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October 8, 2025

Trump is willing to flout the rules of war like no other US president

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Thomas Gift, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL

The US vice-president, J.D. Vance, recently declared that he “doesn’t give a shit” if the Trump administration’s strike on a suspected Venezuelan gang boat is called a “war crime”. In a speech to hundreds of senior US military officers weeks later, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, then called for troops to ignore “stupid rules of engagement”.

These anecdotes are a reminder that, for all the focus on President Donald Trump’s overt attacks on democratic institutions at home, his administration’s approach to the law of armed conflict – the corpus of laws governing how militaries fight wars – is just as suspect.

In my upcoming book, Killing Machines: Trump, the Law of War, and the Future of Military Impunity, I make the case that Trump is unique among US presidents in the extent of his willingness to discard the law of war. This doesn’t mean that all of Trump’s predecessors in the White House have meticulously followed the law to the letter – far from it.

President George W. Bush, for example, was widely accused of riding roughshod over the law of armed conflict in waging his “war on terror” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. His administration was alleged to have authorised or tolerated “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation, which are widely considered torture.

However, unlike past American commanders-in-chief, other US executives at least showed outward deference to the law of armed conflict, even as they pressed the law’s limit behind the curtains.

Writing in the Washington Post in 2020, during Trump’s first term as president, Georgetown University law professor Rosa Brooks said: “Bush at least tried to cloak his administration’s use of torture in legal sophistry, a backhanded testament to the strength of the norms his aides sought to circumvent.” Brooks added that “in contrast to Bush, Trump makes no secret of his disdain for the laws of war”.

The list of ways Trump has openly attacked the law of war is long. He denounced the Geneva conventions, a set of treaties that established rules for humane treatment during armed conflicts, in his 2016 presidential campaign. He described them as a “problem” for the conduct of US wars and pledged to bring back “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” if elected as president.

Around the same time, Trump also advocated the killing of civilians. In an interview with Fox News in December 2015, Trump said militaries needed to “take out” the families of Islamic State militants. He even endorsed dipping bullets in pig’s blood, considered impure in the Muslim religion, to intimidate Islamic terrorists.

Trump’s expressed contempt for international law doesn’t stop there. He has attacked global laws on state sovereignty and the use of force against terrorists, urging the US to “fight fire with fire”. Trump has also threatened to bomb cultural sites, proposed pillaging Middle Eastern oil fields for profit and lambasted the need to fight “politically correct” wars while terrorists “chop off heads”.

Not least, in 2019 and 2020, Trump pardoned multiple US servicemembers and private military contractors accused or convicted of war crimes. In 2019, condemning a decision by military courts to prosecute US service members convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Trump mocked on social media: “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!”

Trump’s desire to challenge the law of war prompted journalist Adam Serwer to denounce him as a “war-crimes enthusiast” in the Atlantic magazine later that year. And around the same time, the New York Times ran a headline questioning whether the laws of war were “history” under Trump.

Challenging the law

Why has Trump so openly challenged the law of war? Put simply, as I argue in my book, he has had the means, motive and opportunity.

Trump has relied on right-wing allies in Washington. The Congressional Justice for Warriors Caucus is the group on Capitol Hill that has most vociferously advocated for war crime pardons. It has also defended Trump’s actions in office regarding the military.

Meanwhile, elements of the media have positively spun Trump’s explicit attacks on the law of war to conservative audiences. In his former days as a Fox News personality, Hegseth highlighted war crimes cases on his show and described the accused or convicted service members as heroes facing malicious prosecution.

Data also shows that Republican voters, who emphasise law and order domestically, are willing to discount the law when it comes to conduct by American military personnel overseas. For example, following Trump’s November 2019 war crime clemencies, a national poll showed that nearly 80% of Republicans approved of his actions.

At the same time, study after study has shown that people in or affiliated with the US military tend to lean to the right politically. That tilt was evident on January 6, 2021, when a disproportionate number of former service members ended up in jail for storming the Capitol building in Washington.

Rioters clash with police trying to enter Capitol building. — Military personnel and veterans were overrepresented among the people arrested for offences in the violence at the US Capitol building in 2021.
lev radin / Shutterstock

Many ex-combatants and current service members within the military have absorbed Trump’s calls to dismiss the laws of war and, by extension, the rule of law itself. The byproduct has been little resistance within the ranks to Trump’s agenda of military impunity.

Prior to Trump, there was little disagreement among US presidents about the moral and strategic imperative of upholding the law of war. Trump’s breaking of this precedent is yet another way in which he has taken the US into uncharted political waters.

Thomas Gift 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. Trump is willing to flout the rules of war like no other US president – https://theconversation.com/trump-is-willing-to-flout-the-rules-of-war-like-no-other-us-president-262635

October 8, 2025

One Battle After Another: Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro explore three visions of fatherhood

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Gatto, Assistant Professor in Critical Organisation Studies, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Warning: this article contains spoilers.

In One Battle After Another, three characters (Bob Ferguson, Colonel Steven Lockjaw and Sergio St Carlos) represent three different models of fatherhood.

Fatherhood is a timely theme. The place of men in society is being debated and challenged by polarising figures from both sides of the political spectrum.

One side promotes a regressive vision of the patriarchal man harking back to ideals of fathers as dominant breadwinners and protectors. The other side argues for caring masculinity, involved fatherhood and men taking responsibility in their communities to break the cycle of intergenerational gender inequity.

