Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

Drone incursions into Poland, fighter jets in Nato airspace, election interference in Romania and Moldova and “little green men” (soldiers of unconfirmed origin) in Estonia. These are just a few examples of the tactics Russia has been using in the past few weeks.

They appear to be part of a much broader strategy variously referred to as the “Gerasimov doctrine”, non-linear war or new-generation warfare. What lies behind these terms is the very worrying and very real “weaponisation of everything” – Moscow’s strategy to reshape international order.

As a researcher on great-power rivalries in Eurasia, I’ve observed this kind of hybrid warfare long before the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. We saw it most obviously with Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. But it has intensified since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022.

These tactics cover a broad spectrum. They range from information operations, including propaganda and disinformation campaigns, to attacks on critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables. They involve the use of drones to disrupt air traffic and malicious cyber-attacks against Russia’s enemies. They have also included assassination campaigns against defectors and dissidents in the UK and elsewhere.

Russia is struggling to retain its traditional influence in post-Soviet regions like the south Caucasus and central Asia. Meanwhile it has also sought to extend its influence elsewhere, such as in Latin America or Africa.

But the main focus of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare is Europe. The continent has become a key battleground in Moscow’s attempts to restore Russia to its erstwhile great-power status and reclaim a Soviet-style sphere of influence.

At the heart of these efforts is the war against Ukraine. For Russia, victory there is more than the mere military defeat of Ukraine and the permanent weakening of the country along the lines of Moscow’s frequently stated war aims: annexation of one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, limits on the country’s armed forces and no prospect of Nato membership.

While clearly important for Putin, he needs Russia’s victory to signal the extent of his power and at the same time to highlight western impotence to prevent Ukraine’s defeat.

Weakening the west

To win the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin needs to weaken the west and its resolve. In this sense, the intensification of the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Kyiv’s European allies is a tool Moscow uses as part of its broader war effort.

But weakening the west is also an end in itself. A strong EU and Nato alliance would prevent Russia from reclaiming its sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe.

Europe has been slow to rise to the challenge of upping its defence game against Russian aggression. But in the end the simple numbers do not favour Russia. The size of the EU’s economy is roughly ten times the size of Russia’s, and its population is more than three times that of Russia.

The EU’s defence expenditure in 2024 stood at just under US$400 billion (£298 billion), up 19% from 2023, and equal to 1.9% of member states’ GDP. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia, by comparison, spent US$145 billion, or an ultimately probably unsustainable 6.8% of its total GDP.

In terms of purchasing power parity (the buying power of different countries’ currencies using a common “basket of goods”), Russia still marginally outspends the EU. But not if non-EU Nato members such as the UK and Norway are factored into the equation.

So far, Russia has not been able to decisively outperform Ukraine’s military on the battlefield. With the transatlantic alliance – and hence US support – still by and large intact and a more assertive coalition of European allies backing Kyiv emerging, this is unlikely to change soon.

That is why Russia employs its wide range of hybrid warfare tools against European societies. It needs to sow doubt over their ability to prevail, to cause perceived hardship that makes supporting Ukraine unattractive, and to support populist allies who promote pro-Russian narratives, be they government parties in Hungary or Slovakia or opposition parties in Germany and elsewhere.

Permanent state of war

From the Kremlin’s perspective, the logic is probably very simple. Using the full spectrum of hybrid warfare signals that Russia has the capability and the will to make the costs for supporting Ukraine unacceptable for Europe.

With European support for Kyiv ebbing away, Russia will either defeat Ukraine outright on the battlefield or force the country into humiliating concessions at the negotiation table. Either outcome will damage European credibility and morale and allow Moscow to set the terms of a reshaping of the continent’s security order along the lines of one of the Kremlin’s favourite current talking points – “indivisible security”.

Indivisible security was one of the themes of Vladimir Putin’s speech at the annual meeting of the Valdai discussion club – a gathering of Russian and pro-Russian foreign and security policy analysts. By this he simply means a prioritisation of Russian interests over those of its neighbours – in other words a western recognition of a Russian sphere of influence.

But it would be a mistake to assume that recognising such a Russian sphere of influence would satisfy the Kremlin today in the same way as it may have satisfied Soviet rulers during the cold war. On the contrary, a Russian victory in and beyond Ukraine would most likely encourage dreams of further expansion.

The 2025 annual report of the Valdai club, written by some of Russia’s leading foreign policy thinkers, is instructive in this respect. Titled “Dr Chaos or how to stop worrying and love the disorder”, the report posits that the very purpose of war may have changed from victory to “maintaining a balance necessary for a period of relative peaceful development”.

If turned into actual policy, the kind of hybrid warfare the Kremlin has pursued against Europe for more than a decade, becomes a permanent feature of Russia’s relations with Europe. This is a vision that exposes the limits of Russia’s aspirations – managing chaos and loving disorder – and the dangers they imply for the rest of the world.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Russia now has a strategy for a permanent state of hybrid war – https://theconversation.com/russia-now-has-a-strategy-for-a-permanent-state-of-hybrid-war-266936

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Strawson, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of East London

Now a ceasefire has come into effect in Gaza, Israel’s long-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, faces the dilemma of how to campaign ahead of the next national elections. These elections must be held, at the latest, in one year’s time.

