Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sojin Lim, Reader in Asia Pacific Studies, Co-Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies, University of Lancashire
From 150 titles to a longlist of 13, six novels have been shortlisted for the 2025 Booker prize. Our academics review the finalists ahead of the announcement of the winner on November 10.
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
Middle-aged Tom waits 12 years to keep his promise to leave his unfaithful wife when their youngest child starts college, then embarks on a roadtrip across an American landscape both vivid and commonplace.
Tom recounts the journey and his memories, his voice fluctuating between disclosure and holding back. The reader is the silent party, compelled to reflect: do you resemble the wife craving emotional impact, the son constructing amicable distance, the daughter thrust into change, the ex-partner successful but unsatisfied, or Tom himself? There is nothing really extraordinary, and yet the story is captivating.
Despite one significant obstacle, Tom never expresses regret for risks not taken. He has unanticipated glimpses of alternative paths, and learns the joys of routine, a steady career and ordinary family life. A film adaptation is inevitable; its challenge will be to capture the gentle melancholic tension of this thoughtful novel.
Jenni Ramone is an associate professor of postcolonial and global literatures at Nottingham Trent University
An atmospheric domestic drama set during 1963’s “Big Freeze”, the novel follows the lives of two married couples – Eric and Irene, Bill and Rita – in the south-west of England over a few bitter winter months. Due to the intensity of events taking place over a short period of time with just a few characters, The Land in Winter feels claustrophobic, almost soap opera-like.
The wives are both pregnant and they bond, albeit tentatively, over impending motherhood. Despite being the novel’s protagonists, Rita and Irene feel like characters who have things done to them, rather than having their own agency.
Their pregnancies compound this, presented as inescapable obligations as opposed to happy, wanted circumstances. In a novel thick with metaphor and symbolism (the women’s friendship begins when Rita gifts Irene freshly laid eggs) it is perhaps unsurprising that a third pregnancy, that of a cow on Bill and Rita’s farm, foreshadows the trauma and tragedy experienced by the novel’s end.
Stevie Marsden is a lecturer in publishing studies at Edinburgh Napier University
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Susan Choi’s Flashlight opens with a disorienting event. Ten-year-old Louisa and her father Serk walk along a seaside breakwater at dusk, a flashlight in hand. By morning, Louisa is found barely alive. Serk is missing and presumed drowned. Instead of offering immediate answers, the novel follows three intertwined lives – Serk, Louisa, and Anne – across continents and decades.
What begins as a mystery expands into intimate family drama that takes in broader historical shifts, spanning across the Pacific and from the 1970s onwards. Serk, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, emigrates to the US and navigates a life shaped by statelessness and historical upheaval. Anne, Louisa’s American mother, embodies another thread of rupture and inheritance. Together, their stories form a constellation of absence and unresolved loss.
Choi illuminates the hidden currents of identity, migration and disappearance with remarkable skill. Flashlight is an ambitious, emotionally resonant work that rewards close reading.
Sojin Lim is a reader in Asia Pacific studies at University of Lancashire
Flesh by David Szalay
The titles of Szalay’s two Booker-nominated novels, this year’s Flesh and 2016’s All That Man Is, could be interchangeable. Both explore contemporary European masculinity, but where All That Man Is did this through nine short stories, Flesh is a novel about the eventful life of one Hungarian, István, from aged 15 to mid-life.
Here is sex, infidelity, murder, war. But the novel is spare rather than voluptuous, trimmed to the bone rather than fleshy. István’s thoughts and tragedies are often absent from the writing. We don’t hear about his time in a young offenders’ institution or anything at all about his father, for example. We learn that he is physically brave and attractive to women. “Flesh” then refers to the way he is seen, as only a body, a member of the new working classes whose lives are defined by precarity.
Kept outside, overhearing only his bare responses – “Okay” – readers become complicit in this failure to consider all that man is. And it is precisely this innovatively spare narration which makes the novel so deeply affecting.
Tory Young is an associate professor of literature at Anglia Ruskin University
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
At 35, Kiran Desai became the youngest female author to be awarded the Booker prize when her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss, won in 2006. The follow up, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, has been twenty years in the making.
Set between the 1990s and early 2000s, Desai’s elaborately structured novel deftly traverses the US, India, Italy and Mexico as it spins the tale of two Indian-born migrants: aspiring novelist Sonia Shah studying in Vermont and struggling journalist Sunny Bhati in New York. Their thwarted romance is instigated by their respective meddling north Indian grandparents, who reside in mouldering mansions symbolic of their declining fortunes and a decaying colonialism, making this 667-page love story an epic, multi-generational family saga.
It dramatises how nation, class, gender, race and history shape its large cast of characters, each explored in detailed vignettes. Desai shows formidable insight as she ponders the cultural values of the US and India, the nature of loneliness, ruthless liberal individualism, postcolonial disintegration and violence, but also creativity.
Ruvani Ranasinha is a professor of global literature at King’s College London
Audition by Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura’s Audition (2025) consists of two seemingly contradictory parts. In the first, a stage and screen actress in her late 40s meets a much younger man in a Manhattan restaurant. He has asked for the meeting because he suspects he may be her secret son, given up for adoption as a baby. She reveals that this cannot be: she had an abortion.
In the second part, the young man is the woman’s son, and has grown up with her and her husband, although he has, as an adult, argued with them and left home. Now he wants to return with his girlfriend.
These two seemingly contradictory scenarios are balanced, played against one another, and the tension between these “sliding doors” variant realities throws into relief the uncertainties, intermittencies and variabilities of existence. A pared-down novella, directly written and intriguingly characterised, this is a memorably ambiguous meditation on parenthood, performance, relationship and commitment.
Adam Roberts is professor of 19th-century literature at Royal Holloway
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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex
A pelican in the Dalamtian delta, where a massive rewilding project is taking place.Neil Aldridge/Rewilding Ukraine.
Ukrainians have always felt closely tied to their land, often expressing this through literature and folktales. But these connections have grown even stronger since the country was invaded by Russia in 2022.
Forests, rivers and meadows in Ukraine are considered sacred spaces and important to resilience. As Ukrainians have dealt with the constant stress of war, nature has been a place to reconnect.
Ukraine has also been at the forefront of large-scale nature restoration in Europe in recent years. The country is planning two new national parks: Budzhak Steppes National Natural Park (in the Odessa region in the south) and the Great Carpathians National Park (in the south-west). And a project called Rewilding Ukraine has begun restoring some 13,500 hectares of wetlands and steppe (unforested grasslands) – that’s almost twice as big an area as Manhattan in the US.
This is serious rewilding. Compare this scale to that to one of the best known examples of rewilding in England, for instance – the Knepp Castle estate in west Sussex which involves some 3,500 acres (1416 hectares).
Rewilding these areas of Ukraine has involved the release of over 240 animals of different species, including kulan (wild donkeys), steppe marmots, eagle owls, fallow deer and even hamsters which are native to the region and the building of two breeding platforms for Dalmatian pelicans.
Interventions such as the removal of 200 meters of man-made dams surrounding Ermakiv Island are allowing beavers to thrive and the natural ecosystem to rebalance. There are benefits for the local human populations too, as flooding in villages and towns is reduced.
