BackgroundStopping tobacco smoking, reducing alcohol consumption from high-risk levels, increasing physical activity and improving diet can improve mental well-being. To gain a preliminary estimate of the potential benefits of healthy lifestyle changes at a population level, this study estimated differences in life satisfaction among middle-aged adults in England as a function of whether they met recommended guidelines for smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity and diet.MethodsUsing the Health Survey for England, a cross-sectional nationally representative household survey conducted in 2017 and 2018 (6978 adults aged 35–64 years), linear and logistic models were conducted predicting life satisfaction scores (0–10 scale) or odds of ‘high life satisfaction’ (score ≥7), from smoking status (current vs ex-), alcohol intake, physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption categorised according to whether participants met recommended guidelines.ResultsAfter adjusting for other health behaviours and socio-demographic characteristics, the odds of high life satisfaction were 1.23 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.45) times higher for those eating ≥5 versus <5 portions/day, 1.47 (95% CI 1.20 to 1.79) times higher for people who have quit smoking versus people who smoke currently and 2.13 (95% CI 1.86 to 2.44) times higher for those with high versus low physical activity. These effects were additive: meeting all three of these guidelines was associated with the greatest increase in the likelihood of high life satisfaction (+32%; 89% vs 67% not meeting any guidelines). No significant difference was observed as a function of meeting alcohol consumption guidelines (OR=0.88 (95% CI 0.74 to 1.04)). Meeting all three of these behavioural guidelines was associated with an 18% increase in predicted life satisfaction (an average life satisfaction score of 8.0 vs 6.8).ConclusionsMeeting English government guidelines for physical activity, smoking cessation and fruit and vegetable intake is associated with a 32 percentage point higher likelihood of reporting high life satisfaction than meeting none of them. People drinking above the English government recommended level have similar life satisfaction to those drinking below it.

ABSTRACT In June 2025, the former Secretary of State for the Home Department (‘Home Secretary’), Yvette Cooper, announced that the British government wished to proscribe Palestine Action. The decision to finally proscribe Palestine Action had come when two of its activists had broken into RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, spraying red paint into the turbines of two Voyager aircraft and causing £7m worth of damage. The UK government has asserted that the proscription of Palestine Action must not deter people from protesting in support of pro-Palestinian groups and/or in opposition to the actions of the Israeli government; the right to peaceful protest is unaffected by the ban. However, since June 2025, about 2000 people have been arrested, protesting the proscription. The decision to ban Palestine Action means that there are now 98 organisations that are proscribed in the UK. What is unique about the proscription of Palestine Action is that, unlike the other 97 banned groups, the modus operandi of Palestine Action is not a commitment to violence against people: they are a direct-action protest group. Should serious damage against property be included in the legal definition of terrorism in the UK, justifying the proscription of Palestine Action?

