Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since the author’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading researchers. Along the way, we visit locations important to Austen to uncover a particular aspect of her life and the times she lived in. In episode 6, we explore whether Jane was happy, using her last published novel, Persuasion, as our guide.

Given that happy endings in Jane Austen’s novels chiefly revolve around a love match with the desired hero, some might conclude that as Austen remained a lifelong spinster, happiness must have eluded her. But this groundbreaking writer was a woman who filled her life with meaning through interests, friendships, socialising, travel, and most of all, a purpose.

Of course Austen had her fair share of worries. This was especially true after her father died, and she, her mother and her sister Cassandra found themselves in much reduced circumstances in less salubrious lodgings in Bath and then Southampton. A life of genteel poverty was leavened by her close relationships with the women in her life, including her good friends Martha Lloyd and Anne Sharp, a fellow writer with whom Austen could discuss the business of writing.

Much like her lovelorn heroine Anne Elliot, Austen had little affection for Bath. She missed the verdant Hampshire countryside of her youth and found the city oppressive, despite its lively social whirl. After eight years she returned to her beloved county when her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a house on his estate at Chawton.

Here the women settled into a more comfortable life, allowing Austen the space and peace to write. It was at Chawton in 1815 that she wrote her final novel, Persuasion – the story of happiness lost and regained. The world-weary Anne Elliot, whose bloom has withered and is considered past her prime at 27, is still pining for Frederick Wentworth, the man she was persuaded to give up years before, when he re-enters her life as a dashing naval captain.

In the sixth episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail, Jane Wright is joined by Nada Saadaoui of the University of Cumbria, whose research examines Austen’s depiction of walking in Romantic-era English landscapes, to answer the question: was Jane happy?

Austen’s abiding love of walking is reflected in the character of Anne, who finds restoration and renewal in the act. Taking in the sea air at the Cobb in Lyme Regis, the two explore what this coastal Dorset town meant to Austen, and how it inspired the pivotal scene in Persuasion where Anne and Wentworth reignite the spark of their connection.

“In walking and being out of doors, these characters open themselves up to transformation,” says Saadaoui, “and we see, especially for Anne, that this walk along the Cobb becomes a walk back to herself – to her strength, her voice, her true self, and her happiness.”

Later on, Anna Walker sits down with two more Austen experts – John Mullan, professor of literature at University College London, and Freya Johnston, professor of English at the University of Oxford – to comb through what clues Persuasion offers about Austen’s own happiness.

Johnston has studied Austen’s remaining letters closely. “Quite often [she] sounds angry. She also sounds quite bitter … but there is also happiness in the letters. Certainly a degree of pride in her achievements as an author and just an enjoyment of writing.”

Mullan believes Austen also derived happiness from her family: “I think if you could beam yourself down to an Austen family gathering, [you’d find that] they were a really rather terrific family. I think that they were open-minded, intelligent, humorous, optimistic people … they valued Jane’s talents and her intelligence and enjoyed hearing her read bits of her writing to them. And I think that that one can’t overestimate how important that must have been to her.”

Listen to episode 6 of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re craving more Austen, check out our Jane Austen 250 page for more expert articles celebrating the anniversary.

You can also sign up to receive a free Jane Austen 250 ebook from The Conversation, bringing together a collection of our articles celebrating her life and works.

This is the last episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail – however we will be running a special Q&A episode in January where you can put your questions to our panel of experts. Please send your questions to podcast@theconversation.com

Disclosure statement

Nada Saadaoui, John Mullan and Freya Johnston do 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.

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is hosted by Anna Walker with reporting from Jane Wright and Naomi Joseph. Senior producer and sound designer is Eloise Stevens and the executive producer is Gemma Ware. Artwork by Alice Mason and Naomi Joseph.

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.

– ref. Jane Austen’s happiness was complicated – her last heroine in Persuasion knew why – https://theconversation.com/jane-austens-happiness-was-complicated-her-last-heroine-in-persuasion-knew-why-270591

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Allison Wolfreys, Lecturer in Law, The Open University

The government is proposing a change in the law on parental child abduction. The crime and policing bill, under consideration in parliament, would make it a crime for a parent to take their child on holiday and then not return them at the end of the agreed holiday period. This would be punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.