Help for veterans
The impact of this massive rewilding project is not only being felt in the landscapes of the Danube delta and adjacent Tarutino steppe in south-west Ukraine where vital efforts are being made to preserve this endangered habitat.
An initiative known as Nature for Veterans was launched in 2025 with the aim of helping soldiers and their families find emotional restoration from the horrors of war by immersing them in these newly revitalised areas of south-west Ukraine, far from the frontline.
Many who avoided death in the conflict find themselves severely affected with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and their loved ones have suffered in their own ways. The value of nature-based therapy for war veterans, particularly those with PTSD, has been understood for many years, since first world war survivors with “shell shock” were commonly prescribed time outdoors.
This has particular relevance to Ukraine today as figures from its ministry of health, suggest that some 1.8 million soldiers and veterans may need psychological support.
Wars and climate change are inextricably linked. Climate change can increase the likelihood of violent conflict by intensifying resource scarcity and displacement, while conflict itself accelerates environmental damage. This article is part of a series, War on Climate, which explores the relationship between climate issues and global conflicts.
Environmental damage
Of course, the war in Ukraine has not only generated a large number of casualties (totalling 400,000), but has also caused enormous destruction to its ecological landscape. Thousands of hectares have been burned, rivers have been polluted by shelling and biodiversity has been interrupted by artillery noise and displacement.
What’s more, as much as 30% of Ukraine has been contaminated by landmines. In total, environmental damage has exceeded US$127 billion (£96 billion).
To some extent, due to the contamination of land, the war has also made it more difficult for Ukrainians to connect with nature. And evidence suggests this disruption has affected their mental health, something that is backed up by research showing people’s relationship with their local environment affects their wellbeing.
For societies facing the constant stress of war and threats to the country’s territorial integrity, landscape and environment, the chance to connect with nature offers important benefits.
In the face of this type of stress, Ukrainians have found ways to restore their lost connections with nature either by rebuilding gardens, adapting to new landscapes and/or finding different ways of sustaining their traditions.
Rewilding is offering renewal and recovery for both Ukraine’s people and its environment.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Each grey hair may be a sign that a cell has chosen to stop replicating rather than risk turning malignant.Pixel-Shot/ Shutterstock
Grey hair is an inevitable hallmark of ageing. It’s a visual reminder of the passing years and all the bodily changes that accompany it.
But emerging scientific research is challenging this simple narrative – revealing that those silver strands on our heads could be an outward sign of our body’s own intricate defences against cancer.
A new study in mice has uncovered the remarkable ways in which our bodies manage cellular damage – a process key in both ageing and cancer. In ageing, cellular damage gradually weakens and disrupts cell function. In cancer, unrepaired or faulty cells can trigger abnormal growth and tumour formation.
The work here has highlighted a surprising connection between the loss of pigment in our hair and the mechanisms that can keep deadly cancers at bay.
Melanocyte stem cells are at the heart of this discovery. These cells reside deep within the hair follicles and serve as a reservoir for melanocytes – the pigment-producing cells responsible for hair and skin colour.
Under normal circumstances, our melanocyte stem cells replenish these pigment-producing cells through cyclical regeneration, a process characterised by repeated phases of activity, resting and renewal in sync with the natural cycles of hair growth and loss. This grants a steady supply of pigment and thus vibrant hair colour throughout most of our lives.
But every day, our cells endure assaults on its own DNA (the genetic material inside our cells) from sources such as ultraviolet radiation, chemical exposure and even our own cellular metabolism process. This cellular damage contributes to both ageing and to the risk of cancers – such as melanoma, a type of skin cancer.
This new study sheds light on what happens when melanocyte stem cells deep within the supportive niche of the hair follicle sustain DNA damage – particularly a type of damage called double-strand breaks.
When this happens, the melanocyte stem cells can undergo a process called “seno-differentiation”. In essence, this means that the stem cells irreversibly mature into pigment cells – then disappear from the stem cell pool, leading to the gradual appearance of grey in our hair.
DNA damage can cause some of these stem cells to irreversibly mature and turn grey. Beti Argi/ Shutterstock
This protective process is tightly regulated by internal signalling pathways which allow the cells to communicate with each other. By removing these mature cells from the stem cell population, this prevents the accumulation and possible future spread of genetic mutations or DNA changes that could promote cancer.
In a sense, each grey hair is a small victory of bodily self-sacrifice: a cell choosing to bow out rather than risk turning malignant.
Cancer link
The story doesn’t end there, however. Not all DNA damage triggers this protective process. In their experiments, the researchers exposed melanocyte stem cells in mice to potent cancer-causing chemicals as well as UV radiation. Remarkably, under these stressors, melanocyte stem cells were found to bypass seno-differentiation altogether.
Instead, signals from the surrounding tissues actually encouraged the damaged cells to self-renew and continue dividing – despite carrying genetic damage. This created a cellular environment ripe for the emergence of melanoma.
This research suggests that the fate of melanocyte stem cells appears to hinge on both the specific kind of damage they receive and on the molecular cues present in their micro-environment. Stressors such as chemicals or UV light, which cause the cells’ DNA strands to break, also cause the melanocyte stem cells to self-destruct by default. This same process causes grey hair.
But when under the influence of cancer cells, these damaged melanocyte stem cells persist – creating seeds from which melanoma can grow. Scientists describe this dynamic as “antagonistic fates” – where the same stem cell population can take two dramatically different paths depending on the circumstances.
Importantly, these findings reframe grey hair and melanoma not as unrelated outcomes, but as twin fates of the body’s ancient struggle to balance tissue renewal and avoid cancer. Greying is not itself a shield against cancer, but instead a byproduct of a protective process that eliminates risky cells.
Conversely, when the control mechanisms falter or are subverted by carcinogens, the door is left open for malignancy. This new understanding may also help begin to explain why we’re more likely to develop cancer as we get older.
Of course, it’s crucial to note the limits of these findings. Much of the pivotal evidence comes from experiments in mice. This means research still needs to be conducted in humans to understand if our melanocyte stem cells also function in a similar way. Biological differences between species, as well as complexities of human lifestyles and genetics, mean the picture for our own hair and cancer risk is nuanced.
Still, these discoveries open exciting avenues for both cancer research and ageing science. Understanding the signals that nudge stem cells toward differentiation or risky expansion could someday enable therapies to reinforce the body’s natural safeguards, potentially lowering cancer risk as we age.
There are broader implications as well. This information could help explain why some people develop melanoma even without having been exposed to clear risk factors – and why cancers and tissue degeneration so often go hand-in-hand in later life.
The story of grey hair is not just about vanity or the inevitable march of time. It’s about evolution, adaptation and the ceaseless vigilance of our bodies’ internal guardians. Those silver strands may be telling us something profound: that amid the competition between ageing and cancer, sometimes it’s worth sacrificing a pigment cell for the sake of the whole organism.