In a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on October 13, both Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid made speeches that seemed to open the election campaign. Netanyahu chose to cast himself as war victor, while Lapid emphasised the liberal values contained in Israel’s declaration of independence.

Donald Trump also addressed Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset and, in his speech, paid many compliments to Netanyahu. He even directed a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pardon Netanyahu over longstanding fraud and bribery charges – something Herzog has already suggested.

But the US president also issued Netanyahu with a warning that Israel could not fight the world. Netanyahu has received a lesson in big power politics over the past month that will not have been welcomed.

It came after his miscalculation in attacking Qatar on September 9, where Hamas representatives were discussing the possibility of a plan to end the war in Gaza. Netanyahu was called to the White House and made to apologise to the Qatari government.

He was then pressured into signing up to Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which includes a “realistic pathway” to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. This is something Netanyahu has long opposed and puts him in a difficult position with his electoral base, which is vociferously against a Palestinian state.

The question now is can Netanyahu turn Trump’s plan to his advantage and win the next election?

Some commentators, such as Middle Eastern affairs expert Shira Efron, think Netanyahu has not realised that the Gaza deal represents a defeat for his government. Efron says the agreement contradicts what Netanyahu has sold Israelis for two years: the promise of total victory and the destruction of Hamas.

However, I think this underestimates a politician who has made a career out of turning obstacles into opportunities. His first election as Israel’s prime minister in 1996, for example, came despite trailing his rival Shimon Peres by a substantial margin in opinion polls at the start of the election campaign.

He has also learned to build coalitions with figures on the left, like former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the centre like Benny Gantz and, of course, with the far-right politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

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Read more:
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich: the Netanyahu government extremists sanctioned by the UK

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His speech in the Knesset during Trump’s visit was vintage Netanyahu. He spun the peace deal, which he was forced to sign, into a massive victory for Israel’s war aims in Gaza. Only weeks before he had been saying that Hamas could only be crushed by conquering Gaza City.

It is true that the living hostages have now been freed. But, in deploying 7,000 armed men to control areas in Gaza vacated by Israeli forces, Hamas hardly seems destroyed. Netanyahu has nonetheless convinced himself – and will now try to convince the electorate – that he has led Israel to total victory.

Prospects of success

Opinion polls since the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023 have not made good reading for Netanyahu. However, despite this disaster taking place on his watch, Netanyahu’s polling has never been disastrous.

Current polls suggest that, if elections were held today, his Likud party would be the biggest single party in the Knesset. However, his ruling coalition would be unlikely to return to power. The same polling gives the Netanyahu bloc 51 seats compared to 55 for the opposition, with the balance held by Arab parties.

The opposition bloc ranges from the right, led by former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, to the dovish Democrats. They are united in opposition to Netanyahu’s style of government and his judicial reforms, but they have not yet found a convincing narrative of what they stand for.

Whereas Netanyahu unites his bloc, the opposition is divided between several strong personalities. The leaders that make up this so-called “change bloc” – Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Yair Golan – all think they should be Israel’s next prime minister.

But unlike the last election in 2022, where these parties fought as divided incumbents after a short period in office, they have begun coordinating well in advance of the elections.

The election will be held in the wake of the still palpable trauma after October 7 and exhaustion from two years of war fought on many fronts. Despite this, Israel’s civil society remains healthy.

This has been best exemplified by the Hostages and Missing Family Forum, a body that has not only campaigned publicly for the hostages return but also provided vital services to the families and released hostages. The big question will be the effect of such movements on the way Israelis vote.

Much, of course, will also depend on how Trump’s peace plan develops on the ground. If the US and its allies can deploy an international stabilisation force and create a semblance of a governing authority in Gaza to take over from Hamas, then calm may be maintained. This could boost Netanyahu’s reelection chances if he can spin it as a win for Israel.

Looming over the plan is the decommissioning of Hamas – not just guns and rockets but also dismantling its network of tunnels beneath Gaza. This process is unlikely to be smooth. It is possible that Trump’s plan will still allow Netanyahu some more opportunities to demonstrate military prowess ahead of the election. This might help mobilise support for his coalition, particularly among the far right.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Israeli prime minister has compared himself to Winston Churchill, Britain’s leader during the second world war. Churchill did indeed win the war, but went on to lose elections in 1945. Netanyahu will be working hard to prove that part of the comparison wrong.

John Strawson 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 Netanyahu survive peace? – https://theconversation.com/can-netanyahu-survive-peace-267383

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven David Pickering, Honorary Professor, International Relations, Brunel University of London

Public service broadcasters are supposed to be the most trusted news outlets in democratic societies. Funded through models like licence fees and free from advertising, they are meant to stand apart from commercial media.

But our new study of trust in the BBC in the UK and NHK in Japan shows that reality is more complicated. Politics and ideology divide trust in public broadcasters in very different ways.

Like the BBC, NHK is a nationwide broadcaster with a mandate to serve the public interest and a fee-based funding model – making it a useful comparison. But there are differences: NHK’s budget is approved every year by parliament, and its style is often seen as cautious or technocratic. Unlike the BBC, it has not become a lightning rod for partisan battles.

