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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ahmed Elbediwy, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry / Cancer Biology, Kingston University

Doctors have long relied on measurements like body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratios to assess health risks. However, researchers are increasingly focusing their attention on an unexpected indicator: neck circumference.

A thick neck might project strength, like that of heavyweight boxers or rugby players, but studies suggest it could signal a concerning health issue.

BMI, which divides weight by height to estimate body fat, doesn’t always tell the complete story. A competitive bodybuilder might have a high BMI, but clearly isn’t obese. This is where neck circumference offers additional insight.

Research shows that people with larger necks relative to their body size face increased risks of several serious health conditions. The connection lies in what neck size reveals about fat distribution, particularly in the upper body.

This fat around your upper body releases fatty acids into your blood, which can interfere with how your body manages cholesterol, blood sugar and heart rhythm. Essentially, neck circumference serves as a proxy for visceral fat – the harmful fat that wraps around your organs.

The evidence linking neck size to health problems is striking. People with thicker necks show increased rates of several cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

Atrial fibrillation is particularly concerning. This condition causes irregular heartbeat and blood flow, potentially leading to blood clots and stroke. The electrical imbalance in the heart can eventually progress to heart failure.

Neck circumference also correlates with coronary heart disease, where the main arteries to the heart narrow and restrict oxygen-rich blood flow.

But cardiovascular problems aren’t the only concern. Larger neck circumference increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. Diabetes can lead to serious long-term complications, including vision loss and limb amputations.

There’s also a connection to sleep disorders. Thick necks have been linked to obstructive sleep apnoea, where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. This condition causes extreme daytime fatigue and strains the cardiovascular system. People with sleep apnoea face higher risks of car accidents due to their exhaustion.

So what constitutes a risky neck size? For men, 17 inches (43cm) or greater increases health risks. For women, the threshold is 14 inches (35.5cm) or greater.

Perhaps most surprisingly, these risks persist even in people with normal BMI. You could have a healthy weight according to traditional measures, but still face elevated health risks due to neck circumference.

And for each additional centimetre of neck circumference beyond these thresholds, death rates and hospitalisation rates increase.

What this means for you

If your neck measures above these thresholds, it’s not cause for panic – but it is worth taking seriously. Neck size represents just one piece of your overall health picture, but it’s an important one that’s often overlooked.

The good news is that neck circumference can change with lifestyle modifications. Cardiovascular exercise and weight training can help reduce upper-body fat. Quality sleep supports metabolic regulation and recovery. A balanced diet rich in pulses, fruits, and vegetables provides essential nutrients without excess calories.

Measuring your neck takes seconds with a tape measure. Simply wrap it around the narrowest part of your neck, ensuring the tape is snug but not tight.

This simple measurement could provide valuable insight into health risks that traditional metrics might miss. While neck circumference shouldn’t replace other health assessments, it offers another tool for understanding your cardiovascular and metabolic health.

In an era where we’re constantly seeking better ways to predict and prevent disease, sometimes the answers are literally right in front of us. Your neck might be revealing more about your health than you realise – and it’s worth paying attention.

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. What your neck size reveals about your health – https://theconversation.com/what-your-neck-size-reveals-about-your-health-263483

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Cheshire, Professor Emeritus of Economic Geography, London School of Economics and Political Science

For years, academic economists have argued that council tax and stamp duty are deeply flawed. Politicians from all corners, as well as various thinktanks, also seem to agree. Back in 1976, the UK even had a royal commission recommending radical reform, but it was never implemented.

But now the UK government is said to be considering a change to stamp duty so that it is only paid on houses selling for more than £500,000. This could be big news, especially since it would be paid by sellers rather than buyers as at present. Due to higher house prices, it would hit people in London and the south-east the hardest.

Stamp duty is one of the UK’s oldest taxes, introduced in 1694, but its rules and rates have changed over time. Particularly since 2010, rates have increased and a range of complex exemptions (for first-time buyers, for example), “holidays” and higher rates for second homes have come and gone. Scotland and Wales now have their own systems.

Phasing these changes in and out has increased cyclical fluctuations in housing markets. For example, when a reduced stamp duty rate (introduced in 2022) was phased out three years later, house prices slumped.