Justin Stebbing 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mike Savage, Professorial Research Fellow, International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
When the full, unexpurgated diaries of the Conservative MP Sir Henry “Chips” Channon were published in 2021, these disarmingly frank accounts of his aristocratic life in mid-20th century Britain caused a stir. They revealed the inner thoughts of a renowned social climber and rightwing snob, whose political career never recovered from his record as an appeaser of Nazi Germany.
Having married into the Guinness family fortune, Channon revelled in the booty of landed wealth: the thrill at purchasing a country house, Kelvedon Hall in Essex; the glitter of cut glass in the lavish dinner parties he hosted; extravagant bejewelled gifts for his many lovers; the whirl of expensive European holidays and chauffeur-driven cars. One diary entry describes Channon and friends partying with Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring while in Berlin for the 1936 Olympics.
But there is an intriguing counterpoint to his naked love of wealth. During the later 1930s under a Conservative-led coalition government, taxes began to rise to pay for Britain’s rearmament in preparation for war. Writing about then-chancellor Sir John Simon’s “staggering” first war budget late in 1939, Channon recalled:
There was a gasp when he said that income tax would be 7/6 [37.5p] in the £. The crowded House [of Commons] was dumbfounded … Increased surtax, lower allowances, raised duties on wine, cigarettes and sugar, substantially increased death duties. It’s all so bad that one can only make the best of it, and reorganise one’s life accordingly.
This and subsequent tax increases had a massive effect on Channon’s lavish lifestyle. During the second world war, his Kelvedon estate was repurposed as a military hospital – part of the large-scale selling off of landed estates that changed the face of rural Britain (as evoked in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited). Yet Channon’s attitude to these privations was pragmatic: he would just have to pay the extra and get on with his life as best he could.
It is now widely recognised that our current times bear uncanny parallels with the 1930s – from the rise of authoritarian regimes to huge pressures on public spending in the context of volatile economic conditions. Yet unlike that pre-war period, today’s proposals to raise taxation on high incomes and wealth are being met with huge pushback – sometimes amounting to hysteria – from parts of society and the media.
The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget. Sign up for free here
Rather than the pragmatism that Channon and many of his wealthy contemporaries displayed, some public commentary implies that increasing tax on the wealthy is akin to infringing the natural order of things. The new Labour government’s adjustment of inheritance tax in autumn 2024 to bring farm property into line with other assets was met with protests on the streets.
The same year, reforms to end tax exemptions for “non-domiciled” UK residents (those who claim their permanent home is outside the UK) – initially announced by Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt – provoked a flurry of (mostly unsubstantiated) claims that the international super-rich would be leaving the UK for better pastures abroad.
Whatever happened to the stoicism of the rich, prepared to shoulder their responsibilities for social wellbeing in the face of pressing economic and political challenges?
Perhaps the key difference between Channon’s time and our own is revealed in two graphs which show dramatic changes in the distribution and degree of wealth held in Britain over the last century. At the time Channon was writing, wealth assets per head were vastly smaller than they are now – having declined since the early 20th century, mostly due to wartime depredation. However, from the 1950s on, they began a remarkable ascent.
From the dawn of human history, it took many millennia for the mean amount of wealth per Briton to equate to £50k – reached sometime in the 1970s. Yet a mere 40 years after that, this personal wealth figure had tripled:
This dramatic rise in UK wealth ownership was matched by a change in who owned it. In Channon’s time, the top 1% wealthiest people owned an astonishing 50% of the UK’s total – which makes sense of his stoicism. He knew well enough that only a few upper-class people like him had substantial wealth, while large numbers of Britons lived in straitened conditions and could not realistically pay more tax. When the going got tough, there was little option but for people like him to cough up.
Since then, the wealth share held by the top 1% has more than halved, dropping to around 20% of the total. And the UK’s wealthiest 10% now owns just under 60% – down from 90% in Channon’s day:
On the face of it, these two graphs appear to tell a cheerful and progressive story. The UK, like many rich countries, has become much wealthier, and these benefits are being more widely spread. What’s not to like?
In fact, many influential economists – including contributors to the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ influential Deaton Review – have identified the build-up of private wealth as a worrying trend for Britain. Where the vast increase in the nation’s wealth over the past 75 years could have been invested for the good of the nation, it has been largely squirrelled away into private hands, inflating the wealth of the UK’s upper and middle class to the detriment of society as a whole.
As a sociologist, I have long researched the impact of class inequalities on British society – and how class, gender, racial and regional divides are mutually reinforcing.
I am now increasingly concerned by the way the build-up of private wealth assets intensifies these inequalities – potentially to breaking point. Left unchecked, I believe Britain’s “wealth timebomb” will enlarge the current ruptures in society – already reflected in the rise of angry populist political movements – leaving a calamitous legacy for future generations.
As UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’s options for potential increases in wealth and other taxes are debated ahead of a highly anticipated budget on November 26, I’d argue that such discussions should not be framed purely in technical terms – of what is an efficient way of raising funds for the public purse without damaging UK prosperity.
There is a much broader cultural politics of wealth that needs addressing. In particular, it is time to stress-test the seemingly widespread view that wealth should be treated entirely as a private good, and does not come with any social obligations.
This idea leads to the deeply dysfunctional view that wealth assets are free to be amassed, spent and passed on by their owners with scant encroachment in the form of taxation. Chips Channon can be criticised for many things – but even he did not agree with that.
The collective effort of generations
The contemporary reluctance to tax wealth, in Britain and many other rich countries, is actually very unusual. Throughout history, most societies have seen this form of resource redistribution as utterly reasonable.
One of William the Conqueror’s first acts after the Norman invasion of 1066 was to commission the Domesday book to systematically record the landed assets of his newly conquered land. In poorer societies, wealth stocks were the most viable assets to tax.
Throughout British history, private wealth holders were often sanctioned for flouting common norms of “reciprocity” and fairness for the people who worked for them. In the aristocratic landed estates that made up Britain’s main form of wealth until the early 20th century, owners were still under strong moral pressure to operate them for the wider public good.
Similarly, in a strong manufacturing economy like Britain’s, it was uncontentious to regard wealth derived from owning factories and businesses as some kind of social product – the result of profits from the often gruelling lives of many workers. Those fortunate to possess large stocks of wealth were generally expected to take some kind of social responsibility for their workers.
A few 19th-century philanthropists were explicit about the public value of private wealth. Most famously, American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth inspired a radical liberal critique of wealth that influenced Britain’s Liberal government (1905-15) to champion the taxation of high levels of private wealth. This became a central tenet of new liberalism in the early 20th century, as described by Britain’s first ever sociology professor, Lionel Hobhouse:
The prosperous businessman who thinks that he has made his fortune entirely by self-help does not pause to consider what single step he could have taken on the road to his success but for the ordered tranquillity which has made commercial development possible: the security by road and rail and sea, the masses of skilled labour, and the sum of intelligence which civilisation has placed at his disposal … The inventions which he uses as a matter of course, and which have been built up by the collective effort of generations of men of science and organisers of industry.
Defending this idea of “common wealth” extended to Tory radicals too – including the Victorian cultural critic John Ruskin, who in 1860 famously wrote “there is no wealth but life” – declaring:
That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings. That man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has the widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.
