narrow political window that this parliament offers? If not, perhaps it should consider whether this is the most effective use of public money.

One striking omission in the strategy is the absence of a commitment to the “housing first” model which, as the name suggests, would provide immediate access to housing for a homeless person. This omission is surprising, given the report’s repeated emphasis on housing as a solution.

Housing first combines an unconditional home with range of wraparound services for things like mental health problems or addiction. It’s distinct in being a genuinely long-term housing intervention, catering to those with multiple and complex needs. It is one of the most robustly evidenced homelessness interventions.

There are some isolated case studies of housing first mentioned in the report, but responsibility once again falls to the third sector. Charitable organisations are already forced to compete for insufficent funding pots, while also working alongside cash-strapped local authorities.

The average cost of housing first support per person is highly economical, according to the government’s own cost-and-benefit analysis data. The expected benefits to society have been calculated at £15,880 per person, which is more than double the £7,737 average cost.

According to a recent report from the charity Crisis evaluating housing first trials, a national roll out would cost £226 million per year. But this would be offset by reductions in provision burdens, equivalent to £280 million per year. This equates to total cost of £17,068 per individual per year, with a related saving surplus of £3,313.

The false economy of ‘business as usual’

Moral and human costs aside, homelessness is astoundingly expensive. Temporary accommodation alone costs billions each year. Although exact data on this is sparse, people experiencing rough sleeping are often referred to as “frequent flyers” through public services such as A&E departments, police and the courts.

The most recent calculation from Crisis, which goes back to 2015, estimated the annual cost of rough sleeping to be around £20,000 per person (or £27,872 when adjusted for inflation). This is due to things like use of NHS services, policing and the courts system. As seen with the government’s own rough sleeping snapshot, it continues to rise in the UK.

Arguably, business as usual isn’t working. There is little point in diverting funding to services that don’t work, or funding housing programmes for people with complex needs who may not be ready for a tenancy. If the aim is to reduce or end homelessness sustainably, the answer is not more short-term funding, but significant structural reform.

In my research with my colleague, Joanne Massey, we explored some of these wider structural constraints facing people in poverty. We framed these constraints as forms of intentional and unintentional harms by the state. They include a welfare system where, despite annual rises, the range of benefits remains out of touch with living costs, alongside things like universal credit sanctions that make already difficult lives even more challenging.

Without confronting these, homelessness cannot be prevented or reduced. As such, the report falls short. For this to be a pragmatic and cost-effective strategy, the system must change from one of economically wasteful short-termism. There is no shortage of impactful and evidence-based examples – including housing first.

However, merely increasing funding will not achieve the necessary changes. The government must also commit to a public health approach. This means prioritising prevention through early intervention, as well as tackling the causes of homelessness at their structural root. Homelessness is a problem for all of society to address.

And merely listing poverty as a cause of homelessness does nothing to address it permanently, nor replace what has been lost from hundreds of billions of pounds of cuts to public services. A public health approach to homelessness would address challenges like these at the individual, community and societal levels simultaneously. It would also be a better use of taxpayer funds.

As an example, efforts in Wales to improve health with a prevention strategy produced a £14 return for every £1 invested using a public health approach. There was an annual saving of £9,266 per person when using preventative homelessness programmes. This approach combines the third sector, council services, education, health and the criminal justice system into one coherent strategy.

The government’s homelessness strategy is a positive start, but it will not replace what has been lost. Nor, as it stands, will it address the complex reasons why homelessness persists.

Anton Roberts 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. The UK spends millions on services for people experiencing homelessness. Housing them could make more economic sense – https://theconversation.com/the-uk-spends-millions-on-services-for-people-experiencing-homelessness-housing-them-could-make-more-economic-sense-272569

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jieyu Liu, Professor of Sociology and China Studies, SOAS, University of London

Sexual attitudes have relaxed significantly in China since the Mao era. Approaching the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death and the subsequent end of the cultural revolution, there has been a significant de-politicisation of everyday life that some are calling a sexual revolution.

China’s opening up to the outside world has facilitated a gradual relaxation of sexual morality and widespread media discussion of sex and intimacy. But increasingly, it is clear that while sexual behaviour is liberalising in China, it is still closely influenced by traditional views, leaving women less liberated than men.

The American-Chinese documentary Mistress Dispellers (2024) reignited western interest in sex, love and intimacy trends in China – but especially, how men and women experience these developments differently.