The government is attempting to remedy what could be seen as a gap in the law. But this approach fails to take into account what we know about the situations in which this kind of parental child abduction occurs. In many cases, it involves a mother fleeing domestic abuse with her children.

Parental child abduction happens when a child is taken to another country without the other parent’s knowledge or consent, or when one parent takes the children abroad for a holiday and keeps them overseas beyond the agreed holiday period. Currently, the recourse for parents left behind is contained in the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction.

This was created with the objective of minimising harm to children. It enables the left-behind parent to apply to the court in the country the children were taken to for their prompt return. The Convention remains the primary legal instrument of response, with 103 signatory member states.

The crime and policing bill currently before Parliament will leave the 1980 Convention untouched but bolster criminal sanctions against parents who take children by amending the Child Abduction Act 1984, which applies to England and Wales.

The 1984 Act made it an offence for a parent to take or send a child out of the jurisdiction without the other parent’s consent. The parent who took the children is sanctioned only if police pursue a complaint made by the left-behind parent, which is then subject to a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute.

Now, the government seeks to strengthen criminal sanctions against parents who fail to return children. But the proposed seven years’ imprisonment does not align with what research and practice tells us about parental child abduction in 2025.

Profile of the abductor

There was little hard statistical data available on parental child abduction when the Hague Convention was created. However, the abduction of children was primarily seen as something done by fathers who were not the primary carer of their children.

The picture is now very different. Research conducted in 2015 found that 73% of taking parents were mothers, an increase from earlier years, and of these 91% are primary carers. My research and that of other scholars has found that domestic abuse features heavily in these cases. Essentially, these mothers are taking their children and attempting to escape an abusive situation. Research suggests that domestic abuse may be present in approximately 70% of child abduction cases.

If this amendment proceeds, then mothers who have fled overseas with their children to escape an abusive relationship may refuse to return for fear of prosecution. But through the mechanism set up under the Hague Convention, the children can still be ordered to go back. This proposed change in law takes no account of the impact on children of criminalising the parent who will most often be their primary carer. The potential criminalisation of primary carers will inevitably compound the trauma for children at the centre of these cases.

The reasons for parental child abduction are multifaceted and complex. The forum for resolving family law disputes is the family court, and punitive criminal sanctions are likely to cause harm to children. Furthermore, the potential criminalisation of mothers in the context of domestic abuse flies in the face of current government policy to support victims of abuse. It also fails to prioritise the individual needs of children caught up in parental conflict.

It is disappointing to note that the House of Commons has to date given scant attention to this proposed change to the law. It was not debated at report stage (when MPs have an opportunity to consider amendments to a bill).

Currently there are several members of the House of Lords with expertise in family law. Now that the bill has reached committee stage – a detailed examination of each line – in the House of Lords, I hope that they will draw attention to this issue and persuade others that the change in law should be abandoned. These complex cases should be left to the family court where they properly belong.

Allison Wolfreys 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. Parental child abduction: why extending criminalisation is not the answer – https://theconversation.com/parental-child-abduction-why-extending-criminalisation-is-not-the-answer-271019

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

The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives, hundreds are still missing, and damages ran into multiple millions of US dollars. Sri Lanka’s president even described it as the most challenging natural disaster the island has ever seen.

When disasters like this happen, the blame often falls on a failure in early warnings or poor preparedness. This was the case with major floods in Kerala, south India, in 2018, which devastated my hometown.

But this time, the forecasts were largely accurate; the authorities knew the storms were coming, yet the devastation was still immense.

So, if the forecasts were good enough, why were the impacts still so severe?

Weak winds, extreme rain

One emerging explanation is that these storms were not dangerous because of their winds, but because they produced unusually intense rainfall.