The period from the late 19th century, when Britain enjoyed global dominance through its combined industrial and military strength, also saw strong political currents at home. These emphasised the need for municipal ownership of amenities such as electricity, gas, water and many other public building projects – with the city of Birmingham providing one of the most influential models.
Such public-spirited benevolence emphatically did not extend to Britain’s colonial possessions – which were routinely treated as uncivilised territories to be raided, despoiled and exploited for the benefits of their colonial master. But at home, there was a clear understanding amid the rich elite of the need for their wealth to play a role in building a better-functioning society for all who lived in Britain – most of whom did not own any of it.
There were often religious and moral beliefs underlying these views. But as the case of Chips Channon suggests, there was also a self-interested recognition that the wealthy themselves benefited from recognising the social role of wealth, in its ability to help create an educated, ordered workforce and calm, respectful society. What, then, has happened to this collective vision of wealth?
The rise of ‘ordinary’ wealth
By the early 21st century, wealth was no longer the preserve of the gilded few in the UK. Inspired in particular by prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s 1979-90 Conservative government, the prospects of mass ownership of wealth assets – starting with your own home – was held out as a realistic possibility for most Britons.
This major shift was echoed in many rich countries. French economist Thomas Piketty regards today’s “proprietarian middle class”, who enjoy the benefits of wealth assets typically tied up in their homes and pension funds, as a key feature of contemporary capitalism.
In Britain, the proportion of owner-occupiers rose from around 38% of UK properties in 1958 to 70% by 2003 – propelled in large part by Thatcher’s cut-price “right to buy” council houses scheme. Yet this came at a cost for others. The thinktank Common Wealth has estimated this scheme cost British taxpayers £200 billion in terms of the wealth or income that would have been available to local councils had they had sold at full market value or retained the homes – equating to “one of the largest giveaways in UK history”.
A second major form of “ordinary” wealth is tied up in pension funds, offering future rewards for people enrolled in occupational or other kinds of pension schemes. Given that this wealth is only realisable from age 55 (rising to 57 in 2028), it can appear highly hypothetical for younger people. Nonetheless, The Resolution Foundation calculates that pension assets are now the single largest wealth stock across UK households.
Pensions and property have changed the cultural politics of private wealth. It is no longer seen as the prerequisite of the privileged few.
But at the same time, the nation’s “common” wealth has been stripped back due to privatisation, reduced welfare benefits, and the build-up of national debt – which (excluding public sector banks) has risen from less than 30% of UK GDP in 1993 to just under 100%.
This has created a public-to-private wealth cycle. Straitened public services – in part the result of national and local government cuts and a reduction in infrastructure investment – make ordinary private wealth seem much more important as a buffer against potential shocks such as ill health, redundancy and care needs. As a result, keeping hold of this private wealth feels critical to large numbers of people.
Its cultural appeal is also understandable. Private wealth can be seen as the product of personal endeavour like putting down a deposit to buy a house or paying into a pension scheme. For people who have grafted to acquire a modest wealth holding (or aspire to do so), the idea that wealth is a collective and social product can feel alien.
In reality, however, the Thatcherite, neoliberal model which championed the democratisation of wealth was never a sustainable vision – because it did not provide a viable, long-term way of establishing cultural norms of social reciprocity. Indeed, even before Thatcher’s reign as prime minister ended in 1990, the wealth shares of the top 1% and 10% had stopped declining – and they have been pretty much flatlining, possibly even edging up slightly, ever since.
Just as the UK’s total wealth began to rise at record rates, the democratisation of wealth reached its limits. Politically and economically, a new wall was established. Policies ever since have prioritised those people with wealth who typically also have the most political and cultural influence. And overwhelmingly, this does not include young people.
The UK’s wealth ‘timebomb’
While Britain’s private wealth is more widely shared among people than in the early 20th century, its distribution is still extremely unequal – far more so than income. The Resolution Foundation (RF) calculates that half of UK families have no net wealth at all, with debts outweighing assets for 40% of households.
Given the continuing upward trend in house prices, the prospects of getting on the property ladder for people in this “wealthless” half are remote. At the same time, private rents have climbed substantially, with the UK monthly average rising from £948 in January 2015 to £1,286 in August 2024.
Meanwhile, since 2009, most of the benefits of quantitative easing – designed to boost the UK economy in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and later COVID – have leached into the hands of the already wealthy, without percolating down to the rest of society. The RF’s sober summary is that wealth gains “flowed disproportionately to older, asset-rich households and homeowners in certain parts of the country (particularly London). The result is a wealth landscape that is both highly unequal and harder to climb.”
This proliferation of wealth also intensifies other inequality. A recent report I co-authored for the Runnymede Trust demonstrates the astonishing depth of the racial wealth divide. Black African and Bangladeshi households have only 10% of the wealth that white British households enjoy. There are also marked gender wealth divides, notably due to pension wealth – because men are more likely to be the beneficiaries of occupational pension schemes.
All this is in the context of a UK economy that is widely recognised as stagnating. Are the two linked? Almost certainly.
There is now an influential body of thought which emphasises the structural limitations of “asset economies” or “rentier capitalism”, in which economic returns are primarily driven by passive rent-seeking behaviour. For those with wealth, why invest in a risky new start-up scheme (their own or someone else’s) when they can enjoy risk-free “passive” returns on their existing assets?
According to the RF, 53% of the increase in UK household wealth between 2010-22 was due to the passive effects of asset price inflation (such as being beneficiaries of house price rises) rather than active investment – be that paying off debts or profiting from entrepreneurial graft.
This bias towards passive wealth helps explain both Britain’s stagnating economy and the static nature of private wealth. Together, they are storing up a massive challenge to any ideas of intergenerational fairness, as young people’s future prospects increasingly depend on which side of the wealth fence they were born on.
The work of sociologists such as Sam Friedman has demonstrated how the prospects of working-class children reaching the top levels of professional and managerial employment are limited by a pervasive “class ceiling”. Similarly, the prospects of young adults acquiring wealth depend increasingly on whether their own parents are wealthy.
As austerity politics has eroded collective public provision, people are forced back on to their own economic resources, if they have them. In a society where the acquisition of private wealth seems to be the social norm, it is understandable how a mentality of “pulling up the drawbridge” can take hold. In this era, the appeal of populist movements has taken hold – spawning a politics of distrust and hate.
It’s clear the UK has reached the limits of Thatcher’s “democratisation of wealth” agenda. It is unrealistic to expect the wealth net to spread any wider. And therefore, I believe it is now vital (and urgent) to challenge the historically anomalous, unsustainable view that the rewards of private wealth should only be enjoyed by those fortunate enough to possess it.
But what does this mean for the nuts and bolts of taxation policy?
The case for introducing a wealth tax. Video: Financial Times.
Why wealth should be taxed more
For Rachel Reeves and her successors at No.11 Downing Street, the financial room for manoeuvre is very restricted. When considering tax changes, chancellors must first scan the financial markets to consider how their budget and other policy decisions could affect the bond markets and broader financial stability of the UK economy.
Nonetheless, there are powerful technical reasons why wealth should be taxed more.