It explores the recent phenomenon of professionals who help women remove a lover from their adulterous husband’s life. These paid persuaders deceive their way into the lives of cheating husbands and then, by ousting the extra lover, seek to restore monogamous harmony.

But how did such an extraordinary industry emerge in China? My recently published book, Embedded Generations, offers a comprehensive overview of Chinese family practices, including sexual behaviour seen through the eyes of three generations.

Generational shifts

Sex outside marriage has steadily become more commonplace in China. But for the oldest generation I studied, born in the 1930s and ’40s, courtship was the norm as they entered marriage in the Mao era (1949-76). During these years, the Chinese Communist Party enforced heterosexual marriage throughout the country, with premarital virginity emphasised as a virtue for both men and women.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the open expression of physical intimacy was forbidden. Social norms, as well as fear of political criticism and attack, meant that almost all men and women of the oldest generation denied any involvement in sex outside marriage.

But after Mao’s death, the modernising reforms under Deng Xiaoping enabled more “liberal” trends for the middle generation, born in the 1960s and ’70s. This was especially true for men, who for the first time could admit to having premarital sex. However, female virginity remained important as a condition of marriage, meaning most women of this generation still denied having pre-marital sex.

A turning point came in the late 1990s, when many barriers to premarital sex were eliminated. Sex outside marriage was legalised after the removal of the potential charge of hooliganism that had acted as a deterrence for so long.

Practical obstacles were overcome, including with the relaxation of university regulations on intimacy restrictions. While dormitories are still single-sex, there is a growing availability of leisure opportunities that include an increasing number of hotels near university campuses.

Most notably of all, the rapid growth of internet use has been hugely influential, helping to spread information about sexual behaviour.

Still a man’s world

The younger generation now regards sex as a key part of a loving relationship. But there is still a lingering cultural emphasis on the value of female virginity, highlighting different social expectations for men and women.

Within this lies a contradiction. Young men expect their girlfriends to be willing to have sex as a demonstration of love and commitment. Yet many also expect their brides to be virgins. This is a considerable source of tension and anxiety for many young women.

This means women who openly embrace feminist principles to assert their sexual agency and pleasure remain in the minority. Most are still conservative in outlook and behaviour. Despite the increased incidence of premarital sex, the number of young women’s sexual partners before marriage (on average, one) is not noticeably different from women of older generations.

Reflecting these broad changes, 80% of male and 60% of my female interviewees from the younger generation, born in the 1980s and ’90s, admitted having sex before marriage – but mostly with the person they were planning to marry. The younger generation also shows a growing tolerance towards extramarital affairs. However, in this regard too, women remain more constrained by traditional social norms.

As well as these unequal social norms, the Chinese job market still rewards men more than women. This means in later life, men tend to have accumulated more wealth and status, and so are regarded as still desirable. In contrast, an older woman in a lower-paid job might be regarded as less attractive in the dating market.

As wives have children and grow older, they may need to find ways to prevent their husbands from abandoning their families – which is where the mistress dispeller comes in. Typically, only wealthier and young urban women without children feel able to initiate divorce.

That said, many married men, including those with lovers outside their marriages, have remained cautious in initiating divorce proceedings. The often considerable financial costs of divorce in China, particularly when children are involved, act as a barrier. Under Chinese law, the spouse involved in an extramarital affair is the guilty party and so must carry the financial penalty. These can be so steep that men risk losing their life savings, meaning that divorce in these situations is still less common.

My research helps show that while sex outside marriage has become more normalised in China, sexual attitudes are held in check by deep-rooted traditional views. This has created an environment that disproportionately favours men and a privileged elite, leaving many wives no option but to find help from mistress dispellers when their husbands cheat. Anyone speaking of a sexual revolution in China needs to bear this in mind.

This article refers to a book for editorial reasons, and contains a link to bookshop.org. If you click on the link and go on to buy something from bookshop.org, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Jieyu Liu receives funding from European Research Council (grant agreement No. 640488).

– ref. China is becoming more sexually liberal – if you are a man – https://theconversation.com/china-is-becoming-more-sexually-liberal-if-you-are-a-man-271010

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nils Kroemer, Professor of Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen; University of Bonn

“Come on, little fella – we should get going now.” But my son was not listening. The sand in the playground was just right, so he just kept digging with his new toy excavator.