In the UK, the BBC commands middling levels of trust overall, but those levels are deeply polarised. And the results of a recent survey reveal that the public is worried about political interference in the BBC.

As part of our TrustTracker research, we asked people how much they trust the BBC on a scale from one (“not at all”) to seven (“completely”). We ran this survey every month for 19 months, from December 2022 to June 2024. We also asked them how they voted at the 2019 general election.

On that 1-7 scale, average trust in the BBC was 3.6. As far as political affiliation, the people most trusting of the BBC were Lib Dem voters, giving an average of 4.5 on the 1-7 scale. Next up were Labour voters, coming in around 3.9. Conservative voters were nearer 3.2, while people who voted for the Brexit party, the predecessor of Reform, averaged just 2.2.

This is a divide that we don’t really see in Japan: there is much less polarisation around NHK than there is for the BBC.

In Japan, trust in NHK clusters in the mid-3s across the major parties. Supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP, centre-right) tend to rate NHK a little lower than average, while backers of the Constitutional Democratic party (CDP, centre-left) rate it slightly higher. Supporters of the Japan Innovation party (JIP, right-leaning) and the Japanese Communist party (JCP, left) fall in between, but the differences are modest.

In Japan, NHK isn’t the partisan lightning rod that the BBC has become. Trust levels are modest and remarkably uniform, suggesting that while it may be seen as dull or technocratic, it is not a site of political polarisation.

Partisan battleground

The UK’s partisan divide around media becomes even more apparent when we look beyond the Beeb. Many people have little trust in the news they read on social media. But people who voted for the Brexit party in 2019 trust the BBC even less than social media.

That tells us something important. The BBC has become the focal point for wider partisan scepticism about the media. In our study, Conservative voters show lower trust than Labour or Lib Dem voters, but it is Brexit party supporters who are the most hostile, rating the BBC even less trustworthy than social media news.

This division has been baked in for years. When we look back to the 2016 referendum, Leave voters average about 3.0 on our BBC trust scale, compared with 4.1 among Remain voters. That gap highlights how Brexit now functions as a shorthand for a wider political divide in the UK, one that still shapes how people view certain issues, including the BBC.

The BBC has become a political lightning rod: rejected by anti-establishment voters on the right, and strongly embraced by liberal-centrist voters.

Why the difference?

The contrast is not just about governance models or funding arrangements. The BBC’s licence fee and NHK’s parliamentary budget oversight play a role, but the bigger story is political culture.

In the UK, criticism of the BBC has become part of political identity on the right. Conservative politicians and sections of the press have long accused it of bias, not only in its coverage of Europe, immigration and culture, but also in its metropolitan outlook.

These debates escalated after Brexit, when the BBC came under fire from both Conservative MPs and the Brexit Party, which cast the broadcaster as out of touch with “ordinary people”.

The BBC is not simply one broadcaster among many; it has become a symbol around which partisan distrust gathers.

In Japan, NHK attracts none of this polarisation. Across supporters of all mainstream parties, trust in NHK sits at a broadly similar, middling level. Small anti-NHK protest parties exist, but they remain fringe. Mainstream parties have not made hostility to NHK a defining issue.

As a result, NHK is seen less as a political symbol and more as a technocratic background institution: rarely inspiring enthusiasm, but also not a target of partisan attack or polarisation.

One of the BBC’s founding principles is that it needs to entertain. But this opens it to both loyalty and attack. Supporters value the passion it inspires, but this comes at the cost of deep political polarisation.

NHK, by contrast, avoids such extremes by being more technocratic. This also means it struggles to command the same public enthusiasm or cultural weight as the BBC. Whether broadcasters should aspire to one model or the other depends on whether stability or symbolism is more important in sustaining public trust.

At a time when misinformation spreads rapidly and public trust in institutions is under strain, public broadcasters are supposed to provide a shared ground of reliable information. Our findings suggest they still do, but in different ways.

Steven David Pickering received funding from the UK Research and Innovation’s Economic and Social Research Council (UKRI-ESRC, grant reference ES/W011913/1).

Yosuke Sunahara receives funding from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, grant reference JPJSJRP 20211704).

Martin Ejnar Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The BBC is a partisan battleground – why does Japan’s public broadcaster escape the same fate? – https://theconversation.com/the-bbc-is-a-partisan-battleground-why-does-japans-public-broadcaster-escape-the-same-fate-266315

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

As one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, the River Mersey in northern England is no stranger to pollution flowing into its waters.

“It’s gone through periods of extremely bad river water quality where the river was just raw sewage”, explains Patrick Byrne, a water scientist at Liverpool John Moores University. “During the heyday of manufacturing and the industrial revolution, you would’ve had a lot of toxic metals as well from different manufacturing processes.”

Despite a perception that the water quality is better than it used to be, Byrne’s research found that the river now has a new kind of pollution problem: the amount of forever chemicals entering the Mersey catchment area is among one of the highest in the world.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of human-made chemicals used in waterproofing, food packaging and many industrial processes. They’re known as forever chemicals because they persist and are hard to destroy. PFAS have been found in almost every environment on the planet. They accumulate in wildlife and humans and some have been linked to cancer.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we talk to Byrne about why rivers are the “canary in the coalmine” for wider contamination of a landscape, and how so much PFAS continues to end up in them.