This is a battle for hearts and minds, and such battles are rarely won with stats and figures. As the success of TV shows like Adolescence has demonstrated, there is nothing like a great story to cut through political stagnation and reach a wider audience.

One Battle After Another offers another opportunity to reflect on the past, present and future of fatherhood. This is established territory for director Paul Thomas Anderson, whose masterpiece There Will be Blood (2007) depicts the complex and dysfunctional relationship between Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his adopted son, H.W (Dillon Freasier). The gut-wrenching scenes of paternal abandonment in that film offer an enduring example of the all-too-familiar “absent father”.

The trailer for One Battle After Another.

Lockjaw: the absent father

The absent father is a culturally embedded version of masculinity present in many popular films, that has been experienced by generations of children. TV series like Mad Men (2007) have explored a simultaneously utopian and dystopian version of 1960s fathers as emotionally absent.

In One Battle After Another, actor Sean Penn’s visceral depiction of the aptly named Colonel Steven Lockjaw provides an extreme example of patriarchal fatherhood: absent yet casting a dreadful shadow over a family. Lockjaw is driven to bloody revenge in pursuit of his biological daughter, a daughter he has had no hand in raising.

We know from studies on absent fathers that such absence can have a lifelong effect on children. Lockjaw, with his bizarre behaviours and fawning pursuit of neo-Nazi recognition, offers an allegory for the current rise of alt-right masculinity as jarringly jingoistic and egoist.

Such satire is valuable but also aligns with existing critiques of the manosphere. We need only look to Elon Musk’s infamous hand gesture at the second inauguration of Donald Trump, and his later appearance with his son in the oval office to conjure similarly disturbing visuals of fatherhood. This film breaks newer ground with its depiction of flawed father involvement and the less researched community leadership.

Bob Ferguson: the involved father

Involved fatherhood has been researched for many decades. The triad of a dad’s interaction, availability and responsibility with and for their children is the core criteria.

With Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, we are introduced to a relatable, “good enough” involved father. He is the product of state hostility to father involvement. Research has shown that the intent of fathers to be involved is often stifled by patriarchal gender norms and workplace stigma.

As an involved father, single dad Bob comfortably meets two of the three criteria – he is physically and emotionally engaged with his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti). His enduring presence is partial evidence of responsibility. However, we also see the deleterious impact his drug and alcohol abuse has had on his role as responsible caregiver. The roles have reversed for him and 16-year-old Willa. Bob’s version of involvement is symbolic of the father that cares and stays, but is flawed and unsupported.

Sergio St Carlos: the caring father

Finally, we come to Benicio del Toro’s, Sergio St Carlos, a Karate sensei, Willa’s teacher and father to the community. Offering a counternarrative to bombastic male leaders, Sergio calmly resists tyranny. As a leader, he might be interpreted as emblematic of the much-vaunted male role model, yet Sergio is also flawed. He drinks and drives, leaves much domestic care to his family and revels in his role as antagonist to the law. Yet, such flaws allow this caring father to feel recognisable, relatable and attainable.

Researchers have been writing about caring masculinities for years. Central to understanding this idea is the prioritisation of caring values of positive emotion, interdependence and relationality, and the rejection of domination.

In Sergio, we find a father who cares for his family and his community. Through him, we see a new depiction of fatherhood as the role of a caregiver and care receiver in harmony with his wider community.

Such admirable qualities may seem utopian and fantastical, yet these dads exist. Close to where I live, North East Young Dads and Lads offers a community lifeline to young dads: many later become support workers. One Battle After Another reminds us that community fathers can make a real difference.

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Mark Gatto received funding from BA Leverhulme from 2022-2024.
Mark Gatto is an Academic Board member for Working Families

– ref. One Battle After Another: Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro explore three visions of fatherhood – https://theconversation.com/one-battle-after-another-sean-penn-leonardo-dicaprio-and-benicio-del-toro-explore-three-visions-of-fatherhood-266858

October 8, 2025

Half the UK’s fish stocks are overfished – but the evidence shows how they can be revived

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation, University of Exeter

North-east Atlantic mackerel are being fished beyond sustainable limits. shocky/Shutterstock

Most of the UK’s commercial fish stocks are not in a healthy state, according to a new landmark report.

Marine conservation charity Oceana UK’s Deep Decline report – one of the most comprehensive analyses of fish stocks since Brexit – finds that half of the UK’s top ten commercial fish stocks are either critically low, overexploited, or both. These include icons of our seas such as North Sea cod, North Sea herring and north-east Atlantic mackerel.

Only 41% of the UK’s commercial fish populations have been found to be healthy. A quarter are being fished beyond sustainable limits. And one in six are both critically low and yet still being overfished, placing them on a course to collapse. Many others, like skates, have been so historically depleted that they have all but disappeared and no longer even appear in statistics.

This disaster was entirely predictable and avoidable. Nearly five years on from the UK’s historic rupture from Europe, most people struggle to name any benefits from Brexit. One of the few benefits I can think of is the power to manage our fisheries without being beholden to the annual horse trading for fishing quotas in Brussels.

Freed at last from the constraints of collective bargaining, the UK could make rational decisions to delivery healthier seas and prosperity for the fishing industry.

Management under the EU’s common fisheries policy was famously flawed. Rather than confront difficult decisions about how to share limited resources, politicians routinely set quotas far above scientific recommendation for sustainable fishing – exceeding them on average by a third over more than 20 years.