As I drifted back to my list of to-dos, however, the laughter was suddenly replaced by sobs. My son was not hurt, just very upset. When I looked at my phone, I saw it was well past his regular mealtime – and he was feeling very hungry.

However old we are, we all have a tendency to grow irritated if our body lacks enough fuel. But while humans have experienced this for as long as we have been on the planet, a specific word to describe the phenomenon only entered the Oxford English dictionary in 2018. “Hangry: to be bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.”

Perhaps more surprising is the scarcity of research into how hunger affects people’s everyday moods. Most studies on food and mood have focused on patients with metabolic or eating disorders – perhaps because many psychologists have traditionally understood hunger to be such a basic physiological process.

So, with colleagues from the fields of psychology and mental health, I decided to investigate how different people respond to feeling hungry. We wanted to see if (and why) some people are better at reacting calmly when hunger strikes. Perhaps there would be some lessons for those of us with young children, too.

Surprising results

In the animal world, hunger is frequently studied for its role as a key motivator. Hungry rodents, for example, will vigorously press a lever or climb over large walls to get to food rewards. In the wild, hungry animals often roam further to explore their environment, seeming restless as they seek to overcome the threat of low or no energy.

To investigate the relationship between energy levels, hunger and mood in people, we equipped 90 healthy adults with a continuous glucose monitor for a month. Glucose is the primary source of energy for the body and brain, and these monitors – used in clinical practice to help patients with diabetes regulate their blood sugar levels – report values every few minutes. (Participants could actively check their glucose levels using the sensor app, and we could see when they accessed them.)

We also asked our participants to complete mood check-ins on their smartphones up to twice a day. These included questions about how hungry or sated they felt on a scale from 0 to 100, as well as a rating of their current mood.

The results surprised us. First, people were only in a worse mood when they acknowledged feeling hungry – not simply when they had lower blood sugar levels. And second, people who more accurately detected their energy levels in general were less prone to negative mood swings.

This suggests there is a key psychological middle step between a person’s energy and mood levels, which scientists call interoception.

In the brain, hunger is signalled by neurons in the hypothalamus that detect a prolonged energy deficit. Conscious feelings of hunger are then linked to the insula, a part of the cerebral cortex that is folded deep within the brain, and which also processes taste and plays a role in feeling emotions.

In our recent study, people with high interoceptive accuracy experienced fewer mood swings. This does not mean they never felt hungry – they just seemed better at keeping their mood levels stable.

This is important, because a sudden change in mood can have knock-on effects on relationships with family, friends and colleagues. It can lead to bad decision-making and more impulsive behaviour – including buying fast-energy food that can be less good for you.

More generally, paying close attention to our bodies’ needs helps keep our minds at ease too, avoiding unnecessary wear and tear on both. Deviating too much from the body’s ideal state can pose a long-term risk to our health – mental as well as physical.

Caught off-guard

Young children find it hard to interpret all the signals from their rapidly developing body. They are also easily distracted by what is happening around them, and often fail to attend to their hunger or thirst without prompting – leading to a sudden meltdown like my son had in the playground.

Likewise for many adults in today’s fast-paced world full of digital distractions, it can be easy to be caught off-guard by dipping energy levels. One simple life hack is to keep a regular meal schedule, because hunger often kicks in when we skip a meal.

Everyone’s energy levels ebb and flow, of course. But it is possible to improve your interoceptive accuracy by allowing your inner systems to pay closer attention to your energy levels. In addition, exercise and physical activity can sharpen your hunger sensing and improve energy metabolism.

Most of the time, of course, our moods are only modestly affected by hunger, among the many other factors that can come into play. But one of the lessons of my time at the playground has been to take care of my son’s food needs long before they become obvious. Perhaps we all need to be more aware of the risk of getting hangry.

Nils Kroemer receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). He is affiliated with the German Center for Mental Health (partner site Tübingen) and the German Center for Diabetes Research.

– ref. Why do some people get ‘hangry’ more quickly than others? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-some-people-get-hangry-more-quickly-than-others-273617

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Wright, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Culture, The Conversation

Well 2026 has certainly got off to a flying start with a raft of excellent films, plays and TV dramas to keep our minds off the lack of sunlight and cash during this dreary month. And that’s the marvellous thing about art and culture: it is often free or costs relatively little (apart from going to the theatre in London, of course), and sustains the old spirits when things appear a bit gloomy.