Byrne recently published a study of the amount of PFAS making it into the Mersey that was able to pinpoint some of the biggest sources, including of types of PFAS that are now banned in the UK. To his surprise it wasn’t big factories churning out lots of effluent. Instead, the PFAS were mostly coming from old, buried landfills, airports and recycling facilities.

Listen to the conversation with Patrick Byrne on The Conversation Weekly podcast to find out why monitoring PFAS in this way can help environmental regulators prioritise the areas needed to clean up first.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood, Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing and sound design by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from Sunrise, France24 English and ABC New Australia.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Patrick Byrne receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.

– ref. The hidden sources of forever chemicals leaking into rivers – and what to do about them – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-sources-of-forever-chemicals-leaking-into-rivers-and-what-to-do-about-them-267465

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Francesco Grillo, Academic Fellow, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University

Nearly three decades after the first UN climate conference, emissions are still rising. The global system for tackling climate change is broken – it’s slow, cumbersome and undemocratic.

Even Donald Trump may not be totally wrong when he blames the UN for producing “empty words and then never [following] those words up”. If we assess the progress since the first UN Cop climate summit in 1995, the numbers on emissions confirm that not very much did, indeed, follow years of words.

We urgently need not just to redesign climate policies but also a new method for drafting those polices. Climate change could even be the right issue in which to experiment with an approach that might inspire a wider reform of multinational institutions.

A conference I have helped organise beginning October 16 in Venice on the global governance of climate change will discuss three ideas.

First, we need to gradually redesign the decision-making process to solve a deficit of both efficiency and democracy. Decisions today are slow and weak because they de facto seek unanimity.

The Paris agreement, for instance, only required 55 countries producing at least 55% of global emissions to enter into force. And yet diplomats worked so that it could be agreed by all 195 UN member states – including those that later dropped out – by adopting words that tend to be “empty” to avoid displeasing anybody.

At the same time, the process does not even include all the parties that really matter: technically, the microstate of San Marino is one of the signatories of the agreements; the megacity of Los Angeles is not. Current mechanisms also miss the opportunity to experiment with direct representation of groups for whom climate change matters more, such as young people, indigenous people or farmers.

One idea would be to leverage the relative concentration of the world economy. China, the US and India represent almost half of the world population (and much of the population living below the global poverty line), more than half of the GDP and emissions; and most of the private investment in artificial intelligence that may enable some of the most interesting solutions.

Reforms that go beyond current blanket consensus are necessary. For instance, some experts have proposed a qualified majority voting system, in which changes might require a supermajority of countries or perhaps a majority of both developed and developing countries.

But we must be even more ambitious than this: voting rights should instead reflect size.

This would create incentives for states to move towards pooling their votes into regional representations. Trade-based regional agreements, like South American Mercosur, the African Continental Free Trade area or the Association of South East Asian Nations could evolve into climate-related alliances.

This would be a gigantic opportunity for leadership by the EU, which has accumulated more hard-earned experience than any other multilateral organisation in how to pool national wills. It could set an example by merging its 27 seats into one, showing how its carbon border adjustments and other collective instruments can translate ambition into action.

Drastically reducing the number of parties could allow for the introduction of a high qualified majority (75% of the parties) to avoid a situation like the UN’s security council where vetoes of just five parties is enough for paralysis.

This would also open space for a more direct representation of vital interests. The existing alliance of climate-vulnerable small island states could get a vote that outweighs their modest populations and GDPs. The C40 group of major cities could get an institutionalised role.

Young citizens assemblies have long been experimented with and it is time to give them a formal vote. This would also force, in turn, their internal decision-making processes to be more transparent. Such a reform would be limited to the UN climate change conferences and if successful be scaled up to other UN decision-making process.

Simplify climate finance

Second, it is necessary to streamline the chaotic array of climate-related financial instruments. Colleagues and I recently counted about 30 facilities bridging developing and developed countries and meant to finance climate projects, with much overlap and confusion.

One possibility would be to merge many small funds into three to five bigger instruments. Only Germany and UK, for instance, fund ten of such facilities (and four of them are a joint effort). Each of the instruments resulting from the consolidation would be dedicated to a big-picture goal that every citizen, investor and asset manager can immediately understand.

There could be one fund for adaptation (including the problematic “loss and damage”); one for mitigation (and energy transition); one for financing research and development, and technology sharing; and one for encouraging, assessing and scaling up experiments.

Reinvent the Cop format

Third, we absolutely need to change the format of Cop itself. The cost of flying and accommodating 100,000 delegates at Cop28 in Dubai was probably higher than the total amount promised at that same Cop to compensate poorer countries for climate-related losses. This results-to-cost ratio is one reason why the climate agenda has lost some popular support.

One possibility is to transform Cop from a gigantic exhibition that changes location every year, into five permanent forums (one for each main continent) focused on generating and managing knowledge on five problems that we need to solve.

They are: climate adaptation; climate mitigation; governance of places that are beyond national boundaries (oceans, Arctic, Antarctic); AI and climate; geoengineering (a last resort technology in need of strong global control).