If a farmer took more sheep to market every year than they produced, they would soon be out of business. Fisheries ministers failed to apply the same logic, so fish stocks dwindled and fishermen lost their jobs.

But for UK fisheries ministers, it seems that bad habits are hard to unlearn, and they continue to ignore expert advice. Rather than enjoying a rebound, our seas remain in deep decline.

Orange and green colourful fishing nets lying in pile on land — Ocean health underpins the UK’s blue economy, from fishing to tourism.
Andrew Chisholm/Shutterstock

Take the humble cod. Once the cornerstone of UK’s national dish fish and chips, North Sea cod is now at such low levels that, in September 2025, the international body providing scientific evidence for fish catch regulation – the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) – advised a zero catch quota to safeguard the future of the cod fishery. Yet North Sea cod is still being overexploited. Ignoring science risks a future where the nation’s favourite dish is no longer affordable or even available.

The Irish Sea is the worst affected region of the UK with four in ten of its stocks overfished according to Oceana’s report, up from a quarter just five years ago. In the Celtic Sea, quotas for cod in 2024 were set higher than the estimated number of adult fish left.

This is political negligence, not ignorance. The UK has world class fisheries science, yet ministers repeatedly ignore their own experts.

Ocean health underpins the UK’s blue economy, from fishing to tourism. Fishing alone supports tens of thousands of jobs, particularly in communities with few alternatives. When stocks collapse, boats tie up, processors shut down and skills honed over generations are lost.

Who is to blame for this avoidable calamity? Ministers obviously, but who are they listening to if not their scientific advisors? Paradoxically, for over 50 years, the large corporates of the fishing industry have been tireless cheerleaders for their own demise, urging ministers to let them catch more fish, in doing so putting short-term benefit over long-term sustainability and job security.

Those with small, local boats – those not raking in the big money – are left trying to eke out a living from a depleted ecosystem. The fact is, if you keep within nature’s limits, you can fish forever.

Ocean ally

There is more at stake than just emptied seas and ailing fisheries. The sea is one of our strongest allies in fighting climate change. Seagrass meadows, kelp forests and seabed sediments capture and store carbon, acting as natural defences. Overfishing and destructive bottom trawling damage these habitats and release carbon dioxide into the sea and atmosphere, stripping away our climate resilience just when we need it most.

Imagine instead a future of abundance. Herring shoals flashing silver. Puffins plunging into dense fish swarms. Porpoises chasing mackerel. Fin whales blowing once more in our waters. This vision is not fanciful.

The good news is that recovery is possible. We need only look at healthiest stocks in Oceana’s report, such as west of Scotland haddock, western Channel sole and North Sea plaice. What did they all have in common? Catch limits set in line with scientific advice.

The truth is that strong nature protection is the friend of fishing, not the enemy it is often painted as. Globally, when areas of the sea are genuinely protected and destructive fishing methods are banned, nature rebounds at speed. Fish populations multiply, wildlife flourishes and coastal communities gain a secure future. Protected areas rebuild fish stocks and feed productive fisheries in surrounding waters.

With the right choices, the UK could have more abundant seas that provide both food and jobs while restoring the wonders of marine life. Overfishing is a political choice.

For too long, governments have chosen short term quotas over long term security. Recovery is also a choice: the UK should set a new course that gives both ocean life and fishing communities a fair deal and a prosperous future.

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Callum Roberts receives funding from Convex Insurance Group and EU Synergy, and UK Natural Environment Research Council. He is a board member of Nekton and Maldives Coral Institute.

– ref. Half the UK’s fish stocks are overfished – but the evidence shows how they can be revived – https://theconversation.com/half-the-uks-fish-stocks-are-overfished-but-the-evidence-shows-how-they-can-be-revived-266285

October 8, 2025

Will Rachel Reeves’ youth unemployment scheme force her to bend her own rules?

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

UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has set out a “youth guarantee” aimed at ending long-term unemployment among young people. Under the plan, a young person who has been out of work for 18 months would be offered a temporary job, apprenticeship or college place.

The UK has just under a million young people who are not in employment, education or training (Neet) – thought to be around 13% of the country’s 16- to 24-year-olds.

Under Reeves’ plans, those who refuse the offer could face benefit sanctions. The scheme is being positioned as a way to boost growth while keeping to Labour’s fiscal rules ahead of November’s budget.

The idea has some logic. Long-term youth unemployment has consequences that reach far beyond the individual. Research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that young people who are out of work for extended periods often face lower earnings for decades afterwards, as well as poorer health and social outcomes.

Economists sometimes describe this as “scarring” – that is, lasting negative economic effects. By contrast, job losses that come mid-career tend to have less lasting economic impact because these workers have more experience or skills that they can use to get their next job.

So the argument that tackling youth unemployment offers particularly high returns is, in theory, credible.

Long-term future

The difficulty is whether the guarantee, as outlined by Reeves, can deliver anything more than temporary relief. It is not yet clear where the promised jobs will come from.

If the government pays firms to create placements, they will have been specially created for the scheme, rather than representing real gaps that the firms need to fill to grow their business. When the government subsidy ends, the firms may have no reason to keep the young person on. And a short placement may not provide enough skills development to allow the young person to get a job elsewhere.

