By Toby James, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of East Anglia
Elections need periodic reform to ensure that they have integrity and fulfil their role in line with the times, and the British government has unveiled its proposals for doing just that.
Britain was widely regarded as one of the pioneers of such democratic electoral reforms. In the late 19th and early 20th century, reform acts extended the franchise to enable more people to vote. Anti-corruption and bribery rules prevented election candidates offering food and liquor for votes.
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By Andrew Mycock, Chief Policy Fellow, University of Leeds
The UK government has unveiled plans to lower the voting age to 16 for general elections, heralding the delivery of a Labour pledge first made in 2010.
The intent of the UK government’s electoral reform is understandable. Faith in politicians and democracy is at an all time low. Keir Starmer’s election promise to restore…
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By Andrew McInnes, Reader in Romanticisms, Edge Hill University
Wuthering Heights is back in the news and racing up the bestseller lists, thanks to a new film version by the provocative director Emerald Fennell, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The film is marketing Wuthering Heights as “the world’s greatest love story”.
However, if this encourages you to read the novel for the first time and you’re expecting a boy-meets-girl romance, you might be in for a shock. Wuthering Heights is less happy ever after and more girl is already dead at the start of the novel, boy is haunted by girl, and then another boy is told the whole story by the…
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By Ioannis Zabetakis, Associate Professor, Food Chemistry, University of Limerick
Cholesterol has long been seen as a key culprit in cardiovascular disease. While it’s true that cholesterol does play a role, not all cholesterol is bad for us.
There are two main types of cholesterol.
The first type is low-density lipoprotein or LDL cholesterol. This is often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol because it causes fat to collect in the arteries as plaques. This makes it harder for blood to pump throughout…
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By Jess Neumann, Associate Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading
Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology, University of Reading
Large parts of the UK are experiencing relentless rainfall, with some places seeing rain for 41 consecutive days and counting. In Reading, in the south east of England, our university’s official rain gauge has recorded precipitation on 31 consecutive days – unprecedented in records stretching all the way back to 1908.
The pattern has not just made 2026 a bit dreary. It also reveals one way in which climate change is making the already naturally…
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By Carolyn Laubender, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex
Psychoanalysis is having a moment. Instagram accounts dedicated to Freudian theory have amassed nearly 1.5 million followers. Television shows like Orna Guralnik’s Couples Therapy have become compulsive viewing. Think pieces in The New York Times, The London Review of Books, Harper’s, New Statesman, the Guardian and Vulture are declaring psychoanalysis’s resurrection. As Joseph Bernstein of the New York Times put it: “Sigmund Freud is enjoying something of a comeback.”
For many, this revival comes as a surprise. Over the past half century, psychoanalysis…
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By Joseph Janes, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Swansea University
Prav Uppal, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Wolverhampton
The route a drug takes into the body can matter as much as the drug itself – and rectal use brings risks that are rarely talked about openly.
Often called “boofing”, “booty bumping” or “plugging”, the practice involves taking drugs via the rectum rather than swallowing, snorting or injecting.
In health settings, this…
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By Daniel Svensson, Lecturer in Sport Management, Malmö University
In 1958, Brazil won the men’s Fifa World Cup in Sweden. The team, which included a 17-year-old Pelé, stayed in a modest country hotel and travelled by train or bus to small stadiums in cities such as Uddevalla and Göteborg.
Fan attendance was fairly low for that 16-team tournament. And so too was the the ecological impact of the event – especially compared to the 2026 World Cup which will see 48 teams and millions of supporters travel to and across North America.
For while football’s…
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By Jill Timms, Assistant Professor in Sociology, University of Surrey
Anyone on the flower rota at England’s parish churches will now be reconsidering the way they do their arrangements, after Church of England leaders voted to use more seasonal and local flowers.
A motion to use sustainable flowers brought before the General Synod of the Church of England by the Bishop of Dudley, Martin Gorrick, was passed on February 12. The term “sustainable flowers” means using…
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By Rayna Denison, Professor of Film and Digital Arts, University of Bristol
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is as much about animation as an artform as it is an adaptation of Belgian author Amélie Northomb’s book The Character of Rain (2000).
The French animated feature, co-directed by Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, makes sophisticated use of animation style to interrogate the formation of the self in early childhood.
The film begins with Amélie telling us that she began as a god – a tube-like god – before being born into a “vegetative” state as a baby…
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