But the main problem with stamp duty is that it is a tax on buying and selling houses – so on moving. It is a barrier to both downsizing for the old, and upsizing for the growing family. As such, it penalises moves to use the UK’s scarce housing stock more efficiently.

It may also act as a barrier to labour market adjustment (and so damage productivity growth) by impeding people’s ability to move for better jobs. A 2017 study concluded that a two percentage point stamp duty increase reduced mobility by 37%. This mobility reduction, however, seems mainly confined to short-distance moves.

Having to pay stamp duty makes it more difficult for people to find houses better suited to their tastes. The lower impact on long-distance moves (typically associated with labour market adjustment), however, does not provide much comfort.

The same 2017 study found that for every £100 in revenue the Treasury gained from a stamp duty increase, given the extra costs and problems encountered in finding a suitable house, households would need £84 to keep them at the same level of wellbeing.

Stamp duty is a progressive tax – the richer you are, the more you are likely to pay because it is related to the price of the house. But the relationship is complicated, with total exemption if the house price is under £125,000. This rises to 12% for all of the price above £1.5 million.

To this is added a further discount for first-time buyers and a premium for second home buyers. In fact, since the regional variation in house prices is much greater than the regional variation in incomes, stamp duty is super-progressive and penalises those living in London and the south-east.

In September 2024, the median house price in London was, at £525,000, 3.3 times that in the cheapest region, the north-east. But Londoners’ median earnings were only 1.4 times those in the north-east.

Why does stamp duty still exist?

For governments, the attractive aspect of stamp duty is that it is cheap and easy to collect. And, like any property tax, it is difficult to avoid. It may also be the case that it is a politically easier tax to impose than, say, council tax. This is because it is seen to be avoidable or voluntary.

If you do not want to pay it, you can just not buy a house. After all, it is the buyer who is responsible for paying it. But of course, it may not really be as simple as that. The tax burden will in fact be split between buyers and sellers – and everyone has to to live somewhere, so rents will still reflect an element of stamp duty paid by landlords.

Reforming stamp duty surely should be high on the agenda of a good government with a long-term view. But the apparent focus on stamp duty seems to be more the result of the government’s revenue shortfall crisis and the Labour party’s commitment not to increase taxes on “working people”.

Crucially, there is an overwhelming case for a fully thought-through reform of stamp duty and council tax in combination. A strategic vision would add our system of local government finance to that agenda. Many think council tax is a far worse tax than stamp duty. It is the product of another crisis: the need to put something – anything – in place in a hurry after the collapse of the Thatcher government’s poll tax in the early 1990s.

It would be a tragedy if the UK were to get a rushed, short-term change to stamp duty in a bid to raise revenue in an emergency, rather than address the serious, long-term problems of how we tax property and fund local government. If stamp duty is changed, it must not endanger such a real, long-term and valuable reform.

Paul Cheshire is affiliated with the London School of Economics; Centre for Economic Performance; Labour Party member.

– ref. Housebuyers hate stamp duty. Why hasn’t it been reformed before now? – https://theconversation.com/housebuyers-hate-stamp-duty-why-hasnt-it-been-reformed-before-now-263747

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Samuel Clark, PhD Candidate in Politics and International Relations, University of Reading

In a world where politics can often feel demoralising, it’s no surprise that many people are finding comfort and hope in political satire.

Shows like Have I Got News For You and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver use wit and irony to make controversial, distant and uncomfortable issues more approachable while providing moral judgment on them. The idea is that when disheartening topics are dressed humorously – climate change, political corruption, structural injustice – we’re more inclined to pay attention. And, if all goes well, we might be able to poke fun at ourselves and our ignorance along the way.

Done well, satire can benefit democracy. It offers representation: the satirist articulates the grievances of people who might otherwise struggle to advance their views. It can be educational, bringing attention to important issues that are obscured in public discussions. It can hold power to account, pressuring elites to address harms they might be ignoring. And satire can promote social equality: it mocks the powerful, and in so doing asserts that they are not above others.