Given that substantial private income is based on returns to capital (in the form of rent, share dividends and so forth), it seems entirely logical to treat this as equivalent in taxation terms.
Yet whereas higher-rate taxpayers pay income tax 40% (rising to 45%), capital gains are taxed at between 24% and 32% (with some capital gains, notably those which accrue on a person’s primary property, not taxed at all). This is simply inconsistent.
It is widely recognised that the property tax system needs reforming, either through revaluing council tax or by modifying stamp duty on newly purchased properties. Ditto pension taxation – for example, by ditching the triple-lock system which increases the state pension each April by the highest of three measures: average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5%.
We are in the fortunate position that a great deal of background research has been done to demonstrate the feasibility of wealth taxation – and to dispel the common objections, from the supposed complexity of their collection to suggestions that many people will leave the country should a wealth tax be imposed on the very rich. (Behavioural analysis of how many wealthy people do actually leave a country after the introduction of tax reforms shows it is unusual to do so.) In all cases, the evidence against these taxes is thin and easily countered.
Meanwhile, around the world, an increasing number of mainstream economists such as Gabriel Zucman now champion arguments for taxing wealth head-on. In his proposals for an internationally coordinated standard taxation for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, the threshold for paying this tax is set very high: at 2% of the assets of dollar billionaires.
France debates the proposed ‘Zucman’ wealth tax. Video: France 24.
Defenders of private wealth sometimes portray wealth taxation as a socialist project, opening the door to some kind of full-blown communist revolution. But this kind of pigeonholing is simply wrong: the case for taxing wealth has historically come from the political mainstream.
Nonetheless, to make a convincing case in the current climate, it is important to extend the analysis beyond purely technical, economic arguments (which most critics of such taxes are reluctant to do). Ultimately, for wealth taxation to become politically palatable demands big cultural and social questions of the people who own it in very large quantities.
Extreme vs ordinary wealth
We are living in a remarkable period of human history. The total amount of private wealth has mushroomed in recent decades, in Britain and across the world. On the face of it, this appears to testify to some astonishing human progress in an incredibly short time period.
Yet I doubt many readers of this article are feeling this sense of personal advancement – even those who have benefited (directly or indirectly) from the democratisation of wealth since Channon gleefully revelled in his upper-class bubble in the mid-20th century.
Even many of those with “ordinary” levels of wealth don’t necessarily feel well off. Wealth sunk into expensive property or pension savings can radically eat into other living expenses. Which leads me to an important conclusion about the need to focus on taxing wealth itself – not just the income from wealth.
For many people, wealth is not simply about money. It evokes the possibility of leading a “good life” and being able to flourish in the future – not only yourself but your offspring and wider family. This is especially true, and understandable, when it comes to the idea of being able to live in owner-occupied property. Even in the UK’s most eyewatering property regions, many of these owners of ordinary wealth are still a world apart from those whose private wealth can be classified as “extreme”.
Taxing the latter via a “whole wealth” tax has a clear advantage in establishing the argument head-on that very large amounts of private wealth should have some public purpose. Even Channon recognised this.
But as exponents of limitarianism emphasise, only those whose wealth is above a certain threshold should be liable to such a tax. The 2020 Wealth Tax Commission calculated that setting a threshold at £500,000 per year would raise around £260 billion, if charged at 1% per year for five years. Setting the threshold much higher at £2 million, thus affecting roughly 2% of Britons, would still raise £80 million.
These figures (though in need of updating) indicate the potential for raising public funds in a reasonable way, without descending into rancour and political name-calling. By setting an appropriate threshold, it can be clearly established that ordinary wealth need not be taxed – so as not to alienate the large numbers of people who understandably value the security their wealth stocks provide.
Perhaps most importantly, it would restore the vital principle that private wealth entails social responsibilities. When the augmentation of wealth is driven by passive processes such as asset price inflation – as so much of it is today – then it is surely a stretch to view this as down to your own efforts alone.
Even those who acquire their wealth by entrepreneurial drive and flair still need the support of the wider social infrastructure that educates, cures and supports their workers and customers. We need to revive the cultural politics of common wealth, before the timebomb explodes.
The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget. Sign up for free here
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Mike Savage is affiliated with the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute where he convenes a research group exploring the ‘social impact of extreme wealth’. His work has been supported by various funders including the ESRC and UKRI.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elaine Gregersen, Associate Professor in the School of Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle
To listen to Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl is to be drawn into the painful disintegration of a marriage. It feels like we are there, with Allen: on the call learning about her husband’s alleged infidelity, reading the texts on his phone, finding the physical evidence.
I was alone in my office when I first pressed play, expecting a couple of catchy but ultimately forgettable pop songs. After listening to the album from start to finish – twice – I ran downstairs and subjected my own husband to a track-by-track breakdown. I recounted every twist in the tale like I was reading out a celebrity gossip page.
Unlike her contemporaries, Allen hadn’t succumbed to coy sexual metaphors about “knocking on wood”. This was raw, in-your-face, storytelling about imagining another woman naked on top of your spouse. It felt like Allen had created a theatrical moment. I wasn’t wrong – it turns out she’s touring the entire album in theatres next year.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the record. Allen’s voice was inside my head, repeating the words of her ex. “If it has to happen baby, do you want to know?” is a particular earworm. This emotional connection came from the album’s intimacy and the sense of catharsis – here was a woman openly exorcising her failed marriage.
Indeed, Allen has noted how making the record was a way for her “to process what was happening” in her life. She also said that the album could be considered a “work of auto fiction” in which an alter ego named Lily Allen has gone through a devastating breakup.
Madeline, from Lily Allen’s album West End Girl.
Allen’s decision to agree to an interviewer’s description of West End Girl as a work of autofiction is revealing. The term is usually reserved for novels that draw heavily on the author’s experience while blurring the line between real and imagined. But its use here signals something bigger. Each song becomes a piece of fieldwork – the sound of someone analysing her own life in real time.
Turning life into data
That impulse – to turn our personal experience into artistic material that can be appreciated by others – is what fascinates me as an academic. My own research explores autoethnography, a contemporary method where the researcher turns the mirror on their own life.
Autoethnographers write about their own experiences as a way of understanding broader social and cultural issues. Like Allen’s confessional album, the aim isn’t self-indulgence, but insight.
Yet there’s often a cost to that kind of authenticity. When you use your own story as material, you may expose more than yourself. Writing – or singing – about your life inevitably involves others.
Autoethnographers call this relational ethics: the duty to protect third parties while still speaking truthfully. I thought about this when journalists clamoured to discover the real identity of “Madeline” – the other woman from Allen’s lyrics – or when people gleefully joked about how her ex-husband would have the most miserable upcoming press tour.
Pussy Palace from Lily Allen’s album, West End Girl.
In autoethnography, there is no single code of conduct for navigating these tensions. There are plenty of proposals – seek consent where possible, disguise identities – but even the most careful guidelines can’t cover every circumstance. Ethical writing is situational and relies on careful judgment.
No list of rules can tell Allen, or any writer, how much truth is too much. The challenge is to balance artistic integrity with wellbeing – to ask, before sharing, who might be affected by this story, and how?