Distributing Cops around the world would focus the debate, make participation easier, cut costs and emissions, and could sustain a year-round dialogue rather than a single big moment.

Governance of the climate is not working. Yet the climate may be the best problem against which to apply a radically new method of global governance. It may become a blueprint for the much wider question of how we reinvent institutions that were conceived for a different, much more stable era.

And if we can fix how the world decides on climate, we might learn to fix how it decides on everything else, too.

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Francesco Grillo is affiliated with Vision, the think tank.

– ref. Why climate summits fail – and three ways to save them – https://theconversation.com/why-climate-summits-fail-and-three-ways-to-save-them-267470

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Gordon, Professor of Exercise Physiology, Anglia Ruskin University

Instead of wasting hours squatting weights in the gym or pounding miles of pavement in your running shoes, you could instead get all the benefits of a workout just by moving a little bit more like other animals.

“Quadrobics” is the internet’s latest fitness trend. This unconventional training method involves using all four of your limbs during a workout. Proponents claim it’s a highly beneficial form of exercise because of the large number of muscle groups that it uses. By running on all fours, muscles in the shoulders, upper and lower arms, as well as the legs, back and core are used.

Sounds good in theory but is it any more effective than your normal workout?

Although there’s limited research on quadrobics, research does show that the greater the amount of muscle used in a workout, the more benefits your cardiovascular fitness and health will see.

For instance, research which has compared cycling and running has shown that running leads to greater cardiorespiratory fitness gains than cycling does. This is probably due to the different amounts of muscles each activity uses.

Cycling focuses mainly on the legs and lower body, while running is more of a whole-body exercise. Since running places demand on a greater number of muscles, this may explain why it leads to greater fitness gains.

Quadrobics, which apparently uses almost all of the major muscle groups, should therefore lead to greater gains than either running or cycling.

However, when one study compared quadrobics to a standard walking programme, quadrobics oddly did not seem to use more energy – despite spiking heart rate to a greater degree. This finding probably comes down to the fact that both activities use the same muscle groups, but just to varying degrees.

But while quadrobics does not necessarily appear to be better than walking, it may have other fitness benefits.

During a quadrobics workout, you might end up using different muscles than you would during a more conventional type of workout. For instance, compared to running, quadrobics would place a greater emphasis on the shoulder muscles, but would require less work from the calves.

This suggests that quadrobics may have potential benefits for flexibility and balance. One study looked at the effect of an eight-week quadrobics training plan in young people.

It found that compared to the control group (who did two 60-minute sessions of typical physical activity), the quadrobics group saw greater improvements in shoulder flexibility and balance.

Meanwhile, although quadrobics does work many of the body’s muscles, there is currently no evidence to suggest it’s more beneficial than weight training in improving strength.

But something that cannot be discounted is the novelty of this exercise. One of the appeals of quadrobics is the playfulness of the exercise. This could have positive effects on mood and help relieve stress.

A number of groups describe quadrobics as “animal flow training” as it encourages us to adopt animal poses and attitudes. Since many find going to the gym can become uninspiring and boring over time, quadrobics could offer a solution to this.

If you’re looking to give quadrobics a try, two popular exercises are trotting and cantering.

In a trot lift your right hand and left leg at the same time, then your left hand and right leg. You will create a diagonal type of movement. While in a canter drive from the legs together and then land on your hands. This exercise can be done continuously or as repeated bouts of high intensity efforts, interspersed with periods of recovery.

For those new to the practice, it’s best to start slow when walking on all fours before advancing to these exercises. This is because there may be a risk of injury with these types of movement as they place much of the impact force on the elbows and wrists.

The potential risk of fracture or sprain is even higher in older adults, who experience more fragile bones and joint immobility, and those taking certain prescription drugs – such as corticosteroids.

The fitness benefits of walking like an animal might not be any greater than those seen with more conventional exercises, but the novelty of quadrobics may provide an entrance point to health and fitness – especially for those who may find conventional workouts boring.

Dan Gordon 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. Quadrobics: is the trend for walking on all fours like an animal good for your fitness? – https://theconversation.com/quadrobics-is-the-trend-for-walking-on-all-fours-like-an-animal-good-for-your-fitness-266524

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Frances Fowle, Personal Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, History of Art, University of Edinburgh

The Van Gogh Museum’s new exhibition, Van Gogh and the Roulins – Together Again at Last, celebrates an important family reunion. It brings together 14 portraits of the wife and three children of the postman Joseph Roulin – Vincent van Gogh’s closest friend and supporter while he was based in the southern French town of Arles.

The exhibition is a work of art in itself: tightly focused, beautifully designed and accompanied by an excellent catalogue. Additional works and props (such as Roulin’s chair) contextualise the show, but it is the portraits of the Roulins – Joseph, Augustine, 17-year-old Armand, 11-year-old Camille and baby Marcelle – that take centre stage.

Hung in three rooms on contrasting deep blue and orange walls they demonstrate the new direction that Van Gogh’s work was taking during a crucial period of his artistic development.

As a group they represent, on one level, the artist’s personal longing for the stability of a wife and family and, on another, his radical rethinking of portraiture as a genre. They were painted at a time when, in correspondence with his two friends, Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard, he was struggling with the idea of art as “abstraction”. That is, as a fusion of the real and the imaginary.

