Etikett: Theconversation.com

Jim Chalmers likes to boast, or marvel, that he is the first treasurer since Ben Chifley to deliver four budgets in a term.

If Labor wins the May election, the treasurer will reckon the budget will be done and dusted for this year. But actually, we really need another budget post election.

That’s for two reasons. First, because this one will be short on any hard reforms or big savings, because it is all about chasing votes.

From roads to health, this year has been give, give, give from the government. Much of the spending has been matched by the opposition. Just in recent days, the Coalition has said yes to the government’s initiatives to boost bulk billing and to reduce the price of pharmaceutical scripts. At the weekend, it instantly embraced the announcement to extend energy bill relief (A$150 dollars off bills in the second half of 2025).

Secondly, the budget could, to an extent, be quickly overtaken because it is being delivered days before the Trump administration’s April 2 tariff announcement. That announcement could have big implications for the world economy, which would flow through to the outlook for Australia.

The international fallout would be more serious for Australia than any direct hits we might take – there are worries around beef exports and pharmaceuticals – although the politics would centre on what happened to our industries.

Given the election context, you will have to look hard for specific “nasties” in this budget. The main negative is likely to be the overall uncertainty about the future.

So specifically, what should we look for on Tuesday? Independent economist Chris Richardson suggests, in an interview with The Conversation, five things to track.

1. The big ‘off-budget’ number

This is where the cost of initiatives does not directly show up in the underlying bottom line (which will be deficits through the forward estimates).

Putting large commitments off budget has increased over the years. Richardson says the Albanese government inherited about $33 billion off-budget spending (over the forward estimates), and in this budget it could be more than $100 billion. This includes spending on student debt relief, the NBN, some housing areas, and infrastructure programs.

Putting lots of items off budget “means less scrutiny and accountability,” Richardson says.

2. Tax reform (or lack thereof)

Richardson’s second item won’t involve much of a search. He asks rhetorically, “Will there be any hint the government is trying to do anything about the narrowing base of the tax take?” That is, anything to lighten the very heavy weight we place on personal and company taxes to raise revenue. As an advocate for tax reform, Richarson expects the budget will contain zero in this area.

3. NDIS spending

What is really happening with reining in spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme? The government has made much of its progress towards bringing the growth in its share of spending on the scheme down to a projected 8% annually.

But Richardson says this is looking at only part of the story. Considerable responsibility is being pushed back onto the states; the federal government agreed to finance half the cost of new services to be delivered through state education and health systems for children with developmental disabilities to curb the burden on the NDIS. “To focus only on the federal spend on the NDIS is to miss the wider cost picture,” he says.

4. The mid-year mystery

How will the budget deal with the “mystery” that existed in its December mid-year update? That update did not seem to account for a rise in wages for public servants, even this was clearly in the pipeline.

5. The Trump factor

The budget will discuss the risks on the downside for the economy, but how will it deal with what is to come from Donald Trump? What assumptions will it contain on the likely actions of an unpredictable president?

Peter Dutton’s Thursday budget reply will draw almost as much attention as the budget itself.
AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi

With the election so close, there will be almost as much interest in Peter Dutton’s Thursday budget reply as in the budget itself.

The understanding is it will contain some new policy. It could hardly do otherwise. But will whatever Dutton announces stand up to scrutiny? If it is too thin, it will reinforce an impression the opposition is not presenting a credible alternative. In last year’s budget reply Dutton announced his proposed migration cuts and that quickly became mired in an argument about whether his numbers fitted together.

Under the spotlight in budget week, the opposition also has to be careful with precisely what is being said and committed to. We’ve seen the confusion over its divestiture policy and about a possible referendum to facilitate the removal of dual citizens.

On Sunday finance spokeswoman Jane Hume gave Labor some material for a scare campaign on the NDIS.

She told Sky, “The NDIS, for instance, is one of those areas in the budget that has run out of control; it was growing at 14% per annum.

”It’s been brought under control somewhat. We think that there’s more that can be done.”

Chalmers immediately jumped on her comments, demanding detail. Labor’s spinners and ad team would have been rubbing their hands. Läs mer…

Faced with some of the worse debt levels in over a decade, African countries are struggling to find ways to balance their books. Increasing revenue sources from their citizens is an obvious place to look.

A good starting point for African countries would be to focus on the tax contribution of wealthy citizens. This is because the most under performing taxes across the African continent are those bearing on the income of wealthy individuals, namely personal income and property taxes.

The reasons for this are two fold: People who are better off in some countries often remain invisible to tax authorities. This is even though they have higher tax liabilities. Compare this with citizens who have formal labour contracts. Think of public school teachers or supermarket clerks. Their taxes are withheld by their employers. This makes tax evasion impossible. Most taxes on personal income in Africa are paid by citizens in these forms of employment.

In contrast, prior to 2015, only one of the top 71 Ugandan government officials and 17 of the country 60 most successful lawyers paid any personal income tax. Similarly, only 16% of all landlords identified in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, during a registration drive in 2021 had registered for taxes.

This shows that wealthy Africans face lower effective tax rates than average citizens, replicating a trend already demonstrated for the relative tax burden of small and large companies.

This situation is disheartening. But there are immediate steps that African revenue authorities can take to address this unfairness.

Research led by the International Centre for Tax and Development, to which I have contributed, shows that revenue increases from wealthy citizens can be obtained by focusing on better enforcement of existing taxes rather than by introducing new ones or hiking tax rates.

An effective approach to increase wealthy citizens tax contribution relies on three strategies:

their identification
a simplification of tax compliance processes, and
the effective enforcement of existing taxes.