What’s more, the government is not proposing to pay the full cost of these placements. If the onus falls on businesses to absorb additional young workers in newly created roles at their own expense, the effect may be negligible. This is because Labour’s wider programme – from higher employer national insurance contributions to new employment rights – already imposes extra costs on employers.

That tension points to a broader issue in Reeves’ strategy. She has pledged not to increase headline tax rates. Instead she is seeking to expand the overall tax base by growing employment and productivity.

Yet that kind of growth usually requires sustained public investment in skills, infrastructure and industrial policy. A scheme that subsidises wages for 12 months may help individuals back into work, but it is unlikely to shift the productivity dial or generate lasting fiscal dividends without a wide programme of investment.

For Reeves, the challenge is that the guarantee must be large enough to create real career pathways and business growth. But to do so requires precisely the kind of government expenditure that is made difficult by her own “non-negotiable” fiscal rules.

Instead of a way to grow within the rules then, the youth guarantee may be added to the list of promises the government cannot fulfil without bending them.

Maha Rafi Atal 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. Will Rachel Reeves’ youth unemployment scheme force her to bend her own rules? – https://theconversation.com/will-rachel-reeves-youth-unemployment-scheme-force-her-to-bend-her-own-rules-266716

October 7, 2025

Can Labour’s plan to fund deprived communities see off Reform? What the evidence shows

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Abigail Taylor, Research Fellow, City-Region Economic Development Institute (City-REDI), University of Birmingham

More than a year after the UK government abandoned the phrase “levelling up”, it has now launched a fresh strategy to distribute funding to disadvantaged communities. The promise to these deprived areas is three-pronged: investment in community facilities, enhancing public spaces like parks, and revitalising town centres and high streets.

The “Pride in Place” programme will provide up to £5 billion over ten years to support around 250 communities. A further £150 million will be shared between around 95 places across England, Scotland and Wales through an associated impact fund.

The funding is aimed at building stronger, more empowered communities and enhancing physical infrastructure. It also forms part of the Labour government’s efforts to tackle the electoral threat posed by Reform UK in some of the country’s left-behind areas.

The programme is not a wholly new announcement. In its spending review earlier this year, the government announced that 25 trailblazer neighbourhoods would each receive up to £20 million over the next decade. This funding has now been rolled into the Pride in Place programme. For the additional 144 areas named recently, this will be new funding.

The programme is putting more decision-making power in local hands – and this is certainly a good thing. It includes proposals for facilities for young people, backed by a £66 million fund called #iwill as well as a £175 million Community Wealth Fund.

Another welcome aspect are plans to help communities share learning and best practice, and to empower them to drive change locally. For now though, there is little detail on how this will work.

What’s different about this fund is that it involves allocative rather than competitive funding. This means that there is no bidding or tender process. The plan to allocate funding directly to areas based on need is likely to be welcomed by councils that previously criticised competitive funding processes for being costly and time-consuming to apply for.

Funding is allocated based on a ranking of neighbourhoods using indices that measure deprivation and community needs. The needs of some areas may have changed since the deprivation index was compiled but compared to the Levelling Up Fund, which was criticised for a lack of clarity, this selection process appears to be clearer and more robust.

Challenges and constraints

But the fund is disappointing in its scale and scope. Specifically, it appears to be focused on smaller-scale cosmetic improvements rather than larger-scale transformational change.

Compared to the New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme, which ran from 1998 to 2011 across the UK, funding for Pride in Place is small. The 39 area partnerships involved in NDC received an average of £50 million – equivalent to nearly £78 million today. By contrast, the highest award from the Pride in Place programme is £20 million.

And the aims of the NDC programme were broader than those of Pride in Place. When NDC was evaluated, litter and anti-social behaviour ranked highly among the issues that people wanted to see addressed. But the funding also supported holistic change by addressing the root causes of challenges such as creating jobs, improving education and training, action against crime, improving the environment and housing and social services.

It was measured against three place outcomes (crime, community, and housing and the physical environment) and three people-related outcomes (education, health and worklessness).

police tape with three uniformed officers in the background — Previous funds have invested in efforts to tackle crime.
Mr Doomits/Shutterstock

Today, it seems very unlikely that the new programme will offer substantial funding to develop training, education and housing given the sums involved. What’s more, the focus is on revitalising community spaces and boosting local pride rather than tackling inequality in housing or education. All these elements are crucial in driving change in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Research has emphasised the importance of long-term holistic funding in addressing regional inequalities in other countries. And a recent study that reviewed UK community and economic development programmes emphasised how important it is to create conditions for communities to harness their “agency and resources”.

But it is difficult to predict the impact of this fund on current or future Reform UK voters. Heading off the challenge from Nigel Farage’s party to Labour’s vote is likely to depend on how deeply the impact is seen and felt by voters at a local level.

This in turn depends on the scale and approach of the programme – things like holistic efforts to tackle social issues and a long-term commitment to the communities involved. This, together with events (the budget this autumn, for example), are likely to shape views both in terms of physical improvements to the areas involved and voters’ perceptions of being heard in policy decisions.

Research has found that constituencies that previously received levelling-up funding saw a lower Reform vote in the 2024 general election. This suggests that visible improvements may indeed erode some of the support for Reform.

But many of the planned projects may not bear fruit until after the next general election. So if the programme is to have a significant impact, it will be important that projects have a tangible impact promptly. Reducing litter, for example, could be a quick win.