But in many democracies, and the US in particular, this model isn’t always being subscribed to. Much of the popular satire we see today prioritises affirming the prejudices of its partisan audience over pursuing the democratic benefits it has the potential to deliver.

My ongoing PhD research examines when satire is and isn’t democratically valuable in societies marked by deep divisions. And I’m concerned that some popular modern satire is taking a wrong turn.

Perhaps as a symptom of Donald Trump making satire of elites more and more difficult, some satirists are choosing to make fun of uninformed regular people rather than those in power, particularly when those people have different political views.

One example can be seen in The Daily Show’s recurring segment Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse. In the segment, leftwing satirist Klepper interviews attendees at Donald Trump rallies, steering them – through strategically phrased questions – into absurd or contradictory positions. The comedy is bolstered by manipulative editing and laugh tracks that paint Trump supporters as inherently foolish and unreasonable. The clips consistently attract millions of views online.

While the segment is humorous, the primary goal is not to foster public understanding or deliver a substantive critique. Rather, it pursues tribal reinforcement. The viewer is invited to laugh not at elite wrongdoing, but at the perceived ignorance of ordinary people.

This kind of satire fails to deliver, and in some cases undermines, the democratic benefits I’ve outlined above. In relation to the good of social equality, for instance, it vilifies, and so undermines the status of ordinary people. It also doesn’t hold power to account, nor does it educate people on issues of broader public concern.

Satirists wield considerable power. Studies show that many people, particularly those with low political interest, are turning to satirical television programmes as an alternative to traditional news broadcasters for information.

When satirists single out only the most extreme or ill-informed people and hold them up as representative of an entire political movement, they don’t educate or enlighten; they entrench caricature and propagandise. The audience walks away with their prejudices affirmed and their opponents dehumanised.

Punching sideways

Other satirical offerings – such as Inside Edition and Jimmy Kimmel Live, alongside a number of social media creators – are further examples of cheap shots aimed at political opponents. (Examples from the political right are harder to come by. Conservatives tend to dress their consumption of politics in outrage and anger rather than satire and irony.)

Across all these examples, an “interviewer” uses mock sincerity to lull people in and subsequently shame, demean and ridicule them – often without them knowing that they are indeed the subject of ridicule. These performances rarely illuminate complex issues or unsettle power structures. Instead, they deliver punchlines aimed squarely at their citizen adversaries. In so doing, they become partisan theatre, not satire.

While these performances may entertain, research suggests they also have lasting psychological consequences. Humorous stimuli have been shown to increase information recall. Some evidence also points to a “sleeper effect” whereby political messages delivered through comedy can become more persuasive over time, bypassing our critical defences. Humour can, however, make audiences treat messages as less important.

In my view, the danger lies in the broader narrative this kind of satire delivers about political opposition. Critiquing the hypocrisies in hardline Trump supporters’ views is one thing, but when we are encouraged to perceive an entire political group as blindly dogmatic, irrational and unreasonable, we cross a dangerous line. Instead of gaining a deeper understanding of political disagreement, viewers are left with the conviction that their political opponents are not just wrong, but unworthy of being debated. This isn’t civic engagement, it’s ideological arrogance. Democracy can’t function properly under these conditions.

This is not to argue that satire should be politically neutral. Far from it. Some of the greatest satirical work in history – from Jonathan Swift to Ian Hislop – has been fiercely ideological. But good satire challenges its audience as much as its targets. It holds a mirror up to society, forcing us to confront not just the flaws of our adversaries, but also our own ignorance.

With Saturday Night Live set to expand into the UK, British satirists would do well to take heed. There is a risk that the kind of polarising comedy taking root in the US will follow across the Atlantic. Satire is at its best when it exposes deception, discomforts the comfortable, and asks hard questions of those in power – even when they’re on our own side. It should show that no one side holds all the answers. That’s harder, riskier work. But it’s the kind of satire we need now more than ever.

Samuel Clark receives funding from the South East Network for Social Sciences.

– ref. The harms of low-blow political satire in a polarised climate – https://theconversation.com/the-harms-of-low-blow-political-satire-in-a-polarised-climate-255750

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Avidan Kent, Professor of Law, University of East Anglia

Small island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Maldives and Marshall Islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Rising seas, stronger storms, freshwater shortages and damaged infrastructure all threaten their ability to support life.