While these suggestions might seem banal, they can lead to some quick revenue gains: as much as US$5.5 million in Uganda or US$900,000 in a single Nigerian state in one year, or tripling property tax revenue collection in Sierra Leone.

But these improvements require changes in the way African revenue authorities operate.

Tax collection services need change of focus

Revenue services in all African countries need to be better resourced. A typical tax officer on the continent might be responsible for as many as 10 times the number of taxpayers than a tax officer in the Global North.

First, their efforts need to be redirected away from the registration of small informal businesses. These efforts have been shown to contribute little revenue in countries as diverse as South Africa and Sierra Leone.

Instead their efforts should be directed a developing a definition of high-net-worth individual appropriate for their domestic context. In Uganda this includes criteria such as having performed land transactions of approximately US$300,000 over five years, or earning approximately US$150,000 in rental income in any given year.

Due to its federal structure, criteria in Nigeria vary across states, for example including an yearly income above Naira 2 million in Borno and Kano state, with the threshold raising to Naira 15 million in Imo state, Naira 20 million in Niger state and Naira 25 million in Lagos state.

However, in both countries criteria also cover less directly measurable assets, such as owning high-value commercial forestry or animal ranches in Uganda, or having received contracts from the government in Nigeria’s Kaduna state.

Property taxes are especially important. Research in Ethiopia and Rwanda shows that investing in real estate represents one of the main strategies to store wealth when inflation and foreign exchange fluctuation make bank deposits unattractive.

These properties then contribute to increasing the income of wealthy citizens who rent them out or resell them for profit. While we lack granular data on capital gains or rental income taxes, there are good reasons to think they are also significantly underperforming. Capital gains refers to the additional value which an investor accrues when disposing of assets such as houses or companies share previously bought at a lower price.

Second, this should be followed by the creation of an office to follow the affairs of high net-worth individuals. This already happens for large taxpayers. Most countries, including the majority of anglophone African countries, have a dedicated office following the tax affairs of large companies active in their territory.

Having dedicated resources for high net-worth individuals would be useful because using the international definition (a net worth of US$1 million) might be hard to operationalise. The reason for this is that most revenue authorities lack detailed data on assets owned by their taxpayers. Even when they know some information, such as the number of houses, estimates of their market value might be lacking.

African countries are better off relying on data already in their possession as they seek to collect further useful information on their taxpayers. This allows the establishment of a set of multiple core and non-core criteria.

Third, high-net worth individual units require substantial backing. In the first instance from revenue authorities’ senior management, who in turn needs to have the support of the government in pursuing often well-connected individuals. This backing is needed for actions as apparently easy as obtaining data from other government agencies, without which identification efforts could be quickly thwarted, and becomes crucial when its time to move to enforcement.

However, a cooperative approach should be the initial choice. One approach is voluntary disclosure programmes with associated tax amnesties. These are useful to obtain information about the assets of wealthy citizens. Additionally, they contribute substantial revenue – as much as US$296 million in South Africa and US$192 million in Nigeria.

Fourth, requiring candidates running for public office to obtain tax clearance certificates can also be an important source of information and revenue. This has been shown to work in both Uganda and Nigeria.

This set of actions represents an optimal starting point for African countries looking to improve the tax contribution of wealthy citizens.

Efforts to produce suitable guidance for wealth taxation for low-income countries by the United Nations, or to introduce a global wealth tax on billionaire by the Brazilian G20, are important to highlight the role of fiscal redistribution in addressing inequality. But many African countries are better off by first being bold about the basics of their tax systems, which can already make them more effective and progressive. Läs mer…

Born in the US, Roger Ballen, the internationally renowned photographer, has lived in South Africa since the 1970s.

He gained a cult following for his grotesque, surreal images of white poverty, captured on the rural fringes during apartheid. His work exposed not only the exploitation and marginalisation of his subjects but also the reality of apartheid’s failure to uplift even its privileged white minority.

Lion’s Revenge is a living, moving sculpture with sound effects.
Roger Ballen/Inside Out Centre For the Arts

Over time, Ballen’s practice has expanded beyond photography into a hybrid realm of exhibition, installation and performance. His new Johannesburg space, the Inside Out Centre for the Arts, serves as a theatre for this experimentation.

The name itself, Inside Out, is typically “Ballenesque”, evoking the psychological effect he seeks to instil in viewers: a blurring of perception and reality. His exhibition, End of the Game, is an arresting debut for the centre.

Ballen is committed to challenging perspectives on African narratives. Designed as a platform for thought-provoking exhibitions and educational programmes, Inside Out supports a range of artistic practices, including photography, painting, sculpture, installation, drawing and film.

On a recent visit to the centre, Ballen walks me through the exhibition. As a scholar of literature and visual cultures, I am fascinated with this epic engagement with colonial archives and the history of big game hunting in Africa since the 1700s.

End of the Game.
Inside Out Centre for the Arts

Even though the show’s been up for over a year, there’s no rush to close it, Ballen tells me. It’s become the backdrop of many eclectic events at the centre – live tattooing, poetry performances, curatorial talks, music workshops, film screenings, panel discussions. The centre is also proving popular for school group visits.

Read more:
The real Johannesburg: 6 powerful photos from a gritty new book on the city

End of the Game is a visual and psychological exploration of the African safari – an experience long entwined with adventure, exploration, and the exploitative legacies of colonialism. It delves into humanity’s deep-seated drive to control and assert dominance over nature and wildlife.