Van Gogh wanted to paint ordinary people as he “felt” them and to raise them to the level of the universal. He was interested in creating symbolic “types”, of portraiture such as “the poet” or “the soldier”, and also sought to evoke the character and soul of the sitter.

As the exhibition cleverly demonstrates – through the careful placement of comparative works and “glimpses” via various sight-lines – he was inspired by artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals and even Honoré Daumier, all of whom devoted themselves to what Van Gogh termed “the painting of humanity”.

In July and August 1888 Van Gogh painted two expressive and colourful portraits of the bearded Roulin, whom he viewed as the modern equivalent of Frans Hals’s painting, The Merry Drinker (1628-1630). The first portrait shows this jolly barfly in his smart blue cap and uniform leaning awkwardly on a table in the Café de la Gare.

It recalls the artist’s description of the postman in a letter to Bernard as “something of an alcoholic, and with a high colour as a result”. He was also a “raging republican” and the two spent long hours conversing about politics.

In October Van Gogh moved to the “little yellow house” in Arles, where he rented two rooms and a studio for only 21 francs 50 centimes a month. A reconstruction of the house is installed on the first floor of the exhibition, which is devoted entirely to wider interpretation and family activities.

It was close to the station, where Roulin often worked, and also had a pleasant aspect, opposite the leafy Place Lamartine. Gauguin soon joined him there and for the next two months they enjoyed a fruitful relationship.

In November 1888, Van Gogh decided to paint all five members of the Roulin family, including baby Marcelle in her mother’s arms. Gauguin, too, produced his own somewhat austere portrait of Augustine, and it is interesting to compare his more abstracted approach with Van Gogh’s more personal interpretation.

Rather than pay the family to sit for him on numerous occasions, Van Gogh then embarked on several “repetitions” or variations of his own paintings. The exhibition devotes a whole section to these repeated portraits of the family, inviting the visitor to compare the first version with its copy. Although dating them is a challenge, the repetitions appear more systematic, producing a calmer, more contemplative image, in emulation of Rembrandt.

Particularly curious are two portraits of Marcelle who, with her intense blue eyes and chubby features, takes on an almost grotesque appearance. She is dressed in a white christening robe, with a gold bracelet and pinkie ring, which were common christening gifts.

At the end of December 1888, Van Gogh’s mental state deteriorated dramatically, culminating in him severing most of his left ear with a razor. He was admitted to hospital in Arles, where both Joseph and Augustine paid him regular visits. As a selection of touching letters in the exhibition testify, Roulin also kept in touch with Vincent’s brother Theo.

Once back at the yellow house, Van Gogh continued to work almost obsessively on his repetitions, producing five extraordinary portraits of Madame Roulin, portraying her as the universal symbol of the comforting mother.

Dressed in green, she is seated in a red chair and set against a background of swirling daisies. She holds the rope of a baby’s cradle, evoking the idea of the comforter. Van Gogh even imagined the perfect location for the portrait as the cabin of a ship, where it would rock with the waves, reminding the sailors of their own mother.

This is a wonderful, absorbing exhibition, but with a salutary message. For, before he left Arles, Van Gogh gave the five original Roulin portraits to the postman as a token of their friendship. In 1900, in desperate need of money, Joseph sold all five, together with three other paintings, to the art dealer Ambroise Vollard for a pittance. If only he could have held on to them – today the portraits are recognised as among Van Gogh’s greatest achievements.

Van Gogh and the Roulins – Together Again at Last is at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam until January 11 2026.

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Frances Fowle 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. Van Gogh and the Roulins: a family reunion of the artist’s greatest portraits – https://theconversation.com/van-gogh-and-the-roulins-a-family-reunion-of-the-artists-greatest-portraits-267349

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ligin Joseph, PhD Candidate, Oceanography, University of Southampton

Across India, torrential rains over the past few months have swallowed an entire village in the Himalayas, flooded Punjab’s farmlands and brought Kolkata to a standstill. This all happened in a monsoon season in which total rainfall was technically only 8% above normal.

Climate change is not simply making India’s monsoon wetter. It’s making it wilder – with longer dry spells and more extreme downpours.

The Indian summer monsoon, which delivers about 80% of the country’s annual rainfall, usually sweeps in from the Arabian Sea in early June and retreats at the end of September. Growing up in India, I remember the joy of watching the rains arrive each year, the scent of wet earth and the relief they brought after a scorching April and May. Those memories still live in me. But today, the same monsoon that once filled our rivers and hearts with hope now brings fear and uncertainty.

This year, the monsoon arrived a week early, the fastest onset in 16 years. However, an early start does not necessarily translate to higher rainfall totals for the season. The modest 8% above average hides the real story: many regions experienced unusually intense and frequent downpours.

In the Himalayan village of Dharali, for instance, a cloudburst in early August triggered flash floods that left the local market buried under sediment as high as a four-storey building. Most parts of the village were completely washed away. Scientists suspect melting glaciers and cloudbursts – both linked to a warmer climate – were to blame.