Then there’s the writer themselves. When we release our story to the world, it remains out there. The tale becomes fixed in time – a version of ourselves we can’t evolve or retract. Later, we may come to see events in a different light. We may regret exposing what we have revealed.
Art like West End Girl is powerful because it collapses the distance between the creator and audience, but that same intimacy – rehearsed again and again – can retraumatise the storyteller. The process of telling our truth may be cathartic at the time, but it can also open old wounds. Who knows whether Allen will still want to be recreating her fragility for our entertainment in years to come.
The lesson from both autoethnography and Allen’s album is to tell our stories responsibly. Sharing our narratives can be healing and politically powerful – it can give voice to experiences that tend to be ignored. But we need to take care. West End Girl reminds us that the line between art and real life is thin, and that the most compelling stories are often the riskiest to tell.
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Elaine Gregersen 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Melanie Griffiths, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham
In an effort to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, the UK government has announced that 900 people will be moved to military sites. Though this is a small fraction of the 32,000 currently housed in hotels, the Home Office hopes that up to 10,000 people might soon be accommodated in ex-military sites.
The first two sites are Crowborough army training camp in East Sussex, and Cameron Barracks in Inverness, where MPs and local councillors have already raised concerns about community safety and cohesion.
It wasn’t long ago that the previous Conservative government moved hundreds of asylum seekers to “large sites”, including ex-military facilities and the Bibby Stockholm barge.
Back then, Labour was in opposition and highly critical of the scheme. Now in power, Labour is not only adopting the policy but planning a significant expansion. But they are likely to face the same issues as previous efforts to move asylum seekers to large sites: dangerous conditions, community unrest and ballooning costs.
According to Médecins Sans Frontières, Wethersfield asylum centre – opened on a former RAF airfield in 2023 – caused people “severe mental health distress”. Asylum seekers were moved out of the site after being exposed to risks of unexploded ordnance, radiological contamination, and poisonous gases.
Conditions in Napier Barracks in Folkestone were found to be unsanitary and overcrowded. The independent immigration watchdog described “decrepit” buildings unfit for habitation. Conditions were so poor that in 2021 the High Court ruled that the Home Office had employed unlawful practices housing people there during the pandemic.
Barracks are extremely expensive. Whitehall’s spending watchdog found that they cost significantly more than expected, even exceeding the costs of asylum hotels. Although the Home Office originally estimated they would provide marginal savings, later estimates suggested that large sites could cost £46 million more than using hotels over the same period.
The watchdog found that this was due to high set-up and refurbishment costs coupled with the millions wasted on failed plans, such as RAF Scampton which had £60 million spent on it before the plan was scrapped.
Barracks also segregate and marginalise those who live there from communities, stoking tensions. Using barracks echoes earlier use of military sites to intern “enemy aliens” during the world wars. This imagery further demonises asylum seekers and is likely to compound community fears, opening the door to far-right exploitation, and anti-immigrant protests and violence.
Privatisation of asylum accommodation
The government is legally obliged to house asylum seekers in need while they await refugee decisions. Given the large backlog, this often now takes over a year.
Previously, such housing was predominantly provided through relatively cheap multiple-occupancy, self-caterered “dispersal” accommodation. This cost about £27 per person per night, compared to £170 for hotels.
Although the privatised contracts were intended for the cheaper dispersal accommodation, a clause allowing short-term use of “contingency” accommodation such as hotels has been used by providers. With hotels offering companies lower financial risk and greater profit than dispersal accommodation, this costly “contingency” practice quickly became normalised.
Privatisation also meant that local authorities lost their power to manage and inspect accommodation, leading to poor conditions in hotels and other housing.
Although barracks and hotels have proven disastrous for people living in them, a handful of property tycoons have made fortunes. This includes repeat scandal-hit Serco, and the Essex businessman Graham King, whose £750 million fortune makes him one of the 350 richest people in the UK.
King founded Clearsprings Ready Homes, which in 2019 won 10-year contracts for providing asylum accommodation and transportation in Wales and the South. Clearsprings runs Napier and Wethersfield barracks, where security staff walked out over pay and work conditions just a few weeks ago.
Clearsprings’ profits are ballooning despite being accused of running squalid flats and providing accommodation under “terrible conditions”, with poor food and hygiene, and rationed period products and toilet paper. (The Conversation has approached Clearsprings for comment.)
It seems that, however poor the provision of accommodation by private providers, little scuppers the arrangements. Contracts are almost never terminated, and fines or penalties are rare. The Home Office has also done little to reclaim millions of pounds in excess profits owed by some providers.
What are the alternatives?
Moving asylum seekers to military sites is likely to prove as financially and politically costly to Labour as previous governments. So, what are the alternatives?
If large sites must be used, they should be neutral places such as empty student accommodation and office blocks, rather than punitive or contentious spaces like barracks and hotels. They must also provide kitchen access, to improve wellbeing and reduce catering costs.
Better would be a return to dispersal accommodation, which would save money and end the ghettoisation of asylum seekers. Beyond this, letting asylum seekers work would reduce their financial dependency on the state.
Ending the privatisation experiment and bringing asylum accommodation back into public management would restore accountability and oversight, improving both taxpayers’ value for money and conditions for asylum seekers.
Ultimately, the vilification of asylum seekers is happening in the context of a wider housing crisis. Unless the problems around overall housing supply and exorbitant rents are addressed, divisive politics around asylum housing will continue.
Melanie Griffiths has received funding from the ESRC and British Academy for migration-related research. She sits on the trustee boards of the NGOs Right to Remain and Open Door.
The UK’s grooming gangs inquiry appears to be in turmoil before it has even started, following the resignation of several women from its victim liaison panel. Their complaints related mainly to appointments to chair the inquiry and the potential for its focus to be widened.
The difficulties facing the inquiry have led Reform UK’s Nigel Farage to describe it as “dead in the water”. After years of investigation and controversy over this topic, how did it come to this?
The issue of grooming gangs – referring here to predominantly Asian men grooming and sexually exploiting white girls across a range of English cities – first came to light from the early 2000s. The first prosecutions and convictions occurred from 2010. Hundreds of perpetrators have been convicted in cases involving thousands of victims across the UK. Other trials are ongoing.
There have been numerous inquiries or reviews into grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation at both local and national level. Local inquiries and serious case reviews have included those in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and Oldham.
At the national level, child sexual abuse was also examined more broadly by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, which reported in October 2022. Some survivors and their advocates claimed the inquiry’s findings were not specific enough on grooming gangs. The government also faced criticism that survivors had been “let down” due to the lack of enactment of the inquiry’s core recommendations.
One recurring allegation has been that police and social workers failed to properly investigate and prosecute grooming gangs perpetrators, for fear of being labelled as racist.
Public and political pressure for a separate national statutory inquiry grew from January 2025, when Elon Musk intervened. Musk accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of being complicit in a cover-up of grooming gangs when he was director of public prosecutions. The then home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced a “rapid” review of evidence of the nature and scale of group-based sexual abuse to be led by Baroness Louise Casey.