A call to action

Entering End of the Game, visitors are greeted by Tarzan posters and a room filled with photos, books and documentary material on colonial hunting. But down the stairs, the experience shifts dramatically.

Inside Out Centre For the Arts

Here, Ballen’s images merge with eerie, mechanised sculptures of taxidermied (stuffed) creatures and unsettling painted tableaus. It feels like a horror-infused natural history museum.

Ballen blurs the line between documentary and constructed imagery, creating existential psychological dramas within haunting interiors.

Through his depictions of people and animals on the fringes of existence, he invites us to confront both our own alienation from the natural world and also the devastating consequences of our destructive behaviour.

Over the years, the scenes in Ballen’s photography have become increasingly elaborate and theatrical. His props, masks, drawings and sculptures have come to feature more prominently than people. The results often look more like mixed media collages than photographs.

Some of these elements are present in End of the Game. It assembles historical artefacts, paintings, colonial and contemporary photographs, as well as carefully staged objects. The result is a critical interrogation of the ecological crisis to which we have contributed. In the context of climate change, the show stands as both a stark indictment and an urgent call to action.

Beyond photography

The impulse to compose images beyond the medium of the photograph is what leads Ballen to collect found objects. He explains the process this way:

I am always trying to find things that don’t necessarily belong together and in making them belong together in a new way … It takes the spectator’s mind on a journey in another direction, which is important in art.

Nothing is static. Everything is in constant motion. The exhibition is immersive. The viewer and the objects are circling each other. Walking through it feels like entering a jungle, the taxidermied animals look poised for confrontation.

Hunter by Roger Ballen.
Inside Out Centre for the Arts

For Ballen, this encounter is both physical and psychological – are animals enemies or figures of beauty? Perhaps coexistence is the question at the work’s core. As he explains it:

A central challenge in my career has been to locate the animal in the human being and the human being in the animal.

As the Tarzan posters make clear from the beginning, the idea of Africa has been hyped through Hollywood clichés. The image of it as a wild continent to be tamed and conquered, an unspoiled paradise, or a playground, has persisted. The romance of the African bush has filled the imagination of many foreign writers.

Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, in his essay How to Write About Africa, satirised this:

Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title.

Here, safari embodies the enduring thrill of conquest.

Victor.
Inside Out Centre for the Arts

In the screen room, a collaged film is shown, made up of old hunting expedition clips found on YouTube. It is travel propaganda of famous hunting expeditions, led by colonialists and influential western figures.

Ballen, a US-trained geologist, was drawn to South Africa to study and work in the mineral extraction field. His deep engagement with the earth’s structure, materials and processes conceptually frames this exhibition, blending the scientific with the surreal.

The show sparks critical conversations on wildlife conservation, responsible tourism and environmental stewardship.

Inside Out

Inside Out was originally intended to be a photography centre, but during construction Ballen started imagining broader possibilities. It evolved into a multi-purpose venue that is a gallery, a theatre and an exhibition space, all in one.

Funeral Wake.
Roger Ballen/Inside Out Centre for the Arts

However, the photography centre remains part of the plan. Ballen has bought the property next door, where the photography centre will now be established. Set to open in the last quarter of 2025, the centre will host photography exhibitions, talks and a bookstore, making it one of Africa’s few dedicated photography centres. Läs mer…

Nigeria’s government launched an initiative in 2024 offering free emergency caesarean sections to poor and vulnerable women, in a plan to bring down the high number of mothers dying in childbirth.

Aduragbemi Banke-Thomas, a maternal and newborn health researcher, and Itohan Osayande, a teaching fellow in public health, discuss the initiative and how it can achieve its objectives.

How serious is the maternal mortality challenge in Nigeria?

Of the 287,000 pregnant women who died in 2020, almost a third were from Nigeria. At 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, Nigeria has the third highest maternal mortality rates globally. This is behind South Sudan and Chad.

The leading causes of maternal deaths are severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure during pregnancy and unsafe abortions. These deaths are mostly preventable if pregnant women get emergency obstetric care, including caesarean sections.

What drives Nigeria’s maternal mortality?

There are several factors.

At an individual level, there is evidence that women delay seeking care, for various reasons. The cost of care and lack of awareness of danger signs are among them. There are also cultural norms that advise against lifesaving measures like caesarean section.

There are also issues related to Nigeria’s healthcare system. Research shows that women don’t always get the care they need when they get to a health facility. This might be because health facilities do not provide care as women cannot afford to pay. For others who cannot pay but receive care, some are unlawfully detained in the health facility until they pay. Other shortcomings include ineffective referral systems and a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals. In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in health professionals migrating to other countries.

Inability to pay means that some women do not even seek care in health facilities. They end up delaying presentation at health facilities or going to traditional birth attendants, putting them and their unborn babies at risk of complications and death.

Beyond the healthcare system, other factors include poor roads to care. Many pregnant women in Nigeria are left to travel to health facilities on their own even in an emergency. In rural areas, women face long travel distances to reach the nearest hospital.

Also, conflict displaces pregnant women and their families from their homes and disrupts access to healthcare.

Will the new initiative reduce deaths?

The initiative aims to increase health facility use and skilled birth attendance by 60%. It also aims to reduce maternal mortality by 30% within three years.

It recognises that Nigeria’s maternal mortality challenge is multi-faceted and only a multi-pronged approach can tackle it. It also recognises that though it is a national problem, solutions need to be driven at sub-national levels.