In Punjab, a state of 30 million people often called India’s “food bowl”, heavy rains drowned crops across an area roughly the size of Greater Manchester. All 23 districts of the state were affected.

Scientists say the deluge was driven by an unusual interaction between regular monsoon weather systems and “western disturbances” – storm systems that originate in the Mediterranean and typically influence India’s weather in the winter. Their overlap this year amplified rainfall across northern India.

On the other side of the country, the huge city of Kolkata was not spared either. Some areas received 332mm of rain in just a few hours, more than half of what London gets in a whole year. The rains fell just before the major Hindu festival of Durga Puja, paralysing the city. The culprit was another low-pressure system that formed over the Bay of Bengal and carried vast amounts of moisture inland.

While the south escaped the worst flooding, cities such as Mumbai and Vijayawada also saw intense cloudbursts, demonstrating the spread of extreme rainfall.

Why the monsoon is becoming more extreme

Each disaster was driven by the same underlying trend: a warmer atmosphere that can hold more moisture. For every degree of warming, the air can store about 7% more water vapour – and when that moisture is released, it falls in heavier downpours over shorter periods. This trend is now clearly visible in India’s monsoon data.

The number of extreme rainfall days, when daily totals exceed the top 10% of the long-term average, has risen sharply across southern and western India since the 1950s. Some regions, meanwhile, are receiving less overall rain but in stronger and more erratic bursts, meaning both droughts and floods can be a threat in the same season.

Scientists have also noticed shifts in the monsoon’s circulation and in the low-pressure systems that drive it. Climate change is pushing the whole monsoon system westward, increasing rainfall over typically arid northwestern India, while decreasing rainfall over the traditionally wetter northeast.

All this extreme rainfall is turning the monsoon from a friend into a foe. Unless we act responsibly to limit greenhouse gas emissions and become more resilient to the consequences of a changing climate, the season that sustains life across India may increasingly threaten it.

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Ligin Joseph receives funding from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc).

– ref. India’s monsoon is becoming more extreme – even though overall rainfall has hardly increased – https://theconversation.com/indias-monsoon-is-becoming-more-extreme-even-though-overall-rainfall-has-hardly-increased-267159

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marc Collinson, Lecturer in Political History, Bangor University

When voters in Caerphilly in south Wales go to the polls later this month, it will be about far more than one seat in the Senedd, Wales’s devolved parliament.

Caerphilly, a postindustrial town just north of Cardiff, has long been considered safe Labour territory. But in recent years, economic upheaval and social change have made once rock-solid seats like these far less predictable.

The contest is therefore not just about who wins a single seat, but what kind of Wales will emerge from a period of upheaval. Will it be one clinging to the certainties of its industrial past? Or one looking toward Plaid Cymru and the prospect of Welsh independence as the political voice for such unease? Or, alternatively, will it turn to the populist right?

What happens here could indicate whether Labour’s hold on the Welsh valleys is starting to loosen, and whether new political forces are taking root. It’s a local contest with national stakes.

Labour remains Wales’s dominant political force, but the past 18 months have been turbulent. Mark Drakeford’s retirement as first minister was followed by Vaughan Gething’s brief and troubled leadership.

Meanwhile, the current first minister Eluned Morgan faces her own challenges. Fourteen members of the Labour group will step down before the 2026 Senedd election.

The Caerphilly byelection, triggered by the death of sitting Labour member Hefin David, comes at a difficult time for Labour across both the UK and in Wales.

Labour’s UK leadership remains focused on Westminster, while in Wales, divisions over candidate selection and policy have occasionally exposed cracks in the party’s valleys strongholds. History offers warnings.

For example, in 2005, Labour suffered a shock defeat in nearby Blaenau Gwent when former Labour member Peter Law stood as an independent after rebelling against the party’s candidate selection. His victory – and the byelection wins that followed his death – showed how local discontent can upend even the safest seats.

Whatever happens in Caerphilly, the real test for Labour will be what follows, as the result may affect its majority to govern and pass a budget. It could remain in office as the largest party, but without power.

The rise of Reform

Among the most striking developments in Welsh politics is the growing profile of Reform UK, now rebranding its Welsh operation as “Reform UK Wales”.

Analyses point to similarities with the Brexit Party and UKIP. Like these parties before, Reform taps into the undercurrent of discontent that runs through many post-industrial communities.

While some research suggests Reform may be perceived as even more racially divisive than its predecessors.

In Caerphilly, Reform has an active local campaign and a simple message: bring back money and decision-making to local communities. The party is positioning itself against both the Welsh government’s record in the Senedd while channelling resentment toward Westminster.

For some voters, Reform’s appeal is less about specific policies than about mood – frustration with established politics and a desire for something new.

Under changes due next year, the Senedd will grow in size and adopt a more proportional voting system. That could make it easier for smaller parties like Reform to win representation, giving this byelection added importance as a test of their strength.

A strong showing could signal a profound realignment in the political geography of Wales, and a measure of how far populist politics has embedded itself in areas once considered the bedrock of Labour Wales.

Stepping stone to a Plaid government?

Plaid Cymru, meanwhile, is keen to show it can turn rising national support into real gains.

The party has come close to winning Caerphilly before. In 1968, its candidate Phil Williams cut Labour’s majority from more than 20,000 to fewer than 2,000 votes.