The Casey report was published in June 2025. It concluded that the issues of race and ethnicity of those involved in grooming gangs had been “shied away from” by the authorities and advocated the need for a separate inquiry.
The government accepted this and Casey’s other recommendations, and announced a new national inquiry.
But the inquiry is now facing delays, after four survivors resigned from the victim liaison panel in protest of the government’s handling of the inquiry. They accused safeguarding minister Jess Phillips of contradicting them on the scope of the inquiry, and called for her resignation. Others on the panel, however, have said that Phillips remaining in post is a condition of their participation.
The women who resigned also expressed concerns over the two shortlisted candidates to chair the inquiry, who had backgrounds in social work and policing. Both candidates have now resigned.
What the inquiry needs now
In setting up inquiries, one of the most important principles is the need for an effective independent investigation of the facts. This means that panel members need to be appointed by open competition and must be independent of government.
For victims, the appointment of inquiry panellists with social work and policing backgrounds calls into question the inquiry’s independence from the state. This is especially significant given that social worker and police concerns with race and ethnicity have, historically, impeded investigations. At the same time, the composition of an inquiry panel needs to draw from a wide range of expertise – including legal and human rights backgrounds – to be effective.
Any inquiry should be cognisant of the trauma experienced by victims in both being groomed and abused, and not being believed. Survivors’ concerns could be addressed by appointing academics with expertise in policing and social work, rather than police officers or social workers themselves.
A well-established principle of abuse inquiries is that there must be a victim-centric approach. For survivors, the process of the inquiry matters as much as the outcome. Involving survivors in the process of selecting a chair, and as part of a consultative role, ensures their “buy-in” and establishes trust and credibility. The victim liaison panel helps to fulfil this role.
However, there is also a need to inform and manage survivor expectations about what inquiries can hope to achieve. In particular, as my research has established, inquiries are usually focused on broad, systemic institutional failings rather than on the accountability of individuals that many survivors want.
While the victim liaison panel was designed to give survivors a role in advising on the inquiry’s terms of reference, there are currently no terms of reference for the liaison panel itself. Setting out clear terms of reference for both the inquiry and the panel itself is essential for the inquiry to run smoothly.
Farage has called on the government to replace the statutory public inquiry with a parliamentary inquiry. Yet, this would not solve any of these issues and might even cement them. Parliamentary inquiries are usually small investigations, conducted by cross-party MPs who have powers to gather written and oral evidence.
A parliamentary inquiry would likely face criticisms from survivors about lack of independence – survivors would also have a very limited role in the process. Moreover, any recommendations for policy change from a parliamentary inquiry are not binding, so outcomes are substantially reduced.
More broadly, this controversy highlights the need for a comprehensive and thorough investigation of the facts from the outset, rather than the series of separate investigations which we have had to date. It is not too late for the grooming gangs inquiry to get back on track. But it needs to be focused, impartial and properly resourced.
Anne-Marie McAlinden has previously received funding from the ESRC, the AHRC, The British Academy, and the North South Research Programme
Professor Nishan Canagarajah, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, is to step down as Chair of The Conversation Trust UK’s Board of Trustees at the end of 2025, after four years in the role.
I have had the privilege of working closely with Nishan since he joined our board, and we are enormously grateful for his guidance, support and strategic vision. His understanding of what universities need, his ability to see the bigger picture whilst staying grounded in the practical realities we face, and his genuine passion for our mission have been invaluable.
Nishan’s relationship with The Conversation goes back almost a decade. He first joined our Editorial Board when he was Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Bristol, before being appointed as a Trustee in April 2020, shortly after he became Vice-Chancellor at Leicester. When he took over the Chair from Professor Colin Riordan in 2021, he brought both deep sector knowledge and fresh thinking about how we could evolve.
With Nishan as Chair, we have strengthened our position as a critical partner for UK Higher Education, deepening our relationship with UKRI, Research England and Medr in Wales, and launching our commercial subsidiary, Universal Impact. But more than that, he has helped us stay focused on what matters: being responsive to the needs of our member universities and the thousands of academics who write for us each year, particularly at a time when the sector faces unprecedented challenges.
Nishan has been a powerful advocate for universities reclaiming their voice in public debate. As he wrote recently, “Universities do not need to shout louder – they need to be heard more”. This vision sits at the very heart of what The Conversation does. His belief in “the return of the expert” and the need for universities to step forward, shape the debate, and participate in the national conversation echoes our core purpose of bringing academics and researchers together to engage directly with the public.
When The Conversation UK launched in 2013 with Professor Sir Paul Curran as Chair, we were an improbable experiment, encouraging academics to speak directly to the public. Today, thanks to Nishan, Colin and Sir Paul, we’re an essential part of the research communication and UK Higher Education landscape. Our global network reaches more than 40 million readers each month, creating genuine pathways to impact for academics and institutions. As universities navigate the difficult times ahead, The Conversation’s role in demonstrating research impact and engaging new audiences has never been more important.
We congratulate Nishan on his recent appointment as Chair of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), and thank him wholeheartedly for his dedication to The Conversation’s mission. He leaves us in excellent shape, and we’re grateful for everything he’s given us.
Dr David Levy, our Deputy Chair, will chair the Board in the interim whilst we recruit Nishan’s successor. If you’re interested in learning more about the Chair role, you can find details and how to apply here.
In the upcoming budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to raise the minimum wage to £12.70 an hour: £26,416 annually for a full-time job. This means that the gap between salaries for minimum wage jobs and those for professional jobs that require a degree is shrinking fast.
Some smaller law firms are already paying newly qualified solicitors barely more than minimum wage. “Why would young people take on £45,000 of student debt if they can earn the same stacking shelves?” one executive told the Financial Times.
The concern from business leaders is understandable, but it’s focused on the wrong problem. This isn’t a story about university losing its value. It’s a story about Britain becoming a lower wage economy.
Based on all available evidence, university remains a sound long-term investment. The raw undergraduate earnings premium – the simple difference between graduate and non-graduate median salaries – stands at £11,500 per annum.
Earnings by education level:
Median Gross Annual Earnings by Education Level, Working Age Population (25-64), England. Sean Brophy/Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, CC BY-NC-ND
Earnings typically accelerate as graduates progress through their careers and gain labour market experience. The lifetime earnings premium – the additional amount graduates earn over their working lives compared to non-graduates – remains substantial. The most comprehensive recent analysis estimates that the average UK graduate earns about 20% more in net lifetime earnings than a comparable non-graduate – equivalent to roughly £130,000 for men and £100,000 for women after taxes and student loan repayments.
The issue isn’t whether university pays off. It’s that in the current UK economy, everything pays off less.
It bears emphasising here that investing in education remains the primary mechanism an individual has to improve their life chances. In other words, the problem is structural and not the fault of recent graduates.
Britain’s lower wage trajectory
Britain is undergoing a fundamental shift in its economic position relative to competitor nations. It’s transitioning from a top-tier wage economy to a mid-tier one.
The compression of graduate starting salaries against the minimum wage is merely a symptom of this broader downward trend. Since the 2008 financial crisis, UK wage growth has stagnated compared to other advanced economies.