The scheme includes a suite of community-centred interventions to be implemented starting in the 17 states that contribute over half of the maternal deaths reported in Nigeria. These include:

empowering community-level leaders in Ward Development Committees to track and encourage pregnant women to use maternity services in primary health centres
advocacy by prominent people to promote safe delivery practices
partnering with traditional birth attendants to refer pregnant women to health facilities
revitalising the national emergency medical service and ambulance system
the offer of free caesarean sections for poor and vulnerable women.

The offer of free caesarean sections generated a lot of interest in the global community when it was announced.

What conditions are attached to the free caesarean scheme?

Pregnant women have to be enrolled in Nigeria’s national health insurance scheme to access free caesarean sections.

This is a double-edged sword.

Linking eligibility to health insurance registration offers the federal government and health facilities an opportunity to recoup some costs to sustain the free initiative. Nigerians who have health insurance pay a premium monthly.

However, those who are indigent and cannot afford a caesarean section are mostly not subscribed to the insurance scheme. Before the 2022 National Health Insurance Authority Act, which made health insurance mandatory for all citizens and legal residents, nationwide registration on a health insurance scheme was only 3%. Most of the subscribers work in the formal sector. However, only 19 in 100 Nigerians had health insurance in 2024.

Are there any countries with similar initiatives?

Some African countries have taken steps to improve access to lifesaving maternal healthcare interventions, including caesarean section, by removing user fees.

Examples are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, and Senegal.

Though evidence on the impact of free caesarean section policies on reducing maternal mortality is not conclusive, there are now higher rates of caesarean section, particularly among women from lower-income, rural and less educated backgrounds.

Free delivery and caesarean section policies in Ghana and Burkina Faso led to a 45% reduction in the neonatal mortality rate and 54% reduction in infant mortality rate compared to Nigeria and Zambia where no such policies existed. This suggests that the benefits of such schemes go beyond pregnancy and childbirth.

What needs to happen to ensure the policy succeeds?

There are lessons from countries that have implemented similar schemes.

“Free” caesarean without free delivery may lead to more women being identified as needing a caesarean, since the vaginal childbirth might come at a higher cost to the pregnant woman. While a caesarean can be lifesaving, unnecessary surgeries are not advised, as it is not risk-free. Making both vaginal childbirth and caesarean “free” should be considered.

Free needs to truly mean free. Stockout of medications, blood and blood products, and consumables might force people to pay to get them.

Skilled health personnel must follow clear guidelines to assess whether a caesarean is necessary or not. Audit and feedback on the use of the procedure will help in identifying any patterns of abuse or misuse.

There’s a need to stem the tide of emigrating doctors and nurses so that those who can perform the procedure are in the facilities when pregnant women need care.

The Nigerian government will need to explore innovative financing mechanisms to sustain the policy. With the recent funding cuts and withdrawals in foreign aid from the US, help is unlikely to come from outside.

Giving verified private sector providers incentives to buy into the scheme should also be considered.

The scheme should also be extended to women on community-based health insurance schemes, which are more likely within the financial reach of poorer families.

Its implementation needs to be evidence-based and adaptable for the scheme to succeed. Läs mer…

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 20, 2025, that calls for closing the U.S. Department of Education.

The president needs congressional approval to shutter the department. The order, however, directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

The executive order reflects many recommendations from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative political initiative to revamp the federal government. But it’s worth noting that the foundation’s attempt to abolish the Education Department goes back more than 40 years.

The think tank first called for limiting the federal role in education in 1981. That’s when it issued its first Mandate for Leadership, a book offering conservative policy recommendations.

As a sociology professor focused on diversity and social inequality, I’ve followed the Heritage Foundation’s efforts to eliminate the Department of Education since 1981. Although the idea didn’t garner enough support 44 years ago, the current political climate makes conditions more favorable.

Mandate 1981

In its 1981 mandate, the Heritage Foundation struck now-familiar themes.

Its education policy recommendations included closing the Department of Education and “reducing its controls over American education.”

Additionally, the think tank called on lawmakers to repeal the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provides federal funding for disadvantaged students in K-12, so that “the department’s influence on state and local education policy and practice through discretionary grant authority would disappear.”

And the Heritage Foundation called for ending federal support for programs it claimed were designed to “turn elementary- and secondary-school classrooms into vehicles for liberal-left social and political change …”

The Heritage Foundation building is seen on July 30, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Education experts disputed these proposed reforms just a few years later.

Four educational task forces, composed mainly of educators, corporate executives and politicians, published reports on education in 1983. All four reports were critical of the more liberal education policies of the 1960s and 1970s – such as an emphasis on student feelings about race, for example, rather than a focus on basic skills.

But they all saw the need for a strong federal role in education.

The four reports blamed the U.S. educational system for losing ground to Japan and Western Europe. And all called for more required courses rather than the “curriculum smorgasbord” that had become the norm in many public schools. They all wanted longer school days, longer school years and better-trained teachers.

Nevertheless, President Ronald Reagan tried unsuccessfully to abolish the Department of Education in 1983.

Project 2025

Jumping ahead more than 40 years, Project 2025 reflects many of the main themes the Heritage Foundation addressed in the 1981 mandate. The first line of Project 2025’s chapter on education states: “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.”

The charges of leftist indoctrination have expanded. Now, conservative advocates are calling to eliminate anything that has to do with diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Other executive orders that Trump has signed reflect these attitudes.

For example, they call for defending women from “gender ideology extremism” and eliminating “radical” DEI policies.

According to Project 2025, school choice – which gives students the freedom to choose schools that best fit their needs – should be promoted through tuition tax credits and vouchers that provide students with public funds to attend private school. And federal education programs should either be dismantled or moved to other federal departments.