The English Government introduced a target for 80% of Care Quality Commission registered adult social care providers to be using electronic care planning solutions by March 2024 (extended to March 2025) and made available funding to support the transition from paper to digital social care records. The study aimed to generate timely evidence to support care providers to implement digital social care records and maximise the benefit from their introduction. A co-created rapid evaluation, involving two data collection phases and feedback to study sites. We interviewed 30 senior leaders, 30 care staff, and 23 people who draw on care services and their relatives from 30 care providers (19 care homes, 11 home care agencies) in 4 sites across England and senior leaders of 3 digital social care record suppliers to understand experiences of adoption and implementation, and financial and economic implications. Policy attention and availability of funding have driven adoption of digital social care records, saving time and delivering other benefits, although experiences varied and there was evidence of suboptimal choice of digital social care record system, alongside buyer regret and abandonment. Providers were concerned about ongoing affordability in the context of continued austerity. Implementation is time- and resource-intensive with providers experiencing similar and predictable challenges. Planning, leading, managing and resourcing implementation, including investing in training and involving all users or people affected by digital social care records, were important for mitigating and overcoming challenges. A responsive supplier able to resolve technical problems and reasonable requests for flexibility was also important. Care providers in a franchise or group were at an advantage as they could draw on additional support and the experiences of others. While some features were not used or a matter of preference, a reliable offline working feature was critical for functionality due to patchy internet access. The ability to easily upload images and conduct simple analysis improved functionality; as did the client/relative portal, although this was rarely used and clients/relatives had limited knowledge of digital social care records and their rights. Systems with greater interoperability maximised the benefit from digital social care records. Unfamiliarity with technology was a barrier to using digital social care records, but training and gradual implementation allowed time for adaptation and increased acceptance. People with poor eyesight, dexterity or English had difficulty using digital social care records. We did not find evidence of providers capturing data to assess return on investment from digital social care record introduction. Assessing care providers' capacity to estimate their return on investment was difficult as interviewees often lacked knowledge of the financial aspects of the business. Where implementation is successful digital social care records, over time, deliver benefits to care providers. However, implementation was too often suboptimal due to poor choice of digital social care record supplier, inadequate planning, management and resourcing of change, an unresponsive supplier and limited accessibility features. Ongoing affordability and continuation with digital social care records are a concern for the future, especially for small providers. Research investigating the abandonment process and impact of digital social care record adoption on the structure and stability of the care market would be valuable. Phase one ethical approval: the Health Research Authority (23/HRA/4966, IRAS Project ID: 3347698) and phase two from the NHS Research Ethics Committee (24/LO/0204, IRAS Project ID: 335300). This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme (NIHR award ref: NIHR163639) as part of the Social Care Rapid Evaluation Team (NIHR153673) and is published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 14, No. 16. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

The main problem that the author solves is to determine how the Moscow Trading Company contributed to the process of Europeanization of Russian trade. The author reveals the features of the trade policy of the Russian government, which, along with the privileges given to English merchants, expanded the scope of economic ties with other countries. The purpose of the article is to reveal the nature of the relationship between the Russian government and the trading company of English merchants, which operated in Russia from the moment of its creation in the 16th century until the decline of its activities in the first half of the 17th century. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that the trade policy of Moscow in the 16th–17th centuries depended, first of all, on the diplomatic course pursued by the Russian government, which sought to transform the economic partnership with England into a political union in the struggle for the Baltic, and also used such a means of regulating trade relations with the Moscow Trading Company as privileges granted to English merchants; Russia directed these relations along the channel it desired, forcing the English government to fulfill its main demands regarding export-import operations and defending its national interests. The article shows how Russia managed to extract great benefit from the Northern Trade Route in its relations with the West and to strengthen its defense capability. The article is addressed to historians and specialists in the field of the history of international relations.

Dire warnings abound of English local government insolvency through reckless decision-making. Andy Pike’s Financialization and Local Statecraft offers readers a more nuanced account of varied local statecrafters navigating fiscal-finance dilemmas, acknowledging both agency and constraints. Pike especially takes issue with the popular account of local officials as ‘councillors at the casino’. Responding to the call for historicization, this review essay puts Pike’s findings on contemporary financialized local statecraft into conversation with two relevant antecedent tales of neoliberalism and its implications: Susan Strange’s Casino Capitalism and David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s Reinventing Government . The legacy of received ideas and imparted wisdom are assessed: perceived truths shape long-run consequences.

In this short commentary, I assess Pike in relation to those other contributions in urban and regional studies that work with the notion of statecraft. Pike makes an important contribution to ongoing debates on the changing contours of the financialisation of English local government. That said, my argument is that the analysis stops short of revealing the details of the work done by the rather abstract notion of “financialisation” in terms of urban politics, and here I mean with a large and small “P.”