The twin approaches of youth engagement and citizen participation are positive aspects of the Pride in Place programme. The sum of funding for developing community facilities is large. But at its core, the plan falls short in addressing economic disadvantages such as skills, employment and housing. Developing a more coherent strategy around these issues is vital if the government really wants to help voters feel pride in their communities.

Abigail Taylor has received funding from the Chartered Instiute of Public Policy and Accountancy (CIPFA) for research exploring success factors in how international city regions have made progress in addressing regional inequalities and how these factors map to the UK. Abigail has also received funding from CIPFA, the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee for research examining how regional growth can be enabled outside of national capitals. It draws on lessons from two second cities: Birmingham in England and Osaka in Japan, and focuses on four critical issues: institutional conditions for growth, regional group formation, funding mechanisms, and monitoring and evaluation. Abigail is also a Co-Investigator on the ESRC, AHRC and UKRI funded Local Policy Innovation (LPIP) Hub.

Alice is the theme led for ‘Inclusive and Sustainable Local Economic Performance’ on the Local Policy Innovation Partnership Hub, funded by the ESRC, AHRC and UKRI. Alice is also currently on a part-time secondment to the Centre for Local Economic Strategies a charity focusing on the promotion of community wealth building for local economies.

Jason Lowther 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 Labour’s plan to fund deprived communities see off Reform? What the evidence shows – https://theconversation.com/can-labours-plan-to-fund-deprived-communities-see-off-reform-what-the-evidence-shows-266304

October 7, 2025

How land restoration could address malnutrition among India’s Indigenous families

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ipshita Basu, Associate professor (Reader) in Global Development and Politics, University of Westminster

When asked how she was doing during her second pregnancy, Neethu, 24, told us she felt worried and cautious. “The doctor said the baby is in a sensitive state,” said Neethu who is from the Irula community in Attappadi in Kerala, India, which lies in the biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats mountain range.

Neethu’s first child did not survive beyond a few weeks after birth. Between 2012 and 2021 there were 136 officially reported infant deaths in Attappadi (the actual number is expected to be much higher), where Adivasis (Indigenous people) make up an estimated 43% of the population. This is considered high in a state which has the lowest infant death rates in the country.

Although these deaths had a variety of causes, malnutrition is a well documented problem among Indigenous people in this region. And malnutrition more generally is known to contribute to infant mortality by affecting the health of pregnant or breastfeeding mothers and their children.

The Adivasi families we have spoken to in Attapadi firmly believe that these are avoidable deaths. And our research into long-term changes in Attappadi’s landscape confirmed that the loss of land owned by Adivasis has eroded traditional sources of nutrition.

The state government has responded to the issue of infant mortality and malnutrition through an extension of health and agriculture projects. The “tribal multispecialty hospital” in Kottathara in Attapadi, a specialised medical care facility launched in 2007, is a striking symbol of these efforts.

To ensure everyone has access to nutritious food, special provisions are made for the Adivasis. Field-level community health workers regularly visit pregnant and breastfeeding women. Representatives from the local government and volunteers work hard to ensure Adivasi women deliver their newborns in hospitals.

stone statue of mother feeding baby outside hospital — A statue welcoming patients to the Government Tribal Speciality Hospital highlights a 2018 award for the best *taluk* (district) hospital. It ends with a striking message: ‘Mother who is ready to feed her child at any time…a good mother’.
Sudeesh R.C., CC BY-NC-ND

However, the Adivasi residents of Attappadi are not convinced that this is going to resolve the matter. Maariyamma, an elderly Irula woman is a part of the local women’s collective that was formed in the mid 1990s for ecological regeneration and against alcohol trade in Attapadi. She firmly believes that these infant deaths have been caused by the historical curtailment of traditional millet farming, ecological destruction and the more recent land alienation.

Attappadi was exploited for timber since the early 19th century under colonial rule. Although the lands were claimed by an upper-caste, feudal landlord family, it stayed away in the plains, giving the Adivasis significant control over the land and forests.

The Irula, Muduga and Kurumba communities had farmed diverse varieties of millet in a shifting mode whereby patches of forests were slashed and burnt for farming and left fallow until they regenerated. The elderly respondents we spoke to pointed out that on the eastern slopes of the Attappadi hills, where rains are scarce, Adivasi families farmed enough millet in a season to last for the whole year.

Maariyamma fondly remembered old times: “There were hundreds of green leafy vegetable varieties in those days that kept us strong” she said, before breaking into an upbeat song that listed the names of villages and the greens they were known for.

The phase out of millet farming began in the mid-19th century, when the colonial forest department became anxious about conservation, resulting in increased checks on shifting cultivation. In postcolonial times, the widespread distribution of state-subsidised rice slowly started to change food habits. Meanwhile, millet cultivation received no financial state support.

millet growing green in field, close up — Millet growing at Attappadi In Kerala, India.
Krishnakumar. C/Shutterstock

This issue was compounded by two other developments: land alienation and ecological degradation. The arrival of settlers has resulted in many Adivasi communities losing lands. Several oorus (hamlets) lost over 3,000 acres over a span of three generations. This broke down their traditional governance system that managed food sovereignty, consisting of a mooppan (chief), mannukkaaran (soil manager), vandaari (treasurer) and kurunthala (rituals manager).

Reparation and regeneration

Several Adivasi households are now caught up in court cases over land ownership. In the late 2000s, a new wind energy farm sparked a land alienation controversy. A recent tourism boom in Attappadi exacerbates land encroachment by settlers and businessmen, backed by forged land documents.