Current political climate

In the 1980s, the Heritage Foundation was seen as part of the New Right, a coalition that opposed issues such as abortion, homosexuality and affirmative action. The GOP’s alliance with conservative evangelical Christians, mobilized by advocacy groups such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, was picking up steam, but it was still seen as marginal.

By 2025, things have moved significantly to the right.

Conservative Republicans in Congress view the Heritage Foundation as an important voice in educational politics.

The far right is emboldened by Trump after his Cabinet appointments and pardons of Jan. 6 rioters.

And Christian Nationalism – the belief that the United States is defined by Christianity – has grown.

Paul Dans, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2024.
Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Trump’s executive order does not abolish the Education Department. He needs congressional approval to do that.

But he has already weakened it. His administration recently canceled nearly $900 million in contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences, the independent research arm of the Education Department.

Despite public reluctance to eliminate the department – in February, 63% of U.S. residents said they opposed its elimination – it looks like Heritage Foundation influence could cause significant damage, with the additional firing of staff members and the reduced distribution of funds.

McMahon sent a directive to department employees in early March calling the dismantling of their agency a “final mission.” Läs mer…

What if a simple change in your morning light exposure could help you sleep better?

Our sleep patterns change across our lifespan, and, as we get older, we tend to have difficulty getting a good night’s sleep and feeling well rested the next day.

Older adults – 60 years old and over – generally have less deep sleep and wake up more often at night. They also sleep for shorter periods, wake up earlier in the morning and feel sleepy during the day.

Light, especially blue-enriched light (which has a higher amount of blue colours in it, like the light at midday), plays an important role in how well we sleep. This is because our sleep timing and quality is influenced by our internal body clock in the brain – the circadian clock – which relies on light and dark to stay in sync with the external environment.

To achieve this, humans have specialised photoreceptors – light-detecting cells on the retinas at the back of the eyes – that are highly sensitive to blue light. This is likely because we evolved to see the natural bright blue sky during the day, rather than indoor electric lights at night which are much less bright – or blue.

As we age, our eyes change: the lens becomes thicker and yellow, and our pupil size and number of photoreceptors reduce. Less light, then, reaches the biological clock in our brain, making it more difficult to time and regulate our sleep-wake cycles.

To make matters worse, modern society’s electric light and bright screens at night trick our body clock into thinking it is still seeing daylight. Bright light at night contributes further to disruptions in our circadian system – and sleep quality and timing.

So, can improving indoor lighting offer an easier, affordable – and medication-free – solution to these problems? Our latest study, published in GeroScience, suggests it can.

Staying bright

We recruited older adults (over 60 years old) with sleep problems to take part in the study. We asked them to follow a light therapy routine in which they administered blue light to themselves, at home, by sitting in front of light boxes. Each morning and evening, they spent two hours exposed to either blue-enriched or regular white light while going about their usual activities, such as reading or watching TV.

Study participants wore trackers on their wrists to measure their activity levels and sleep patterns. We found that people exposed to more hours of blue light in the morning had better sleep and more stable daily activity – likely due to improved synchronisation of their internal body clock with the external environment.

Our findings are especially exciting because despite the messiness of real-world conditions – morning people naturally started light therapy earlier, while night owls delayed it – they align with the findings of controlled laboratory studies, highlighting the real-life potential of home-based light interventions for better sleep.

Read more:
Why night owls struggle more when the clocks go back

We also found that those who spent more time outdoors in natural daylight were more active during the day and went to bed earlier. This might be because bright light helps keep us alert during the day, making us naturally more tired by bedtime.

Light and dark

Good light exposure isn’t just about bright light in the morning, it is equally about having enough darkness at night. Our study showed that those who spent more time exposed to light in the evening – either blue or white – actually experienced worsened sleep, taking more time to fall asleep and having more restless nights.

This could be explained by the alerting effects of light and suppression of the night hormone, melatonin, which can delay the body’s natural wind-down process.

Read more:
Can melatonin supplements really ’reverse’ DNA damage caused by lack of sleep?

Sleep problems aren’t just frustrating, they can also lead to health issues such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression and anxiety, cognitive decline and reduced productivity.

While we cannot solve the many sleep problems affecting people, we can offer a possible solution for some: exposure to more morning light – by opening the curtains, stepping outside for a walk, or indeed using a bright, blue-enriched light source indoors.

So, why not try it yourself for a few days – and let us know how you get on. Läs mer…

According to an investigation by Hundred Families, a charity that supports and advocates for families affected by mental health homicides, each year an average of 65 mentally ill people carry out killings. Between 2018-2023, 390 mental health patients in England committed, or were suspected of, murder or manslaughter.

The findings come after an independent report exposed a series of NHS failures in the treatment of Valdo Calocane, a man with schizophrenia who killed three people in Nottingham in 2023.

The cases of killers Calocane and Axel Rudakubana – who stabbed three small girls to death and attempted to kill several others in Southport in 2024 when he was 17 years-old – have sparked fierce debate over the place within wider society of people with severe mental health issues. According to many, it appears they don’t have one.

Calocane and Rudakubana were labelled “evil”, “sadistic” and “cowardly”, amid renewed calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

When sentencing Rudakubana to a minimum term of 52 years in January 2025, Mr Justice Goose said: “Many who have heard the evidence might describe what he did as evil, who could dispute it?”

Public opinion on the likes of Calocane and Rudakubana seems clear: they are monsters, capable only of inflicting misery on others. At best, they don’t deserve to live among right-minded people. At worst, they don’t deserve to live at all.