ABSTRACT In The Cockroach, Ian McEwan represents Brexit as a grotesque “political metamorphosis” orchestrated by cockroaches infiltrating the British government, allegorising ruling elites and the pathological dynamics of contemporary populism. By tracing the cockroach's successive metamorphic stages, this article shows how each phase corresponds to a distinct configuration of power, revealing populism as a strategic instrument through which elites manufacture consent, fabricate “enemies of the nation”, and consolidate authority. The novella's culminating second metamorphosis, in which the cockroach abandons its human host once national ruin has been secured, exposes Brexit as a form of elite-driven self-sabotage. Situated within McEwan's broader creative paradigm of attributing historical crises to concentrated and identifiable agency, The Cockroach not only serves as a pointed warning about the rise of populist movements marked by irrationality and xenophobia in contemporary politics but re-centers political accountability and critical scrutiny of elites, thereby distinguishing it from other BrexLit works.

ABSTRACT This paper undertakes a historical investigation of Tamil schools in Malaya, examining the periods of British colonisation and the preparation for independence between 1816 and 1957. In the context of Tamil schools in Malaya, there is a limited body of historical studies. Using qualitative historical methodology, we analyse primary and secondary data chronologically to examine the history of Tamil schools in Malaya. The outcome of this historical study is discussed in two sections: the early history of Tamil schools before the Second World War and the post-war period leading up to Malaya’s independence in 1957. The study provides comprehensive information on the British government's approach and the plantation owners' attitude towards their labourers' children's education. The findings reveal important history on the Malayan Tamil school that needs to be acknowledged, as it had significant impacts on the future of Tamils in post-independent Malaya

Unpaid caregivers in Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong) are known to be under tremendous stress. The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) has been funnelling resources to non-profit organisations to support these caregivers in recent years. Since 2020, the British government has provided British National (Overseas) passport holders with a pathway to gain citizenship in Britain, and many Hong Kongers, especially young families, have migrated to Britain. This migration includes many former caregivers of older adults who remain in Hong Kong. How do these left-behind elderly parents comprehend the loss of their main caregivers, an extreme case of empty nest? And how do faith-based, especially Evangelical Christian, organisations and churches, support these older adults and their adult children in transnational caregiving? This study employs an ethnographic approach through on-site fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with older adults whose children migrated abroad, social workers at faith-based organisations, and church pastors. These field observations and interviews are supplemented by case studies and interviews published in news outlets. Through this group study, though limited in sample size, this article argues for the importance of faith identity and religious community in supporting both older adults and their caregivers, whether situated locally or remotely, and how faith-based organisations support transnational caregiving through connecting both parties.

In November 1842, Charles Babbage was devastated when informed by the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, that the Government would no longer finance the development of his Difference Engine. So when he learned that Ada, Countess of Lovelace, had translated Luigi Menabrea’s account of his Analytic Engine to English, he seized upon this opportunity to publicize his grievances with the British Government. He collaborated with Ada to add significant notes to her translation, and to this, prefixed his account of his Difference and Analytic Engines and the Government’s withdrawal of finance. But when the Scientific Memoirs editor refused to include the account of his conflict with the Government, Babbage promptly arranged for it to be published in the Philosophical Magazine and for offprints of this to be inserted into offprints of Ada’s publication. This article examines the circumstances surrounding the compilation and circulation of these conjoint offprints.

This article examines the events surrounding the outbreak of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, which marked a turning point in the fate of France itself and led to a radical transformation of the international relations system established following the end of the Thirty Years&amp;#x27; War and the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Already in the initial period of the revolution, the French government, at first slowly and cautiously, and later much more boldly, began to seize territory, under the pretext of the need for democratic reforms, annexing the territories of independent states to the French Republic, encountering virtually no resistance from the governments of European powers. Among the first states to enter the war against revolutionary France were Austria and Prussia. Great Britain, however, for a number of reasons, both domestic and foreign, was unable to enter the war immediately. The change in the “priorities” of the British government and the decision to begin military action against France were facilitated by events related to the radicalization of the revolution and the actions of the French National Convention aimed at its expansion beyond the borders of France in the second half of 1792 - early 1793. It was during this period that England hastily began to prepare for the upcoming armed conflict with France, while simultaneously negotiating with Austria and Prussia on the creation of an anti-French coalition.