Some islands even face the grim possibility of being abandoned or sinking beneath the ocean. This raises an unprecedented legal question: can these small island nations still be considered states if their land disappears?

The future status of these nations as “states” matters immensely. Should the worst happen, their populations will lose their homes and sources of income. They will also lose their way of life, identity, culture, heritage and communities.

At the same time, the loss of statehood could strip these nations of control over valuable natural resources and even cost them their place in international organisations such as the UN. Understandably, they are working hard to make sure this outcome is avoided.

Tuvalu, for example, has signed a treaty with Australia to ensure it will be recognised as a state, regardless of the impact climate change has on the islands.

Beyond affirming that “the statehood and sovereignty of Tuvalu will continue … notwithstanding the impact of climate change-related sea-level rise”, Australia has committed to accepting Tuvaluan citizens who seek to emigrate and start their lives afresh on safer ground.

Facing the threat of physical disappearance, Tuvalu has also begun digitising itself. This has involved moving its government services online, as well as recreating its land and archiving its culture virtually.

The aim is for Tuvalu to continue existing as a state even when climate change has forced its population into exile and rising seas have done away with its land. It says it will be the world’s first digital nation.

Elsewhere, in the Maldives, engineering solutions are being tested. These include raising island heights artificially to withstand the disappearance of territory. Other initiatives, such as the Rising Nations Initiative, are seeking to safeguard the sovereignty of Pacific island nations in the face of climate threats.

But how will the future statehood of small island nations be determined legally?

International law’s position

Traditionally, international law requires four elements for a state to exist. These are the existence of population, territory, an effective and independent government and the capacity to engage in international relations.

With climate change threatening to render the land of small island nations unliveable or rising seas covering them entirely, both population and territory will be lost. Effective and independent government will also become inoperative. On the face of it, all the elements required for statehood would cease to exist.

But international law does recognise that once a state is established it continues to exist even if some of the elements of statehood are compromised. For instance, so-called failed states such as Somalia or Yemen are still regarded as states despite lacking an effective government – one of the core elements required under international law.

However, the threats posed to the statehood of small island nations by climate change are unprecedented and severe. They are also very likely to be permanent. This makes it unclear whether international law can extend this flexibility to sinking island nations.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently issued its advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change. The ICJ addressed a wide range of issues concerning the legal obligations of states in the context of climate change. This included the future statehood of small island nations.

In this regard, the ICJ acknowledged that climate change could threaten the existence of small islands and low-lying coastal states. But it concluded its discussion with a single, rather cryptic sentence: “once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”

What exactly did the court mean by this remark? Unfortunately, the answer is not entirely clear. On the one hand, the decision seems to confirm the traditional flexible approach of international law to statehood.

In their separate opinions, some of the court’s judges interpreted this sentence as extending the flexibility previously applied in other contexts – such as failed states – also to the situation of sinking island nations. In other words, a state could retain its legal existence even if it disappears beneath rising seas.

At the same time, a closer reading of the decision suggests that the court stopped short of explicitly confirming that the flexibility of the term “statehood” could be stretched so far as to mean a state could exist even if completely submerged under the seas.

The court noted only that the disappearance of “one element … would not necessarily” result in the loss of statehood. But in the case of sinking island nations it is likely that all key elements – population, territory, government and ability to enter into international relations – would disappear.

For now, the ICJ has left the matter open. The decision points to flexibility, but it avoids the definitive statement that many vulnerable nations had hoped for. The legal future of sinking islands remains uncertain.

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. What will happen to the legal status of ‘sinking’ nations when their land is gone? – https://theconversation.com/what-will-happen-to-the-legal-status-of-sinking-nations-when-their-land-is-gone-263559

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chris Smith, Course Director, History, Coventry University

In a recent Meet the Press interview, the vice-president of the US, J.D. Vance, argued in relation to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine: “This is how wars ultimately get settled. If you go back to world war two, if you go back to world war one, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation.”