More recently, former Plaid leader Leanne Wood’s surprise victory in nearby Rhondda in 2016 showed Plaid could break through in Labour heartlands. But her loss five years later underlined how hard it is to sustain momentum.

Polling suggests Plaid could form a government in 2026 if current trends continue, but that depends on building a consistent base in areas like Caerphilly. A victory here would not just be symbolic; it would demonstrate that Plaid’s message resonates beyond its rural and Welsh-speaking heartlands.

The upcoming electoral reforms could further boost Plaid’s chances, if it can show voters that it offers a credible alternative to Labour.

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Read more:
Is backing Welsh independence the same as being a nationalist? Not necessarily

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For other parties, expectations are modest. The Conservatives are struggling to make headway in Wales, while the Liberal Democrats remain on the margins. But the Caerphilly byelection will still send a message far beyond this one constituency.

Whatever the result, Caerphilly will offer a snapshot of a nation in transition. A comfortable Labour win would suggest its dominance in the valleys remains intact. A strong showing for Plaid or Reform, however, would point to deeper realignments. It’s evidence that Wales’s political future may look very different from its past.

Marc Collinson received funding from the Y Werin Legacy Fund.

Robin Mann receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. What the Caerphilly byelection could reveal about Reform, Labour and Wales’ political future – https://theconversation.com/what-the-caerphilly-byelection-could-reveal-about-reform-labour-and-wales-political-future-266545

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Sors, Senior Lecturer, York St John University

The UK government’s strategy for early years education in England aims to get children in reception “school-ready”. But what school readiness means is debatable.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has pointed out that half of reception-aged children “can’t sit still”. And recent writing guidance outlines handwriting and spelling lessons for reception-aged children.

As experts in primary education, we take the view that children aged four and five should not be sitting still at tables. Expecting children to sit still and formally learn how to write at this early age conflicts with widely accepted theories around cognitive and physical development.

Research by theorists in child development emphasises the importance of active play and exploration. Children can develop their interests through free choice activities that support their language, communication and thought.

Researchers argue that young children should be encouraged to understand their world in a range of indoor and outdoor settings that can be explored through the power of play.

Not all children can or should sit still. Children need physical play to develop their strength, coordination, and motor skills before being given a pencil to write. They need role play to learn how to communicate, question, and hold conversations before following instructions.

They should be encouraged to move and explore through free play instead of sitting still. At an early age, children’s enjoyment of learning should be the priority. For every child this will be different, and practice should respond to children’s preferences and interests.

The government’s Plan for Change sets milestones for strategic national developments. In its mission to “break down barriers to opportunity”, the plan aims for 75% of children to achieve a “good level of development” (GLD) by 2028.

This means that children must meet 12 of the 17 prescribed early learning goals. These measure a level of development across areas like language, personal, social and emotional development, mathematics and literacy when children reach the end of their reception year at school, at age five.

But what does this value? Three of the early learning goals focus on literacy. Children cannot meet the “good level of development” if they have not met the early learning goal for writing.

As well as this, a child may excel in many of the learning goals, but still not meet the criteria. There are other considerations, such as a potential age difference of up to 11 months among children finishing reception.

This creates an uneven playing field, with some children needing more time to develop language and communication, physical, personal, social and emotional skills before a formal move into literacy and mathematics.

The government recommends that reception teachers should plan regular explicit handwriting and spelling lessons that directly target children who may choose not to write in their play. This directive approach might not suit every child and takes away their choice over opportunities to play.

Learning through play

In Finland, children start primary school at age seven. The Finnish educational model sees learning through play as “essential”.

New Zealand’s Te Whāriki is specifically a “play-based” curriculum. It understands that each child learns at their own pace. It explains the power of storytelling and play to build foundations in reading, writing, and maths.

Within the UK, Wales and Scotland focus on play as essential to improving outcomes. Play pedagogy in the Scottish curriculum emphasises responding to the unique needs of each child. Wales views “playwork” as vital for children’s health, wellbeing and overall development.

England’s Early Years Foundation Stage Framework sets the standards that school and childcare providers in England must meet for the learning, development and care of children from birth to five.

In this document the importance of play and following children’s interests is also highlighted. But this is overshadowed by government messaging and guidance on the importance of formalised academic skills such as phonics and writing.

Our research highlights the importance of connections between child development, culture, and responding to children and their environments.

Playful creativity, problem-solving, and experimentation help build strong foundations for learning. Valuing children’s experiences instead of focusing on prescribed milestones helps them learn to connect with the world around them as well as develop academically.

The English Early Years curriculum needs to return to basics. This keeps foundational learning through play at its heart, including all children and responding to their stage of development.

When we play, listen, read and talk with children, we give them a great start in life. This begins with looking at them as individuals. Learning in the early years should foster a love of learning, promote positive relationships and help children to understand the world.

Nurture, care, play and exploration should be prioritised to develop confident, resilient, and adaptable learners who can navigate a fast-changing world.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Four-year-olds don’t need to sit still to be ‘school ready’ – https://theconversation.com/four-year-olds-dont-need-to-sit-still-to-be-school-ready-261812