Abstract In 1897, an Indian dancer named Piaree Jehan petitioned the Bombay government seeking justice for her two granddaughters—Begum Jehan and Vajir Jehan—who died and allegedly disappeared, respectively, during their 1895–1896 England tour. As traditional sources of patronage for the performers declined owing to the colonial criminalisation of prostitution and rising anti-nautch sentiment in the second half of the nineteenth century, certain groups of Indian women performers started travelling to the British metropole for contractual performances. Despite promises of lucrative salaries and foreign travel, life in the imperial exhibitory spaces proved to be quite precarious. Through a close reading of Piaree’s petition and contemporary British newspaper reports, this article presents a microhistory of Indian women performers’ experience in the racialised and sexualised imperial circuits of performance. It shows how the British imperial government adopted a certain ‘politics of convenience’ to selectively sexualise Indian women performers to erase their contributions as transcultural workers for the empire. By doing so, the empire continued to economically and culturally benefit from the dancers’ labour while avoiding any responsibility towards remedying their working conditions. At the same time, focusing on Piaree’s affective argumentation, the article also demonstrates how the performers used the British legal system to make their voices heard. By writing petitions, demanding unpaid wages, refusing sexual offers, and forging kinship ties, Indian women performers repeatedly foregrounded their identities as professional creative workers. In doing so, they disrupted narratives of passive victimhood, challenged their hypersexualised colonial representations, and brought their overlooked contributions to the late nineteenth-century British stage to the fore.

Abstract There have been few people more famous and instantly recognisable than Queen Elizabeth II, who served as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch from 1952 until her death in 2022. Yet her role within Anglo-American relations has been largely under-explored. This is strange on many levels, not least because her life progressed in tandem with the birth, evolution and maturation of what is commonly termed the modern Anglo-American special relationship. We argue that Queen Elizabeth II’s importance to Anglo-American relations progressively increased as a result especially of developments in media and its consumption, the growing significance of soft power and Britain’s relative decline. The Queen enjoyed exceptional reach within American audiences, as well as offering a compensatory source of continuity with a bygone age and maintaining an image at least of the United Kingdom and United States as familial equals. This argument is developed in three sections. We begin by investigating how expanding media coverage, changes in the monarchy’s public relations strategy and royal visits to the United States enhanced American affinity for the British monarchy, and how this in turn led the American and British governments to understand and exploit the Queen’s influence. We then use the royal visit during the American Bicentennial to demonstrate how the Queen’s role in Anglo-American relations matured at a crucial juncture in the mid-1970s and helped the special relationship’s transition from experiential memory to received memory. Finally, we illustrate how the Queen, as well as the tactics and messaging embraced by the American and British governments during the Bicentennial, served subsequently in Anglo-American diplomatic pageantry.

V. D. Savarkar was immensely influenced and inspired by the ideas and philosophy of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He actively supported the Swadeshi Movement and propagated his anti-British views through his speeches and writings, which led to the British Government withdrawing his graduation degree. In 1906, he went to England for higher studies and made London the centre of his Indian freedom movement activities. He was determined to free his motherland from the curse of British rule by any means necessary. He even supported the use of armed resistance to overthrow what he considered the oppressive British regime. He organised a group of armed revolutionaries to fight against British rule. Savarkar envisioned an India that would have unbounded faith in a World Commonwealth. His political philosophy conceived the Earth as the common motherland of humanity, and he regarded humanism as the highest form of patriotism. However, he maintained that India should not lose its national identity in the process of forging humanity into a World Commonwealth. In international politics, Savarkar believed that India would contribute to building world peace and prosperity. According to him, nationalism was an inevitable step towards the larger goal of humanity and the establishment of a Pan-Human State.