It’s now known that both Calocane and Rudakubana had received treatment for severe mental health issues but stopped engaging with health services before committing their crimes. In the eyes of many – including media commentators, politicians and sizeable swaths of the public – suffering severe mental health illness doesn’t affect someone’s responsibility for their actions.

As a human being, I regard the prevailing narrative around stories such as Calocane’s and Rudakubana’s with a tremendous sense of sadness. As an academic specialising in social and cultural perspectives of mental health, I regard it with a profound sense of frustration – and maybe even failure. Let me try to explain why.

A question of accountability

A key reason why those with severe mental health issues are customarily condemned as wicked and irredeemable is that we continue to believe that a person should invariably be held accountable for their own actions. This is a damagingly simplistic view.

Media coverage of Rudakubana often described him as ‘evil’

Anyone who has worked in the field of mental health knows there are many cases in which people’s minds, to all intents and purposes, aren’t their own. Those, like Calocane, suffering from an overwhelming condition such as schizophrenia, for example, frequently have no grasp of reality and have hampered moral reasoning.

It’s reasonable to say some people with severe mental health issues can represent a danger to themselves and others. But this doesn’t mean they should be abandoned or “locked up”. What they need is support from mental health systems that are genuinely integrated, effective and reliable.

Calocane and Rudakubana’s victims, their families and all those cruelly affected by their crimes were catastrophically let down in this respect. But so were Calocane and Rudakubana. The notion that the pair “stopped engaging” is a poor excuse for the cataclysmic shortcomings of a system that should be rooted in diligence, outreach and persistent follow-ups.

However uncomfortable the idea, much of the accountability here lies not with the killers – and that, of course, is what they are – but with those who left them unsupported and in a position to devastate others’ lives and their own. Ultimately, it’s the system itself that disengages – sometimes with the most appalling consequences.

When findings alone aren’t enough

Numerous studies have shown how those in the grip of psychosis and similar illnesses don’t choose to be “evil”. They don’t choose to experience horrific delusions about the world around them. They don’t choose to endure hallucinations that tell them to carry out terrible acts.

Yet the broader public seems to have little or no interest in such findings. Alarmingly, the same might be said of many policymakers. Their knowledge and opinions are instead more likely to be shaped by rhetoric and knee-jerk denunciation.

This goes to the heart of a major challenge for academics in my own field and for the research community as a whole: how best to communicate our work and make it truly accessible. We need to accept that research alone is often woefully insufficient.

A few years ago, in collaboration with Aardman Animations, the studio behind household names such as Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, I produced a series of short films highlighting young people’s mental health. In months, these films reached an audience of more than 17 million. More recently, in another effort to spread the word, I wrote The Wonders of Doctor Bent, a novel that explores society’s lingering propensity to treat isolated and tormented people with the utmost contempt.

None of this is to say research is pointless – yet it’s surely of limited value if the insights it delivers remain largely unacknowledged, especially where matters of the most extraordinary significance are concerned.

As the unhelpful clamour around mental health and “monsters” drags on, the lesson is both clear and familiar: the best way of having conversations about stigma, responsibility and the cost of abdicating our social obligations to those suffering from severe mental illness is to involve the whole of society. Not just the mental health community, police and the justice system, but the general public as well. Läs mer…

According to an investigation by Hundred Families, a charity that supports and advocates for families affected by mental health homicides, each year an average of 65 mentally ill people carry out killings. Between 2018-2023, 390 mental health patients in England committed, or were suspected of, murder or manslaughter.

The findings come after an independent report exposed a series of NHS failures in the treatment of Valdo Calocane, a man with schizophrenia who killed three people in Nottingham in 2023.

The cases of killers Calocane and Axel Rudakubana – who stabbed three small girls to death and attempted to kill several others in Southport in 2024 when he was 17 years-old – have sparked fierce debate over the place within wider society of people with severe mental health issues. According to many, it appears they don’t have one.

Calocane and Rudakubana were labelled “evil”, “sadistic” and “cowardly”, amid renewed calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

When sentencing Rudakubana to a minimum term of 52 years in January 2025, Mr Justice Goose said: “Many who have heard the evidence might describe what he did as evil, who could dispute it?”

Public opinion on the likes of Calocane and Rudakubana seems clear: they are monsters, capable only of inflicting misery on others. At best, they don’t deserve to live among right-minded people. At worst, they don’t deserve to live at all.

It’s now known that both Calocane and Rudakubana had received treatment for severe mental health issues but stopped engaging with health services before committing their crimes. In the eyes of many – including media commentators, politicians and sizeable swaths of the public – suffering severe mental health illness doesn’t affect someone’s responsibility for their actions.

As a human being, I regard the prevailing narrative around stories such as Calocane’s and Rudakubana’s with a tremendous sense of sadness. As an academic specialising in social and cultural perspectives of mental health, I regard it with a profound sense of frustration – and maybe even failure. Let me try to explain why.

A question of accountability

A key reason why those with severe mental health issues are customarily condemned as wicked and irredeemable is that we continue to believe that a person should invariably be held accountable for their own actions. This is a damagingly simplistic view.

Media coverage of Rudakubana often described him as ‘evil’

Anyone who has worked in the field of mental health knows there are many cases in which people’s minds, to all intents and purposes, aren’t their own. Those, like Calocane, suffering from an overwhelming condition such as schizophrenia, for example, frequently have no grasp of reality and have hampered moral reasoning.

It’s reasonable to say some people with severe mental health issues can represent a danger to themselves and others. But this doesn’t mean they should be abandoned or “locked up”. What they need is support from mental health systems that are genuinely integrated, effective and reliable.