This new year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Agatha Christie, the British queen of crime; 1976 was also the year her final novel, Sleeping Murder, was published, after she had died on January 12. The author of 66 detective novels, Christie sold millions of books around the world and inspired countless film and TV adaptations.

To mark this anniversary, Netflix pays homage with a lavish production of Seven Dials, a three-part murder mystery set in the aristocratic world of England in the 1920s.

The glittering country pile of Chimneys is the scene, and the lady of the house, Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter) has fallen on hard times and been forced to rent it out to some wealthy industrialist.

Now this sounds exactly like the set up in Jane Austen’s last novel, Persuasion – which is rather apt, given that Lady C’s irrepressible daughter, Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, is played by Mia Mckenna-Bruce, who also played the hilariously hypochondriac Mary Elliot, sister of Anne, in the 2022 film version.

Lady C and her daughter return as guests to attend a party in their own house, filled with people from “industry, aristocracy and the foreign office”. Naturally a murder ensues and Bundle is on the case, much to the chagrin of Superintendent Battle (Martin Freeman).

This new adaptation doesn’t just provide a rollicking piece of entertainment as it follows the exploits of feminist trailblazer Bundle. It exposes and confronts the brutal world of empire that provided the backdrop to Christie’s novels. Our reviewer, Catherine Wynne, says this excellent Netflix production refreshes Christie for the 21st century – “and does it admirably”.

Seven Dials is on Netflix

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Read more:
Seven Dials: Netflix series turns Agatha Christie’s country-house mystery into a study of empire and war

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Zombies and hockey players

Few horror films have actually filled me with a sense of dread – but the 28 Days Later series has always managed to do just that, turning the movie zombie from a shambling figure of fun into something fast, aggressive and terrifying. And as the franchise plays out, we realise it’s not really the zombies that we should be afraid of post-apocalypse, but other surviving humans. After 28 Days, Weeks and Months, the fourth instalment of the franchise, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, starring the ever-brilliant Ralph Fiennes, is out today.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is in cinemas now

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Read more:
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple explores the legacy of shared trauma on the national psyche

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I once watched a live ice hockey match in Canada, both spellbound and horrified. It was one of the most aggressive things I had ever seen, where exaggerated rivalry, macho posturing and squaring up for a fight seemed positively encouraged. The spectators, relishing every testosterone-fuelled moment, could have been lifted straight out of Gladiator. So I’m looking forward to watching Heated Rivalry, a gay love story set in this hypermasculine environment. Sports researcher and queer football fan Joe Sheldon gives us his take on the much-talked-about Canadian show that has just landed on Sky in the UK.

Heated Rivalry is on Now TV

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Read more:
Heated Rivalry matters in a sporting culture that still sidelines queer men

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Tragedy!

The experimental Belgian director Ivo van Hove has notched up another smash show in London’s West End with his production of Arthur Miller’s post-war play, All My Sons. It stars Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Joe and Kate Keller, a couple mourning their son, who remains missing after the second world war. But respected businessman and good family man Joe is hiding a dark secret that threatens to bring his world crashing down. In this stripped-back production, van Hove has chosen to stage Miller’s play as a Greek tragedy, heightening the tensions of this heartwrenching drama.

All My Sons is on at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, till March 7

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Read more:
All My Sons: director Ivo Van Hove powers up Arthur Miller’s post-war play with a Greek tragedy staging

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The BBC’s new flagship drama Waiting for the Out is based on the real-life experiences of prison educator Andy West, recounted in his 2022 memoir The Life Inside. The drama tells the story of Dan, a young teacher from a criminal family who brings a little philosophy into the lives of inmates at a category-B prison, while trying to overcome his own mental health challenges. Abigail Harrison Moore, once a prison teacher herself, explains how the show illuminates the value of arts education for people often discarded by society, and how it provides a chink of light in a sometimes dark existence.

Waiting for the Out is on BBC iPlayer

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Read more:
I taught art in a high-security prison – Waiting for the Out took me straight back to my classroom

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– ref. Netflix’s killer new Agatha Christie mystery – what to watch and see this week – https://theconversation.com/netflixs-killer-new-agatha-christie-mystery-what-to-watch-and-see-this-week-273609

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anastasia Vayona, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Science and Policy, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University

Online fashion retailer Asos recently introduced additional fees for customers who return lots of items, marking a significant shift in the fast fashion model that has relied on free, frictionless return policies as a key competitive advantage.