Background and objective: In the UK, political shifts and dramatic budget cuts to non-statutory services have fundamentally altered the ideology of public park management, forcing a transition from park-making to park-keeping. However, the specific drivers of this change are not fully understood.Methods: This study addresses this gap by analysing post-Victorian UK park policies through the lens of the place-keeping (PK) analytical framework to identify these change drivers and propose directions for long-term management. The analysis draws on a range of policy documents, including British government manifestos and parliamentary records.Results: The findings are threefold. First, the paradigm shift and the call for active governance were primarily driven by disproportionate budget allocations between statutory and non-statutory services after 1972. Second, the resulting governance-centred approach fostered the growth of partnerships and the principle of shared responsibility. Third, the PK framework reveals that this new ideology expanded to include concepts such as income generation, evaluation, and maintenance as essential strategies to overcome the crisis. To secure the long-term viability of urban parks, this study proposes a cultural transition toward a PPCP-based stewardship framework. Such a shared responsibility model enhances financial resilience and management sustainability through multi-sectoral collaboration, even amidst public budget constraints.Conclusion: In conclusion, the study demonstrates that politically driven crises have forged a new park management model in the UK defined by active governance and partnership-based responsibility. This model offers a pathway to harnessing the benefits of public parks through sustainable, long-term management.

ABSTRACT The focus in this article is on the study, not the practice, of Public Administration; that is, on British academics and their descriptions and explanations of how British government administration works. ‘Presentism’ refers to a bias toward current events and values—interpreting the past through a modern lens—and as an excessive focus on the present, neglecting historical context or future consequences. The article counters this bias by identifying the main intellectual stands of the postwar period, arguing that every narrative is ‘interbedded’ and each continues to influence the evolution of the discipline. The main narratives between 1945 and 2000 are described: Traditional Public Administration (TPA), New Public Management (NPM), and New Public Governance (NPG). For the 2000s to date, a plurality of approaches is identified that contend for our attention: New Public Service (NPS), Digital Era Governance (DEG), and Behavioural Public Administration (BPA). Finally, a new approach is recommended and explained: ‘Interpretive Public Governance’. In conclusion, Public Administration scholars need to: Set our own research agenda. Interrogate our own traditions and not focus exclusively on the present day. Celebrate the plurality of our field, not look for the Holy Grail of an agreed disciplinary core, and explore the interdisciplinary opportunities for yet more diversity. Develop the radical research agenda of Interpretive Public Governance, which uses ethnographic methods to study the knaves practicing court politics.

Abstract: As the British population ages, along with those of other advanced economic societies, there will be a greater need for health and social care for this group. Successive British governments have to some extent failed to tackle this demographic issue. All health and social care professions will have to devote more of their staffing resources to working with older adults and social work is no exception. A recent research study (Carson et al., 2020), looked at how British people in the North and the South of England (n = 1608), were functioning in the week of the first COVID-19 lockdown in England. While originally planned as a study of happiness, it was obvious that participants were very worried about the growing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper we compare the findings from a group of Older participants (aged 60 to 87, n = 104), with a Younger cohort (aged 17 to 30, n = 673), on a range of measures. Older participants were seen to have significantly higher levels of Flourishing on three subscales from the PERMA Profiler. They had higher levels of Meaning and Personal Accomplishments, and lower levels of Negative Emotions. They were also found to have lower levels of Loneliness and less psychological distress. Age may have been an advantage going into the COVID-19 lockdown. We report on these findings and outline a new study of Older adults which aims to compare a large British and a Taiwanese sample. Do people in Britain have higher levels of Flourishing and less psychological distress than their Taiwanese counterparts? We also intend to look at the concept of anti-mattering. Do Older people in the UK feel they are listened to more and that their views matter to others more than their Taiwanese equivalents?