Calocane and Rudakubana’s victims, their families and all those cruelly affected by their crimes were catastrophically let down in this respect. But so were Calocane and Rudakubana. The notion that the pair “stopped engaging” is a poor excuse for the cataclysmic shortcomings of a system that should be rooted in diligence, outreach and persistent follow-ups.

However uncomfortable the idea, much of the accountability here lies not with the killers – and that, of course, is what they are – but with those who left them unsupported and in a position to devastate others’ lives and their own. Ultimately, it’s the system itself that disengages – sometimes with the most appalling consequences.

When findings alone aren’t enough

Numerous studies have shown how those in the grip of psychosis and similar illnesses don’t choose to be “evil”. They don’t choose to experience horrific delusions about the world around them. They don’t choose to endure hallucinations that tell them to carry out terrible acts.

Yet the broader public seems to have little or no interest in such findings. Alarmingly, the same might be said of many policymakers. Their knowledge and opinions are instead more likely to be shaped by rhetoric and knee-jerk denunciation.

This goes to the heart of a major challenge for academics in my own field and for the research community as a whole: how best to communicate our work and make it truly accessible. We need to accept that research alone is often woefully insufficient.

A few years ago, in collaboration with Aardman Animations, the studio behind household names such as Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, I produced a series of short films highlighting young people’s mental health. In months, these films reached an audience of more than 17 million. More recently, in another effort to spread the word, I wrote The Wonders of Doctor Bent, a novel that explores society’s lingering propensity to treat isolated and tormented people with the utmost contempt.

None of this is to say research is pointless – yet it’s surely of limited value if the insights it delivers remain largely unacknowledged, especially where matters of the most extraordinary significance are concerned.

As the unhelpful clamour around mental health and “monsters” drags on, the lesson is both clear and familiar: the best way of having conversations about stigma, responsibility and the cost of abdicating our social obligations to those suffering from severe mental illness is to involve the whole of society. Not just the mental health community, police and the justice system, but the general public as well. Läs mer…

In an increasingly polarised world, the arts and humanities play a key role in sustaining democracy. They foster critical thinking, open dialogue, emotional intelligence and understanding across different perspectives, all of which are essential for a healthy democratic society. Also, people who participate in cultural activities are much more likely to engage in civic and democratic life.

Yet the way the arts are funded differs widely from country to country, especially in times of economic hardship or significant change. During and after the pandemic, for instance, some EU countries increased public spending on culture, while others made significant cuts.

The reasons for these contrasting attitudes are many, from local cultural values, to shifting economic priorities and politics. But at their core, different funding strategies express different attitudes towards two questions: what contribution does art make in times of crisis? And how do communities express their experiences of uncertainty?

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As I argue in my recent book Facing Crisis: Art as Politics in Fourteenth-Century Venice, the medieval city of Venice provides a remarkable historical example for addressing these questions.

Between the sixth and 12th centuries, Venice grew into an independent city-state ruled by an elected council and an elected head of state, called the doge.

Set on an island, the city lacked some of the resources necessary to its survival, so it quickly established strong maritime trade networks across the Mediterranean. It gradually developed into an international merchant empire, acquiring strategic territories along the eastern Adriatic Coast, Greece and the Aegean Sea.

By the mid-14th century, Venice was a leading global power. Yet, between 1340 and 1355, the city also faced famine, plague, a violent earthquake and fierce military conflicts with Genoa and the Ottomans.

The Pala d’Oro, the gold Byzantine altarpiece in St Mark’s basilica.
Steve Tulley / Alamy

Internally, Venice tackled dramatic political tensions (including a coup and the public execution of a doge in 1355), as non-noble citizens were gradually excluded from public office. Strikingly, it was during this period of acute crisis that the government initiated a series of ambitious artistic projects in the state church of San Marco.

A new baptistery and a chapel dedicated to Saint Isidore of Chios were lavishly decorated with mosaics. In addition, the high altar, which provided religious focus for the faithful, was revamped. This included turning its uniquely precious golden altarpiece into spectacular moving machinery that would open and close to reveal different images daily, and on feast days.

These projects, which required substantial public spending at a time of financial strain, hardly represented business as usual for Venetian policymakers. Instead, they were a central part of the government’s wider response to crisis.

On one level, these new projects revealed the range of pressing concerns that engulfed the Venetian government and people at the time. The painted altarpiece displayed on the altar of San Marco on non-festive days exhibits an emphasis on human suffering, miracles and saintly interventions that may relate the need for reassurance in uncertain times.

The Palo Feriale, the ‘weekday’ altarpiece in St Mark’s basilica, painted on wood panels, completed in 1345.
Artgen / Alamy

The bloody conflict against Genoa likely influenced the dedication of a chapel to St Isidore. The saint’s body was transported to Venice from the Greek island of Chios, a vital Genoese stronghold in the 14th century. To the people of Venice, the physical presence of St Isidore’s relics in San Marco provided reassurance and the promise of protection and victory as their state engaged in a risky conflict.

Finally, uncertainty about the nature and boundaries of citizenship and political authority – which the expansion of Venice’s overseas territories transformed into an ever more urgent problem – offer a valuable way to interpret the imagery in the baptistery. Here the apostles are rendered in mosaic as they baptise the “nations of the earth”, offering an idealised image of union in diversity.

Yet, on another level, the projects sponsored by the Venetian government during this period represented the active exercising of the political imagination. In ways that some of us may find alarmingly familiar, Venice’s ongoing instability made traditional approaches to decision-making, communication and control ineffective in dealing with the challenges it faced.