As Maaran mooppan says, while the link might not be obvious, loss of land and infant deaths are closely connected. Adivasis now depend on cheap rice from fair price shops that have no nutritional value. His words resonate with the demands for food sovereignty being made by Indigenous people in several parts of the world. A 2023 study by the Indian Council of Medical Research pointed at the poor health of the Adivasis in Attappadi, but relegated land alienation (the loss of ownership and access to ancestral lands) as a passing concern in its conclusions.

The colonial and postcolonial intrusions by the state and settlers in Attappadi also resulted in deforestation and desertification. The state response in recent times was to initiate the Attappadi Hills Area Development Society, an organisation that divided Attappadi into watersheds and encouraged reforestation to raise the groundwater levels that were earlier depleted.

Although Adivasis nominally participated in this programme, it lacked a vision to ensure the restoration of Adivasis’ food and land sovereignty, producing short-term gains in access to water that were reversed when funding stopped in 2012.

A few recent attempts by the state government, such as the Millet Village initiative to revive millet farming, highlight the pitfalls of welfare interventions that do not address the land question. Though some Adivasi households participated in these initiatives, our respondents insist that the seeds are not native and that the products are aimed at urban consumers for whom millets are marketed as superfoods.

Neethu’s generation, several of whom we talked to and stayed with, display a complete aversion to millet-based meals and affinity towards processed foods, a habit developed in boarding schools where Adivasi children are taught in yet another state-sponsored model of engaging with the Adivasis.

This challenges the idea that Indigenous health can only be improved with increased medical care and highlights how the ecological destruction and loss of land and food sovereignty has affected the health of today’s population.

Ecological reparations involve directly addressing the historical relationship between colonialism and Indigenous health. Our research shows that a sustainable future requires listening to Indigenous peoples’ demands for food sovereignty as the key to improving health resilience.

Ipshita Basu receives funding from the British Academy on the Knowledge Frontiers grant project titled “Planetary Health and Relational Wellbeing: Investigating the Ecological and Health Dimensions of Adivasi Lifeworlds.”

Sudheesh R.C. receives funding from the British Academy on the Knowledge Frontiers grant project titled “Planetary Health and Relational Wellbeing: Investigating the Ecological and Health Dimensions of Adivasi Lifeworlds.”

– ref. How land restoration could address malnutrition among India’s Indigenous families – https://theconversation.com/how-land-restoration-could-address-malnutrition-among-indias-indigenous-families-263297

October 7, 2025

The mental toll of menopause – what women really feel

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pooja Saini, Professor in Suicide and Self Harm Prevention, Liverpool John Moores University

Hormonal changes during menopause can drive suicidal thoughts – a crisis that healthcare services have failed to recognise or adequately address. The devastating link is laid bare in research my colleagues and I conducted recently.

The study, which involved interviews with 42 women who experienced suicidal thoughts and behaviour during perimenopause or menopause, exposes a troubling pattern. Women in crisis are being prescribed antidepressants instead of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), despite clear menopause guidelines stating that antidepressants should not be a first-choice treatment for menopause-related low mood.

Over the past two decades, suicide rates have climbed among women in their mid-40s to mid-50s – precisely the age when most experience the menopausal transition. Yet the role of hormonal changes in this mental health crisis has been largely ignored.

Women in the study described feelings of profound hopelessness and entrapment. One participant said: “What’s the point in being alive? What purpose, what function do I have? I’ve got nothing left to give, nothing left to contribute. Why am I still here?”

The perimenopausal depression they described went beyond ordinary low mood, encompassing crushing fatigue, a sense of worthlessness and the feeling of being a burden to loved ones. Many questioned whether their lives had any remaining value or purpose.

A healthcare blind spot

The research revealed alarming gaps in medical knowledge and care. Women reported lengthy delays in receiving appropriate hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and frequent misdiagnoses. Many said their GPs lacked a basic understanding of how hormones affect mental health.

“There was zero knowledge about hormones,” one woman said of her GP. “They were doing their best with what they felt they knew, but they didn’t know anything about this subject whatsoever. It’s not on their assessments to ask about women’s menstrual cycles.”

Even when women explicitly requested hormone treatment, some were refused due to a rigid interpretation of clinical guidelines. Research shows that antidepressants are being prescribed disproportionately to women – a pattern that, in some cases reported in the study, worsened symptoms rather than relieved them.

Woman putting an HRT patch on her upper arm. — Women reported delays in receiving hormone replacement therapy.
Andrey Popov/Shutterstock.com

The hormonal upheaval of menopause doesn’t occur in isolation. In midlife, women often juggle caring responsibilities, career pressures and domestic demands. These are pressures that layer on to the biological changes they’re experiencing, creating an intense mix of physical and emotional strain.

Women are now widely recognised to be losing jobs, relationships and, in some cases, their capacity to make decisions due to menopausal symptoms. Mood swings, anxiety, brain fog, hot flushes and feelings of profound sadness can be debilitating. Yet, for many, these symptoms are dismissed or misunderstood.

This dismissal has deep historical roots. The outdated diagnosis of female “hysteria” – a misogynistic label used to pathologise women’s emotions – once justified treatments as extreme as asylum confinement and electroconvulsive therapy. The word may be gone, but its legacy endures in the way women’s hormonal suffering is still minimised as exaggeration or overreaction.