Wage growth in G7 countries, 2008-2024:
Real wage growth comparison, UK vs OECD countries, 2008-2024. Sean Brophy/OECD Data Explorer, Average annual wages, US dollars, PPP converted, CC BY-NC-ND
Much has been written about Britain’s so-called “productivity puzzle”, but one of the likely culprits is the fact that British executives don’t invest in training their workers compared to their international competitors. Instead the burden of upskilling the UK workforce shifts to universities.
This in turn causes the government to apply pressure to the higher education sector to be more responsive to the needs of employers, which has the perverse effect of calling for the elimination of what are deemed “low value degrees”.
Yet universities are several steps removed from the day-to-day realities of the workplace, and are far less suited to providing role-specific training than employers themselves.
When neither employers nor universities effectively address the skills needed in the economy, the result contributes to a low-investment, low-productivity trap that depresses wages across the entire economy.
The productivity gap:
UK productivity growth comparison with G7 nations, 2008-2024. Sean Brophy/OECD Data Explorer, CC BY-NC-ND
Until private sector leaders tackle it through renewed training investment, blaming recent graduates or universities for wage compression is misplaced.
Wage compression affects everyone, but it’s particularly visible at the graduate entry level. When the overall wage distribution compresses, entry-level professional salaries get squeezed from below by rising minimum wages and from above by stagnant mid-career earnings.
Risk and reward
The average English graduate now carries £53,000 in student debt. In a high-wage-growth economy, taking on substantial debt to access the graduate premium makes clear sense – you’re buying a ticket to rapid salary progression. In a low-growth economy, the same debt represents a different risk profile for the same investment.
And the social mobility implications are real. Students from families who can afford to subsidise them through university and early career years face less risk than those who cannot.
The fundamental calculus that favours university education hasn’t changed. Educated workers still earn more, enjoy better employment prospects, and have more career options. But the simple fact is that financial returns may be lower in a lower wage economy.
This is similar to how investors adjust expectations after decades of high returns. The question isn’t whether to invest in university, but what financial returns to reasonably expect. A graduate premium of 15% instead of 20% is still a premium. Reaching peak earnings in your early 50s instead of mid 40s is slower, but the trajectory still leads upward.
Britain is settling into a mid-tier wage economy unless firms start investing in workers like their international competitors do. This creates a risk of brain drain, as graduates seek higher wages in countries that value their skills more highly.
Until that changes, universities are urged to scrap “low-value” degrees while employers slash training and expect graduates to bring the skills they no longer provide through training. The graduate premium still exists – but in a lower wage economy, expect it to be smaller.
Sean Brophy 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.
Perhaps you know someone who always deflects blame onto you. Someone who
smirks when caught in a lie, who twists your words until you’re apologising for their mistakes. And over time, you may start to wonder, can someone like this ever truly change?
You could be talking about a narcissist.
When people high in narcissism feel slighted or criticised, it threatens their fragile or inflated self-esteem, prompting them to react with aggression to protect their self-image. Naturally, when confronted with such behaviour, people often demand change from the narcissist.
But sometimes, the impact isn’t just on others – it’s on the narcissist themselves. Narcissists can be particularly prone to feeling rejected, likely due to the very behaviour that pushes people away. So, can narcissists change with psychological intervention?
First, it’s helpful to understand narcissism as viewed in psychology.
There are generally two types, grandiose and vulnerable. Grandiose narcissists tend to view themselves as superior to others whereas vulnerable narcissists tend to be hypersensitive to criticism. In both cases, narcissists can be arrogant and self-centred. If these traits become extreme, a person may be diagnosed with something like narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or be described as having pathological narcissism.
Narcissists can act in a passive aggressive way to undermine you. For instance, such people may socially exclude others and withhold love and affection as a form of punishment.
While someone with NPD has a lifelong mental health disorder, meaning there is no “cure”, research does suggest that treatment can help manage the symptoms. Treating narcissism normally starts with talking therapies.
This is the classic therapeutic approach where a counsellor sits and talks to their client. The most common technique a counsellor will use for narcissists is cognitive behavioural therapy, which may help people notice and challenge inaccurate or unhelpful thoughts and change their behaviour.
But, when therapists were asked what they thought was the most effective approach as part of a 2015 study, they said they preferred introspective relational techniques. This involves the client exploring their feelings and motivations while the counsellor is nonjudgmental and understanding. That approach is key when working with narcissists because some patients assume the counsellor thinks they are vulnerable.
Fear of vulnerability often goes hand-in-hand with difficulty building a trusting relationship and rapport between the client and counsellor. For example, the client might feel the need to impress their therapist or maintain a confident image, rather than admitting any potential weakness.
Feelings of inadequacy, shame, guilt, aggression and victimisation, can all contribute to this defensiveness in people with narcissism. Counsellors have to recognise and work through these barriers for the intervention to be successful, which takes skill.
When they seek treatment narcissistic patients are often in a vulnerable symptom state, rather than grandiose. But these presentations can co-occur meaning grandiose traits will start to emerge during treatment. The counsellor may then recognise symptoms of NPD in that client and begin to tailor counselling to that diagnosis.
When those barriers hold steadfast, a patient may end their therapy early. There are several other reasons why a patient may drop out, but drop out rates for therapy in general range from 10–50% compared to 63-64% in narcissists.
It is also rare for someone with NPD to seek out therapy in the first place, as they often do not believe that they have a problem. People with NPD often visit their doctor or therapist for a different reason, such as an external problem (like a job loss or divorce) or emotional issue (perhaps depression from perceived rejection).
Dialectical behaviour therapy focuses on challenging negative thoughts and intense emotions, while accepting who you are. Mentalisation-based therapy helps you make sense of thoughts and beliefs and link them to your behaviour.
In comparison, schema therapy helps challenge unhelpful mental blueprints for how the world works. For instance, if you were neglected as a child you could develop a blueprint that says your needs will never be met by anyone.
But there is limited evidence that these approaches are effective for NPD. And they have the same barriers seen in introspective relational techniques like long treatment times and challenges in building rapport.
In light of these issues, in April 2025 psychiatric researchers Alexa Albert and Anthony Back suggested using psychedelic drugs during therapy could create a window of opportunity where narcissistic clients are more open and emotionally receptive.
MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, can enhance empathy, prosocial behaviour, and
feelings of closeness to others. Although, MDMA-assisted therapy has seen success for some conditions, such as post traumatic stress disorder, it may also lead to worsening mental health.
Also, rapport is even more important when you introduce substances to therapy. Rapport is needed in MDMA-assisted therapy so the patient feels safe to trust their therapist while under the influence of the drug.
The treatment faces legal barriers too, since ecstasy is under Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs regulations, meaning it has no recognised medicinal use in the UK. Researchers, mental health charities, patients, and some MPs have called for its movement into Schedule 2 to allow clinical trials, but no change has been made yet.
It is important to note that Albert and Back’s suggestion is theoretical, because they haven’t finished any clinical trials yet.
For now, therapists must rely on their skills to build rapport with patients and overcome treatment barriers without chemical assistance. So, yes, narcissists may change, but it takes great care from the therapist and the patience of both counsellor and client.