And now the fashion retailer has introduced a new tool to show shoppers exactly what their return rate is, and if they are about to incur a fee. The new policy is aimed at encouraging shoppers with the highest return rates to cut back.

It’s not clear yet if other fast fashion brands such as H&M, Shein, Zara and Primark might follow Asos’s lead on returns, and whether it will change shopping habits.

There are two common fast fashion shopping scenarios. The first is where customers buy three or four versions of the same item in different sizes, then return the ones that they don’t want. The second is where a shopper will buy three or four completely different dresses, for example.

The first approach, called “bracketing” in the retail industry, may be affected more by the new cost of returns. So it may encourage some shoppers to cut down on the sizes they order, perhaps from four to two, if they continue to use Asos. This may have somewhat of a positive environmental effect, if it reduces the size of orders.

The second scenario, impulse buying, generates almost the 40% of all online spending globally, with clothing being the most frequently purchased category. But when faced with return fees, impulse buyers are significantly more likely to avoid the return process entirely, if it is seen as complicated or pricey.

A study in the US found 75% of online consumers have kept unwanted items due to complicated or expensive return processes, rather than initiating a return. This means instead of items going back to the online shop (where they can potentially be refurbished and resold), they remain in consumers’ homes or end up in local landfills.

Rather than reducing overall consumption, the return fee merely shifts the waste burden from the retail supply chain to individual households and council waste systems.

However, Asos says it is committed to sustainability. Its corporate strategy states that: “We recognise our responsibility for reducing our impact on the environment and protecting the people in our supply chain.” Meanwhile, Shein says: “We are working hard to drive continued progress toward our sustainability and social commitments.”

The environmental implications of Asos’s new policy, and fast fashion generally, reveal a complex picture. To understand what they are, we need to examine what happens to unwanted clothing in our fashion system, and what incentives genuinely drive more sustainable outcomes.

The returns problem

The textile sector is a significant contributor to global carbon emissions, accounting for 8-10% of worldwide emissions – surpassing the combined carbon footprint of aviation and maritime shipping. Within this broader impact, product returns create additional environmental damage through a cascade of effects: extra transportation, packaging waste, energy-intensive inspection and sorting processes, and ultimately disposal.

When an item is returned, it enters a reverse logistics system (sending goods back from the customer to the retailer) that is far less efficient than the original chain from manufacturer to supplier. Returns often require individual courier pickups, adding transportation costs and emissions.

So on the surface, return fees appear to offer a straightforward solution: discourage returns, reduce transportation emissions, ease the burden on waste systems. But this logic fails to account for consumer behaviour when faced with financial penalties.

Garments languishing unworn in closets represent entirely wasted resources: all the water, chemicals, energy and labour invested in their production yield no value. Discarding an item of clothing locally just shifts the burden to council waste systems that are often unprepared to handle textiles.

Return fees, in other words, don’t necessarily solve the waste problem. They simply reduce consumers’ options, sometimes forcing them towards worse alternatives.

This reveals a deeper truth: the environmental problem isn’t returns but rather fast fashion itself. The system generates excess production by design. Retailers prefer inventory buffers to avoid being out of stock. This excess is fundamental to how fast fashion operates.

What would make a big difference

Charging for returns is unlikely to improve environmental outcomes that much. The following measures could be more effective:

Extended producer responsibility: In France, retailers are required to finance their collection and sorting systems, creating incentives to design more durable products and manage end-of-life properly. This shifts responsibility from consumers to producers, where it belongs.

Taxation on hazardous materials: Sweden’s proposed tax on clothing containing harmful chemicals targets the production phase, where most environmental damage occurs.

Investment in recycling infrastructure: Research clearly shows that viable textile-to-textile recycling at scale is the bottleneck. Without it, reuse becomes the only circular option.

Design standards: Polyester blends complicate recycling. Requiring higher recycled content percentages or limiting fibre blends would address some root causes of waste.

Transparency in returns data: Multiple studies show that retailers lack basic data on where returned items end up. Mandatory disclosure of what they do with returned items would expose the destruction problem and increase their accountability.

The path to greater sustainability in fashion probably isn’t through discouraging returns. It’s more closely tied to changing how clothing is designed, manufactured and valued. The real question isn’t whether returns should cost money – it’s why we’re producing products no one wants to keep in the first place.