There are signs of change. In 2021, an independent UK government report made ten recommendations to support menopausal women in the workplace and beyond. And, in November 2024, clinical guidelines were updated to recommend psychological support for women experiencing early menopause.

But suicide risk for midlife women has not been adequately highlighted in menopause guidance – a gap that urgently needs addressing.

Many women in the study reported dramatic improvements in mental wellbeing and a reduction in suicidal thoughts after receiving timely HRT and support from healthcare professionals who actually listened. Some described their lives as becoming tolerable again after years of suffering.

Not all women will benefit from hormone replacement, but all deserve to have their hormones checked and to be offered treatment when appropriate. The choice should be theirs – informed, supported and taken seriously.

The silence around menopausal mental health has lasted too long. It’s time healthcare services recognised this crisis for what it is: a matter of life and death.

Pooja Saini is affiliated with NHS organisations, charities and non-for profit organisations.

– ref. The mental toll of menopause – what women really feel – https://theconversation.com/the-mental-toll-of-menopause-what-women-really-feel-261982

October 7, 2025

One Battle Another: Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro explore three visions of fatherhood

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mark Gatto, Assistant Professor in Critical Organisation Studies, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Warning: this article contains spoilers.

In One Battle After Another, three characters (Bob Ferguson, Colonel Steven Lockjaw and Sergio St Carlos) represent three different models of fatherhood.

Fatherhood is a timely theme. The place of men in society is being debated and challenged by polarising figures from both sides of the political spectrum.

The trailer for One Battle After Another.

Lockjaw: the absent father

Bob Ferguson: the involved father

Involved fatherhood has been researched for many decades. The triad of a dad’s interaction, availability and responsibility with and for their children is the core criteria.

Sergio St Carlos: the caring father

Mark Gatto received funding from BA Leverhulme from 2022-2024.
Mark Gatto is an Academic Board member for Working Families

– ref. One Battle Another: Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro explore three visions of fatherhood – https://theconversation.com/one-battle-another-sean-penn-leonardo-dicaprio-and-benicio-del-toro-explore-three-visions-of-fatherhood-266858

October 7, 2025

Reform and Green party members the most ideologically removed from the average voter

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

Against the backdrop of a fragmenting political system, the 2025 party conference season in the UK has been an unusual one. The Greens and Reform, having secured strong results in the 2024 election, enjoyed an unprecedented level of interest in their events. Members were interviewed in the media and party leaders’ speeches were scrutinised.

Attention is almost always squarely focused on Labour and the Conservatives, perhaps with some Liberal Democrat coverage too. And there have been times when party members have seemed very out of sync with the general public. This was a strong theme during the years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party. But it has also affected the Conservatives. Party members strongly supported Brexit at a time when the Conservative leadership opposed it.

But these days, it’s Reform and Green party members who are most ideologically at odds with the voting public – something their leaders will need to be mindful of as they prepare for the next election. Labour and Liberal Democrat party members are the most aligned, followed by the Conservatives.

To show this, we can use data from a large-scale national survey conducted just prior to the general election in 2024 by the British Election Study. With more than 30,000 respondents the survey makes it possible to compare the views of party members with those of voters to see how much they differ.

Percentages of party members in the BES Panel Survey 2024:

A chart showing how many members of each party were represented in the 2024 British Election Study. — A breakdown of the party members in the survey.
P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

The survey asked respondents if they were members of a political party and a total of 1,191 said they were, making up 4% of all respondents. The chart shows the percentage shares of these members in each of the five national parties at that time.

Labour membership was twice as large as that of the Conservatives and they in turn were just over twice as large as the Liberal Democrats. Reform and the Greens had the same percentage of members.

To judge whether party members were extreme in their views compared to the average population, we can use responses to a question which asked: “In politics people sometimes talk of left and right. Where would you place yourself on the following scale?” The scale runs from 0 (far left) to 10 (far right).

The ideology scores on the left-right scale for voters in 2024:

A chart showing how party members rate themselves on the ideological spectrum. — Where party members sit on the political spectrum.
P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

Most voters place themselves at the centre of the left-to-right ideological spectrum, with a mean score of 4.8 on the scale. There is an important strand of academic research in political science which suggests that voters will support the party that is closest to them on this ideological scale.

This is the so-called spatial model of party competition. The distance between the voters and the party members on the scale measures how “extremist” party members are in relation to voters as a whole.

The third chart shows the scores of party members on this left-right scale. It shows that the Liberal Democrat members are closer to the voter mean of 4.8 than any other party. They have a score of 3.8. The second closest party is Labour on 2.7, followed by the Conservatives on 7.6.

The two clear outliers are the Greens on 1.8 who are well to the left of Labour and Reform on 8, which is well to the right of the Conservatives.

Mean scores of party members on the left-right ideological scale:

A chart showing the mean score for party members on the left right spectrum. — Reform and the Greens are furthest from the general public.
P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

Political polarisation can weaken the relationship between ideology and voting because it flattens the distribution of voters on the left-right scale. It creates more extremists so that the distribution has fatter tails.

That said, the chart does not show large numbers of extremists in the British electorate, since the great majority of voters are clustered in the centre. This makes it unwise for any party to be too leftwing or rightwing – something which is likely to cause problems for both Reform and the Greens.

“Performance politics” also plays a role. This refers to the extent that incumbent parties deliver on their promises.