Consider Cyclone Ditwah. Its peak winds were around 75 km/h (47 mph). That’s windy, but nothing special. In the UK, it would be classified merely as a “gale” rather than a “storm”. It was far weaker than the 220 km/h winds of the powerful 1978 cyclone that also struck Sri Lanka. Yet Ditwah still caused massive devastation.

What explains this apparent contradiction? It’s too early to say definitively, but climate change is likely a part of the story. Even when storms are not especially strong in wind terms, the amount of rain they carry is increasing.

A warmer atmosphere holds more water

A well established meteorological rule helps explain why. For every degree of global warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.

As the planet warms, the air above us becomes a larger reservoir, waiting to dump more water on us. When storms form, they can tap into this expanded supply, often in extremely short bursts. Even if wind speeds are modest, the rainfall alone can be catastrophic.

The oceans matter even more

Warming oceans play an even more powerful role, as cyclones draw their energy from warm ocean waters. Satellite data from late November shows just how warm the eastern Indian Ocean was, with large areas more than 1°C above normal during Ditwah and Senyar.

Such warm anomalies are no longer unusual. The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and long-term observations show a clear upward trend in ocean temperatures.

That doesn’t necessarily mean cyclones are becoming more frequent – their formation still depends on other ingredients, such as low wind shear (small differences in wind speed and direction with height) and the right atmospheric structure.

What warmer oceans do change, however, is the amount of energy available to any storm that does manage to form. When the ocean is warmer, cyclones have more fuel and evaporation increases, loading the atmosphere with moisture that can fall as intense rain once a storm develops. Even weak cyclones can therefore hold exceptional amounts of rain.

The winds near the surface help this process along. As they move across the ocean, they sweep away the moisture-filled air just above the water and replace it with drier air, allowing evaporation to continue. Put together, warmer oceans, higher evaporation, and an atmosphere that can store more moisture, these factors can significantly intensify the rainfall associated with cyclones.

Coastline hugging makes flooding worse

Local geography amplified these effects. Both Ditwah and Senyar formed unusually close to land and travelled along the coastline for an extended period. This meant they stayed over warm waters long enough to continuously draw moisture, but remained close enough to land to dump that moisture as intense rainfall almost immediately.

Cyclone Ditwah, in particular, moved slowly as it approached Sri Lanka. Slow-moving storms can be especially dangerous as they repeatedly dump rain over the same area. Even if winds are weak, this combination of warm seas, coastal proximity and slow forward speed can be devastating.

A new threat

These storms suggest that climate change – especially ocean warming – is reshaping the risks posed by cyclones. The most dangerous storms may no longer simply be the ones with the strongest winds, but also the ones with the most moisture.

Forecasting systems, including new AI-powered weather models, are getting better at predicting cyclone tracks and wind speeds. Yet rainfall-driven flooding remains far harder to forecast. As oceans continue to warm, governments and disaster agencies will need to prepare for storms that may be weak in wind but extreme in rain.

These insights are based on preliminary analysis and emerging scientific understanding. More detailed peer-reviewed studies will be needed to pinpoint exactly why Ditwah and Senyar produced such extreme rainfall. But the pattern that is emerging – weak cyclones delivering outsized floods in a warming world – must not be ignored.

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

– ref. Warm oceans seem to be turning even ‘weak’ cyclones into deadly rainmakers – https://theconversation.com/warm-oceans-seem-to-be-turning-even-weak-cyclones-into-deadly-rainmakers-271550

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Power, Lecturer in Politics, University of Bristol

Nigel Farage has found himself in hot water over accusations that he failed to report that his 2024 election campaign in Clacton went over the spending limit of £20,660.72. Richard Everett, a former Reform councillor (who has since left the party – or been expelled, depending what you read), has submitted documents to the police.

Election spending in the UK is beyond complex. It is so hard to understand that it has been compared to a “Jane Austen-style intricate dance … all sorts of daring and dicey moves are permissible, provided you know precisely where to step and when, and how not to upset the crowds”.

Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to spending limits. There are, in fact, two spending limits for general elections (well, there’s actually more than two but let’s not go there). Each party has a certain amount to spend at the national level and each candidate has a spending limit for their constituency campaign. Candidate spending is money spent to promote their individual candidacy (or criticise a local opponent), party spending is more general material that promotes a party.

This is largely thanks to a historical quirk. Candidate spending has been limited since the Corrupt and Illegal Practices (Prevention) Act of 1883. And because national campaigning didn’t really exist back then, that was largely that. Things changed in 2000 when – alongside other reforms – limits were placed on national-level party spending, which by then was, by then, very much a thing.

Both spending limits vary, but the 20k limit for Clacton is a reasonable rule of thumb to extrapolate across other constituencies. Party spending limits, again as a rule of thumb, are £34.1 million (if a party stands across England, Scotland and Wales). So, quite a difference.

As you’d imagine, parties make all kinds of daring moves to get what looks an awful lot like candidate spending into their much larger national budgets. You might, for example, target national messages (so party spending) at target constituencies – and, as long as you don’t mention the candidate, that’s party spend.

You can still end up in hot water, though. Just ask the 30 or so Conservative MPs (and their staff) who were embroiled in an election expenses episode following the 2015 general election. In this instance the Tories drove a battle bus packed with activists drove around 33 target constituencies and reported most of their spending as party, rather than constituency, spending.

How bad is this for Farage?

With the police looking into the claim, there’s only so much one can say, but there are several reasons to think the Clacton spend is not going to be too much of a problem for team Farage. Firstly, there’s a very basic matter of the statute of limitations on cases of this kind. You only have a year to report suspected offences and we’re already more than a year out from the election.

While prosecutors can have that limit waived in certain circumstances, a further complication of electoral law is that candidate offences (for now) are managed by the police and party offences by the Electoral Commission. The police are very reluctant to get involved in party politics so it would be surprising if they actively pursued the case against Farage.

We also don’t know how much more than his £20k limit Farage is accused of spending. If it’s a small amount, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) may not feel it in the public interest to pursue a case.

The burden of proof is also incredibly high. I suspect that the offence the CPS will be investigating is the same as the Tory battle bus affair, so 82(6) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. This states that “if a candidate or election agent knowingly makes the declaration required by this section falsely, he shall be guilty of a corrupt practice”. So, the CPS does not just have to show the overspend, it has to show that the candidate knew they were overspending.

There’s also the complicating factor that this is Farage’s constituency, and he effectively is the Reform party. Given that he is the face of all Reform campaigning, we have to wonder, truly, in this instance where candidate spending begins and party spending ends. Or, put differently, considering how easy it would be in theory to disguise candidate spending at party spending in these particular (and peculiar) circumstances you’d. Election law is a complicated dance after all, but this is little more than a two-step.

These headlines come at a tricky moment for Farage as he has faced over a week of allegations that he made racist comments during his school days. That said, I doubt there’ll be any great panic in Reform HQ. For one, even Everett has suggested that Farage was “blissfully unaware” of the omissions. If charges are brought, it will likely not be against him and therefore easily blamed on his local agent or other administrators.

Also, as I suggested way back in 2016, accounting just isn’t very sexy. Again, the battle bus saga is instructive here as it was genuinely big news at the time. Some even thought it had the potential to become the new expenses scandal. But it didn’t. One person was convicted, while everyone else was acquitted and moved on.

Attacking electoral law is also fertile ground for Farage. He has already turned a defence over racism allegations into an attack on his opponents, there’s very little to suggest he won’t do the same here. He and his supporters generally relish the prospect of a skirmish with the establishment.

This would be, put lightly, a shame. Election law is hard to understand and mistakes happen, but that doesn’t mean those enforcing it are pen pushers looking for wrongdoing to punish. We may well live in the age of the politics of grievance and hot air, but just this once it would be nice to let the process play out.

Sam Power has received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. Nigel Farage accused of breaking election spending laws – the situation explained – https://theconversation.com/nigel-farage-accused-of-breaking-election-spending-laws-the-situation-explained-271546