Vance was responding to a question from the NBC news anchor, Kristen Weller, who asked: “If Russia is allowed to keep any of the territory that it illegally seized, what message does that send to China? Does it give China a green light to invade Taiwan? Does it give Russia a green light to invade other European countries, which is what your European allies are concerned about?”

Vance’s response was clearly his way of saying that the war in Ukraine would have to end in a negotiation, with the suggestion that some sort of territorial concessions on Ukraine’s part would naturally flow from that process.

But he was wrong. In fact, few major wars in recent history have ended in negotiation. Let’s take Vance’s two examples. The second world war in Europe ended with the Soviet capture of Berlin and Germany’s dictator dosing himself with cyanide and putting a bullet in his own brain. The war against Japan ended with Hirohito’s empire on the verge of famine, its infrastructure destroyed by American fire. The Soviets had invaded Manchuria, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, and were threatening to invade Hokkaido. To cap it all, the Americans were also threatening to invade Kyushu and then Honshu. But before that came to pass, the US deployed superweapons. Japan surrendered just days after the atomic bombings and the Soviet intervention.

As for the first world war, that ended with an armistice on November 11 1918 following the collapse of the German armed forces. The peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles, was later signed in 1919. The Germans were not invited to those negotiations and the terms of the treaty were imposed upon them. This led to the partition of Germany, the loss of its empire, its military reduced to a rump, and a reparations bill of 20 billion gold marks (£6.6 billion).

So, which major wars does Vance mean? Contrary to his pronouncements, clearly not the first or second world wars. If we look at the major wars a century prior, do we see what he is talking about?

The Napoleonic wars came to an end with coalition forces engaged in a full-scale invasion of France and entering Paris on March 30 1814. Napoleon abdicated on April 6 and was exiled to Elba. He escaped in 1815, returned to arms and was defeated at Waterloo. He was exiled again, even further away, to Saint Helena. Meanwhile after the French capitulation, a treaty was signed in Paris in November 1815, imposing a large fine, a foreign occupation and the loss of territory. So presumably Vance wasn’t referring to these conflicts.

Perhaps Vance was thinking of some of the rather smaller 19th-century wars which ended with, at least nominal, negotiated settlements.

The Crimean war ended with another Treaty of Paris in 1856 and involved Russia agreeing to the neutrality of the Black Sea and the loss of the territories it had captured from the Ottoman empire.

The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 ended with the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871, which saw France lose territory in Alsace and Lorraine. Ultimately, these wars ended with negotiated capitulation.

Negotiation or capitulation?

“Negotiation” is what Vance says regarding Russia and Ukraine. But the administration he serves has already suggested that any negotiation will involve Ukraine giving up land. President Donald Trump came away from the recent summit in Alaska talking about Ukraine giving up its territory, despite the fact that territory is not something that can simply be negotiated away over the heads of the Ukrainian people. This all sounds rather more like Ukrainian “capitulation” rather than a “negotiation”.

A friend from the Ukrainian diaspora said to me recently: Ukraine will be “forced to erase itself to make Russia happy, and that has been happening for hundreds of years”. They, as she noted, have always refused. Contrary to Vladimir Putin or Vance’s plans, the Ukrainians have their own ideas about their national destiny.

Vance is wrong for another reason. Ukraine’s defeat would represent perhaps the greatest US foreign policy disaster since the Vietnam war. In 2025 the US still claims to be the world’s only true superpower; its support and weaponry has helped keep Russia from the gates of Kyiv without firing a shot or placing a single US soldier on the ground.

Russia, by contrast – long a rival for the superpower mantle – has endured multiple recent foreign policy setbacks. Not least of these is the failure to dismantle Ukraine, which was supposed to take a matter of days. But also, the collapse of its client regime in Syria and Israel’s humiliation of Iran, another longstanding ally.

Things do not need to be as they are. Trump and Vance could assist Ukraine securing the just peace its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is calling for. They could allay European fears about Russia by making it clear to Putin that aggression will not be rewarded. But from everything they’ve said, this is not the path they want to take. Instead, while Vance misinterprets history, Ukraine continues to bleed.

Chris Smith 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. J.D. Vance is wrong about history – here’s why this matters for Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/j-d-vance-is-wrong-about-history-heres-why-this-matters-for-ukraine-263951