This has been a major problem for the Conservatives in the past and it is now affecting the Labour government. Voters want fast action to solve their problems, making this an issue for centre parties as much as for fringe parties.

Both Reform and the Greens have not had to struggle with delivery at the national level, although their recent successes in local government elections will provide evidence of this by the time of the next general election.

Overall Reform and the Greens should note that it is better to be close to what the electorate want than far away when voters start to look at what the parties are offering during an election campaign.

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This article contains references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and this may include links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

– ref. Reform and Green party members the most ideologically removed from the average voter – https://theconversation.com/reform-and-green-party-members-the-most-ideologically-removed-from-the-average-voter-266923

October 7, 2025

Nobel medicine prize: how a hidden army in your body keeps you alive – and could help treat cancer

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

Regulatory T cells monitor other immune cells and ensure that our immune system tolerates our own tissues. © The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén, CC BY-NC

The 2025 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine celebrates a discovery that answers one of medicine’s most profound questions: how does the immune system know when to attack, and when to stand down?

Most of the time, our defences target dangerous infections and even cancers while leaving the body’s own tissues unharmed. But when that balance fails, the consequences can be devastating – from autoimmune diseases, where the immune system turns on healthy organs, to cancers, where it becomes too restrained to recognise and destroy tumour cells.

Three scientists – Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi – uncovered how our bodies maintain this delicate control through a special class of immune cells called “regulatory T cells”. Their discovery revealed the immune system’s natural “brakes”: the internal mechanisms that prevent friendly fire but, in some cases, can also shield cancers from attack.

Understanding how these brakes work has already reshaped modern immunology. The same insight guiding new treatments for autoimmune diseases is now helping researchers fine tune cancer immunotherapies; adjusting the immune system’s restraint so it hits hard against tumours without turning against the body.

© The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén, CC BY-NC

The immune system works like a highly trained security force, patrolling every corner of the body to detect and destroy bacteria, viruses and rogue cells. But even the best security team can be dangerous without oversight.

Left unchecked, immune cells can mistakenly attack healthy tissue: the hallmark of autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes or multiple sclerosis. And when the system becomes too cautious, it can overlook genuine threats, giving cancers the chance to grow unnoticed.

For decades, scientists thought most of this immune “training” happened early in life, inside an organ called the thymus: a small gland above the heart where young immune cells learn which targets to attack and which to ignore. Those that fail this test are eliminated before they can cause harm.

But in the 1990s, Japanese immunologist Shimon Sakaguchi discovered there was more to the story. Through experiments on mice, he identified a previously unknown type of immune cell called a “regulatory T cell”: the peacekeepers of the immune system. These cells don’t attack pathogens themselves.

Instead, they hold the rest of the immune army in check, preventing unnecessary destruction. When Sakaguchi removed these cells in laboratory animals, their immune systems spiralled out of control, launching attacks on healthy organs. His work showed that these peacekeeping cells are essential for preventing the body from waging war on itself.

A few years later, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell found the genetic switch that makes these peacekeepers possible. They discovered that a single mutation in a gene called Foxp3 could leave both mice and human babies vulnerable to a rare but devastating autoimmune disorder called IPEX syndrome. The Foxp3 gene acts as the “on switch” for producing regulatory T cells. Without it, the immune system loses its referees and chaos follows.

T helper and regulatory T cells

The immune system relies on many types of T cells. T helper cells act as team captains, directing other immune cells to respond to infections. Much of my own research has focused on how these cells behave in HIV infection, where their loss leaves the immune system defenceless. Regulatory T cells belong to this same family but serve the opposite role: they calm things down when the fight goes too far.

These peacekeepers keep the immune defenders focused on real threats rather than friendly targets. When they fail, autoimmune diseases emerge. But when they work too well, they can suppress immune attacks on cancer, allowing tumours to hide and grow. Scientists are now learning how to fine-tune this balance: boosting the guards to control autoimmune disease, or easing the brakes so the body can fight back against cancer.

These discoveries have redefined how doctors think about immunity. Clinical trials are already testing therapies that expand regulatory T cells in people with arthritis, diabetes or after an organ transplant; helping the body to tolerate its own tissues.

In cancer treatment, the opposite approach is used: blocking or disabling these peacekeepers to unleash a stronger immune attack on tumours. This is the principle behind modern immunotherapies, which have already transformed outcomes for patients with melanoma, lung cancer and lymphoma.

Science that touches lives

The work of Brunkow, Ramsdell and Sakaguchi shows how basic science can lead to profound changes in medicine. Their discoveries help explain not just why the immune system sometimes goes wrong, but how it can be guided back into balance – a balance that could one day prevent autoimmune diseases, improve transplant survival and make cancer therapies both safer and more effective.

The Nobel committee’s decision this year recognises not only their scientific achievement, but also a vision of the immune system as something far more nuanced than an on-off switch. It’s a finely tuned orchestra and regulatory T cells are its conductors, ensuring the right notes are played at the right time, silencing those that might cause chaos.

By learning to adjust these biological “brakes” with precision, medicine is entering a new era. Treatments inspired by these discoveries are already improving lives and may, in time, transform how we prevent and treat disease across the spectrum, from autoimmunity to cancer.

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.

– ref. Nobel medicine prize: how a hidden army in your body keeps you alive – and could help treat cancer – https://theconversation.com/nobel-medicine-prize-how-a-hidden-army-in-your-body-keeps-you-alive-and-could-help-treat-cancer-266860