Anastasia Vayona is affiliated with Bournemouth University and ReUse Foundation in volunteer bases

– ref. Fast fashion: why changes in return policies don’t do enough to address environmental damage – https://theconversation.com/fast-fashion-why-changes-in-return-policies-dont-do-enough-to-address-environmental-damage-273633

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Fox, Senior Lecturer in Police Studies, University of Portsmouth

Craig Guildford, the chief constable of one of Britain’s largest police forces, West Midlands Police, will retire, after coming under pressure over a controversial decision by the police to ban visiting supporters of the Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a match against Aston Villa.

Things escalated after it was revealed that the police used incorrect evidence that was hallucinated by AI in a report that led to their decision. Guildford had previously twice denied that AI was used. In an apology, the force said it had not deliberately distorted evidence.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, then told MPs that she had “lost confidence” in Guildford, and announced that she would bring in new powers to allow any future home secretary to sack a chief constable. But such a promise, I argue, may be a threat to a key principle of policing in the UK.

When Robert Peel created the current British policing model, he insisted that officers must be non-partisan and free from political control and influence. Holding the office of constable means a police officer (including a chief constable) swears their allegiance to the king rather than any elected politician.

They should execute their duty independently, without fear or favour. Neither politicians nor anyone else may tell the police what decisions to take or what methods to employ, or not employ, to enforce the law. This is why the home secretary can’t just fire a chief constable.

How police are governed

For policing purposes, the UK has three separate criminal justice jurisdictions: Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales. Whatever Mahmood implements will only apply to her jurisdiction, England and Wales. Since the 1970s, this includes 43 separate police forces, each covering a county or larger urban area such as the West Midlands.

The English and Welsh forces are governed by a shared system. Responsibility is divided between the Home Office, which provides half the police budget and sets national pay awards and regulations; the police and crime commissioner, an elected official with a mandate to set certain policing priorities; and the chief constable for an area, who is supposed to be operationally independent to decide how those priorities are met.

The notion of “independence from politics” has been under threat since the introduction of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in 2011, most of whom are aligned to one of the main political parties. In addition, there have been questions raised about interference in the operational day-to-day running of police forces by at least one recent home secretary. The judge involved in this case said she found police had “maintained their operational independence”, and that the home secretary’s conversations with senior police had not influenced on-the-ground operations.

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Read more:
Suella Braverman: why the home secretary can’t force the police to cancel a pro-Palestine march

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Before 2011, the second limb of the three-pronged arrangement was a police authority. This consisted of 17 members drawn from local council, the magistracy and some members of the public. They were responsible for selecting (and if necessary, removing) their chief constable. The national police inspectorate would advise the police authority on suitability and qualifications, but there was no role for central government in the decision. Arguably, this removed personal enmity and political influence from the system.

Things changed in 1996, when the Police Act gave a home secretary the power to direct a police authority to force their chief constable to resign on the grounds of gross inefficiency or ineffectiveness. This was an extremely rare event, and generally chief constables were pretty safe in their role until a time of their choosing.

When the Conservative-led coalition government came to power in 2010, the prime minister was enamoured with the policing model in the US, whereby the local mayor had direct control of policing. This inspired Cameron’s government to create the current system of locally elected PCCs. They removed from the home secretary the power to sack a chief constable, and passed it to the PCC.

Last November, the government announced they were scrapping the model of PCCs. While we don’t yet know exactly what will replace them, the mood seems to be to give responsibility for policing to elected mayors or council leaders. Whether they will have sole power to fire the chief constable remains to be seen, but given Mahmood’s current stance it seems unlikely.

Policing by consent

To work effectively, “policing by consent” requires a sufficiently high level of public trust in the police. For several reasons, public confidence in the police is currently at a low ebb.

People want to be sure that their police service is free from political interference. It is, in my view, obviously undesirable for a chief constable to be scared of upsetting the home secretary of the day, and undesirable that any politician might bully a chief constable to suit their political ends. Losing a £100,000 pension is no doubt a sobering prospect.

As is often the case in politics, this fairly new home secretary probably wants to create the impression that she is strong, and will personally tackle inefficiency in policing. On the face of it, what Mahmood is planning to do is not particularly radical or remarkable – she is simply giving herself back the power that her predecessors had before the Tories took it away in 2011.

Although that power was rarely used, we must ask whether it was ever a desirable power for the home secretary to have in the first place.

John Fox is a former senior police detective.