The concept of civilisation was central to nineteenth century international legal thought. The concept was an ambiguous one, however. Its ambiguities were particularly marked in the case of consular jurisdiction, or extraterritoriality, in Japan. Beginning in the late 1880s the treaties by which extraterritoriality had been established in Japan were revised, culminating in the abolition of extraterritoriality in 1899. The first power to revise its treaty with Japan was Great Britain, with negotiations concluding successfully in 1894. British residents in Japan strongly opposed treaty revision, an opposition which they justified by recourse to the concept of civilisation. As well as making legal arguments in favour of the maintenance of extraterritoriality, the residents challenged the assumption inherent to the project of treaty revision that Japan was sufficiently civilised to become an equal subject of international law. The residents’ pleas were largely ignored by the Foreign Office, which had determined that consenting to treaty revision was advantageous to Britain’s relations with Japan. In this way, the British government agreed to abolish extraterritoriality in Japan against the wishes of those who enjoyed its privileges, and Japan came to be formally accepted as a civilised state.

The discussion on the return of the Marbles of the Parthenon of the Acropolis of Greece escalated during the years 2021 to 2022, when the Greek government of New Democracy initiated a new campaign for their relocation. Especially after the official state visit of the Greek Prime Minister to the United Kingdom on November 16, 2021, the discussion that was first initiated back in 1982 by the then Minister of Culture Melina Merkouri, reopened under a new framework. During the years after the pandemic and amid the 200-year anniversary of the Greek Independence, the Greek Government implemented a public diplomacy (PD) campaign to influence the British public opinion toward changing its attitudes and put pressure on the government to return the stolen Elgin Marbles from the British Museum. The issue of the Elgin Marbles is for both countries a matter of prestige, influence, and dominance. On the one hand, the British Museum’s international image as the “Museum of the British Empire” has a very strong interest in keeping the Marbles, whereas, the Greek government would gain a very positive evaluation in case it would succeed in relocating them. Times, however, and attitudes have changed both in museum practice and public opinion. This evolution helped in opening a space for a new framework of discussions on the matter. To this end, the Greek government planned a careful international PD campaign using different channels, methods, and discourses to persuade and put pressure on the British Government and Museum. By analyzing the campaign, it is possible to draw conclusions on how the two countries present and represent themselves in the international community regarding their culture, ethics, and self-images. The paper examines the PD aspects that were used by the Greek government for influencing the British (and global) public opinion during and after the official state visit of the Prime Minister. The method of analysis is qualitative content analysis and political discourse analysis in the speeches, interviews, and other methods of PD from 2021 to 2022.

Abstract This article considers how EdTech platform design and EdTech policy implementation in schools combine to contribute to rather than alleviate teachers' workload, constraining professional agency in ways which may contribute to teachers' dissatisfaction and the current teacher retention crisis. Workload has been cited as a leading reason for teachers leaving the profession. Successive OECD Teaching and International Learning Surveys (TALIS) identify increases in teacher workload. English government taskforce recommendations and EdTech policy papers have since promoted education technology (EdTech) as a means to alleviate teacher workload, prevent burnout and improve staff retention. Despite these moves to integrate EdTech into teaching and learning, many teachers do not experience the EdTech‐reduced workload envisioned in policy discourse and political rhetoric. We present narrative interview and survey data drawn from a mixed‐methods place‐based study of teachers' experiences of EdTech, in primary and secondary schools in eastern England. Our analyses problematise conventional understandings of workload and its relationship with EdTech, affording insights through positioning analysis of teachers' ‘small stories’ of EdTech practice and resourcing. We explore the nature and extent of professional agency with EdTech relative to professional efficacy, work efficiency and job satisfaction. Our findings have implications for national and local frameworks guiding teachers' EdTech use. They can inform initial and continuing professional education, contributing differentiated understandings of EdTech's relationships with workload. Our recommendations may support school leaders and teacher educators in facilitating teacher agency with EdTech, so that teachers' choices of EdTech use address workload challenges for job satisfaction and retention.