– ref. Why the home secretary can’t fire a police chief who has done wrong – it’s key to the integrity of British policing – https://theconversation.com/why-the-home-secretary-cant-fire-a-police-chief-who-has-done-wrong-its-key-to-the-integrity-of-british-policing-273615

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dekan Apajee, Head of Media Department, School of Arts and Creative Industries, University of East London

News this week from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) that YouTube has surpassed the BBC in viewing share has been widely framed as a tipping point. Some read it as a final nail in the future of public service broadcasting in a platform-led age.

But having spent ten years as a BBC journalist, another decade as a freelance content producer and academic, as well as the past five years as an Ofcom Content Board member, my instinct at times like this is to pause.

Audience measurement in a fragmented media landscape is complex. Anyone working in the industry knows that figures like those contained in this latest report from Barb – the independent UK body that measures and provides audience data for TV and video – have long been treated with caution. They capture something meaningful, but not the whole picture.

It’s important to be transparent about how Barb arrives at its numbers. Viewing is captured through two main methods: people-based data from the Barb panel; and device-based census data for online TV viewing. Both are well-established approaches, but both are proxies. They rely on standard assumptions about attention and behaviour in a world where people are increasingly watching across multiple platforms at the same time.

One television or “a view” doesn’t necessarily mean one viewer. A clip playing on a second screen doesn’t mean it’s being actively engaged with. And in an environment of constant choice, people don’t always remember what they’ve seen, let alone where they’ve seen it. The sheer volume of content means attention is often fleeting and fragmented. All of this matters when we interpret the recent headlines like this.

Rather than framing this story as YouTube versus the BBC, a more productive approach would be to look at what’s happening in practice. Audiences are still watching the BBC content via YouTube. The real job now is to understand which BBC content is travelling, how it’s being encountered and what that means for public service value when context and branding are no longer guaranteed.

Large volumes of BBC output circulate widely on YouTube: drama clips, comedy moments, documentary sequences, music performances, children’s favourites, archive footage and cultural highlights. Often re-edited or consumed in fragments, this content reaches audiences far beyond the BBC’s own services.

When that happens, YouTube gets the credit for reach and scale. The BBC’s role as commissioner, curator and public service institution can quietly recede into the background. In that sense, this moment may be less about YouTube overtaking the BBC, and more about where BBC content now lives, and how it is experienced, remembered and understood.

This shift hasn’t happened overnight. Ofcom’s 2025 Media Nations report has been pointing in this direction for years. Audiences consistently say they value high-quality UK content and trusted brands, yet they increasingly encounter that content via platforms rather than broadcasters. Discovery is driven by algorithms, not schedules; viewing is on demand, not appointment-based. Context becomes optional.

That fundamentally changes the relationship between content and audience.
The BBC still operates with public service values embedded across its output, standards around accuracy, care, accessibility, representation and responsibility. Those values shape everything from Planet Earth, to Newsround or big TV events like The Traitors.

YouTube, by contrast, is an open ecosystem. It hosts exceptional creativity and storytelling alongside commentary, parody, reaction content and material that lacks context or accountability. The platform doesn’t distinguish between public service content and everything else: that’s down to viewers.

Purpose, reach and intent

From my time at Ofcom, one thing has been consistently clear: audiences don’t lack intelligence or curiosity. What they often lack is context (and sometimes memory). When content is encountered in fragments, across platforms, mixed with countless other videos, it becomes harder to recognise what you’ve watched, where it came from, or what values shaped it.

Public service broadcasting has never just been about reach. It has been about intent. BBC content is designed to entertain, educate, reflect the UK back to itself and provide shared cultural reference points. When that content is consumed in isolation, one clip among many, some of that public service value risks being diluted, even when the content itself remains strong.

In that context, it’s hardly surprising that this debate coincides with reports, including from Reuters, that the BBC is moving towards a formal content partnership with YouTube. In many ways, that simply acknowledges a reality audiences have already created.

So when I look at these latest Barb figures, I don’t see a simple story of decline or defeat. I see a signal – imperfect, partial, but still useful – pointing to a deeper transformation in how public service content circulates in a platform-led world.

The more important question isn’t whether YouTube has beaten the BBC, it’s whether we are paying close enough attention to which BBC content is thriving on YouTube, how audiences are encountering it, and whether its public service value remains visible once the familiar containers fall away.

Because in a media environment defined by abundance, distraction and imperfect measurement, public service values don’t disappear. They just need more help to be seen and understood.

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Dekan Apajee 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. YouTube may have surpassed the BBC in viewer share, but that’s not the whole picture – a media expert explains – https://theconversation.com/youtube-may-have-surpassed-the-bbc-in-viewer-share-but-thats-not-the-whole-picture-a-media-expert-explains-273721

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tim Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Policing, Bangor University

What was initially sold as a bold move to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants and change the UK’s approach to digital ID has now been abandoned.

The proposed scheme, unveiled in September 2025, called for the creation of a digital ID card stored on mobile phones, for use as proof of a person’s right to work in the UK. It has now emerged that this aspect of the scheme will not be compulsory.

Mandatory digital ID cards were billed primarily as a tactic to stop illegal migration. They would make employing illegal immigrants difficult, as employers would need to log ID checks of new employees. Beyond this role, they would enable quicker and easier access to government services, replacing a range of documents with one universal card.

The proposal’s downfall was, arguably, not the idea of a digital identity document. We already have these, in the form of the NHS app, eVisas, age and ID verification apps and digital banking apps. In effect, passports already have many of the characteristics of a digital ID card, including biometric data.

Rather, it was the government’s approach to one word: mandatory. Unlike drivers’ licences and passports, the scheme as proposed required universal uptake – a compulsory form of ID for all.

In an August 2025 Ipsos survey, 57% of respondents said they supported a national ID card scheme. But many had significant concerns over data security and implementation. Fear over invasion of privacy, digital exclusion and government overreach appear to have overpowered the arguments for the value of the scheme. The prime minister has been blamed for failing to make the case for the scheme, allowing these concerns to dominate discussion .

In a climate of declining trust in MPs, it would be difficult to generate confidence in the government to run a scheme which would allow the state to monitor and regulate people’s access to services and prove their identity. The Home Affairs committee noted it had received 3,500 statements from the public with the vast majority opposing the scheme. A petition opposing the scheme received 2,984,192 signatures.

How to sell an ID card scheme

Beyond addressing privacy concerns, there are a number of points that the government could have promoted to earn public support for digital IDs. They needed to do a better job at spreading the message that ID cards are part of a broader movement towards digitisation that can be trusted, and will make people’s lives easier.

The promise of a digital society has always been a quicker and easier access to services and a more responsive system to the demands of its users. In many ways, the UK has embraced this idea. But the experiences of the people of Jersey, for example, with the JerseyMe digital ID, could have been publicised more as an example of how it works in practice.

In my view, the importance of combating fraud and identity theft in particular needed more attention. The focus on illegal immigration in debates on the ID card meant the value in stopping, annually, £1.8 billion worth of identity theft was not highlighted enough.

It is evident that more attention to the concerns of those who do not have smartphones or who would prefer not to have digital ID. The civil liberties group Liberty noted that the most marginalised in society are likely to be unable to access a digital ID card. If such cards were mandatory for accessing work, this would effectively exclude people from the labour force.

The economic value of the digital identity sector to the UK could also have been showcased more. Latest estimates note the sector has over 260 companies, employing over 10,000 employees and generating over £2.1 billion pounds in revenue. Estimates suggest that this could increase to £4 billion by 2030.

A digital society

With the introduction of the Gov Wallet app the move to accessing government documents through your phone or digital device continues. The plan requires all government agencies to provide digital copies of documentation through the app by 2027.

Digital drivers licences, DBS checks, veteran cards, benefit proofs and child entitlement records could all be accessed digitally through the app on your phone using smartphone facial recognition. So whether or not we have digital ID cards, there is a future where smartphones are used by all to access government provided forms of identification.

State systems of surveillance, like ID cards, are often depicted as secretive and controlling. But they do not have to be. The Estonian ID card scheme is often held up as an example of transparent system for managing identification. It has a built-in system that allows citizens to monitor when their data is accessed.

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Read more:
As the UK plans to introduce digital IDs, what can it learn from pioneer Estonia?

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Even if, in reality, society is comfortable with digital technology, the level of confidence needs to be much higher before a mandatory scheme will be accepted. Introducing a voluntary version first that showed users the value of the system may have saved the proposal.

The other question that remains after this decision is how the government will address the other serious public concern – illegal immigration. Without this policy, its efforts to deal with illegal working in the UK will face further challenges.

Tim Holmes 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. Mandatory digital ID cards abandoned: where did the government go wrong? – https://theconversation.com/mandatory-digital-id-cards-abandoned-where-did-the-government-go-wrong-273603