Venice’s governors responded to the crisis which threatened the very survival and stability of the city and its political foundations with a wide-ranging strategy of legal, institutional and historical revision, aimed at clarifying the nature and functions of the Venetian state.

The government reaffirmed Venice’s civic laws and reorganised its international treaties. The authority of the doge was progressively restricted, and over time, the government clarified the rules for holding public office. The first official history of Venice was completed in 1352.

In this context, the San Marco projects did not merely express the anxiety of the Venetian people, or their hopes for renewed stability. They represented the establishing of a new political landscape, which was envisioned most clearly on the east wall of the baptistery.

Three secular figures – a doge and two officers – are depicted as kneeling supplicants within a monumental mosaic of the crucifixion (see the main headline image above). Blending the sacred with the secular, this image offered an abstract “state portrait” that simultaneously expressed a political reality and suggested a new political ideal.

Harvard University Press

The mosaic now rendered Venice’s doge as a humble ruler, and it represented the business of government as a collective enterprise. In so doing, this image articulated a new vision of government as public service and shared responsibility. This idea, which developed through political reforms in Venice and from broader debates in other medieval Italian city states, has went on to influence western approaches to government and public life to this day.

Venice’s state-sponsored artistic commissions were not propaganda in the modern sense. Instead, they offered a compelling visual reflection on the nature of leadership and the necessary limits of authority. They kindled a new vision of government that enabled Venice to navigate one of the most turbulent phases of its history – reminding us, too, of the power of the arts to inspire and imagine new futures in difficult times. Läs mer…

A movement that wanted to merge North America into one nation and extend its borders as far as the Panama Canal might sound incredibly familiar. But this group, called the “technocracy movement”, was a group of 1930s nonconformists with big ideas about how to rearrange US society. They proposed a vision that would get rid of waste and make North America highly productive by using technology and science.

The Technocrats, sometimes also called Technocracy Inc, proposed merging Canada, Greenland, Mexico, the US and parts of central America into a single continental unit. This they called a “Technate”. It was to be governed by technocratic principles, rather than by national borders and traditional political divisions.

These ideas seem to resonate with some recent statements from the Trump administration about merging the US with Canada. Meanwhile, the US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) set up by Trump and led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has also outlined a vision of efficiency cuts by slashing bureaucracy, jobs and getting rid of leaders of organisations and civil servants he thinks are advancing “woke” values (such as diversity initiatives). This slash-and-burn approach also fits with some of the ideas of the Technocrats.

In February, Musk said: “We really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people — democracy”. The Technocrats viewed elected politicians as incompetent. They advocated replacing them with experts in science and engineering, who would “objectively” manage resources for the benefit of society.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what the people are going to get,” Musk told reporters after visiting the White House last month.

What did the Technocrats want to get rid of?

The 1930s’ movement was an educational and research organisation that advocated for a fundamental reorganisation of political, social and economic structures in the US and Canada. It drew on a book called Technocracy published in 1921 by an engineer called Walter Henry Smyth, which captured new ideas about management and science.

The movement gained significant attention during the Great Depression, a period of mass unemployment and economic problems lasting from 1929 to 1939. This was a time when widespread economic failures prompted radical ideas for systemic change. Technocracy appealed to those who saw technological advancements as a potential solution to economic inefficiency and inequality.

The Technocrats gained traction largely due to the work of Howard Scott, an engineer and economist, along with a group of engineers and academics from Columbia University. In 1932, Scott founded the Technical Alliance, which later evolved into Technocracy Inc.

Scott and his followers held lectures, published pamphlets and attracted a significant following, particularly among engineers, scientists and progressive thinkers. The movement may have influenced the design of future concepts such as planned communities and economies using more automation.

The movement’s ideological foundation was built on the belief that industrial production and distribution should be managed scientifically. Advocates argued that traditional economic systems such as capitalism and socialism were inefficient and prone to corruption, but that a scientifically planned economy could ensure abundance, stability and fairness.

An image from the Cornell University collection on the Technocracy movement.
Cornell University – PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography

In the 1930s, members of Technocracy Inc sought to replace market-based economies and political governance with a system where experts made decisions based on data, efficiency and technological feasibility. Technocrats aimed to regulate consumption and production based on energy efficiency, rather than market forces.

Technocrats also believed that mechanisation and automation could eliminate much of the need for human labour, reducing work hours while maintaining productivity. Goods and services would be distributed based on scientific calculations of need and sustainability.

While the movement saw rapid growth in the early 1930s, it quickly lost momentum by the mid-to-late 1930s. Echoing some of the concerns of contemporary Americans, critics feared that a government run by unelected experts would lead to a form of authoritarian rule, where decisions were made without public input or democratic oversight.

Technocracy reborn?

But are we seeing a rebirth of some of these kinds of ideas in 2025? Musk has a familial connection with the movement, so is likely to be aware of it. His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman was a notable figure in the technocracy movement in Canada during the 1930s and 1940s.

Musk’s ventures, such as the electric car giant Tesla, his space programme SpaceX, and neurotechnology company Neuralink prioritise innovation and automation, which aligns with the Technocrats’ vision of optimising human civilisation through scientific and technological means.

Tesla’s push for autonomous vehicles powered by renewable energy, for instance, chime with the movement’s early aspirations for an energy-efficient, machine-managed society. Additionally, SpaceX’s ambition to colonise Mars reflects the belief that technological ingenuity can overcome the limitations of living on Earth.

What Trump would disagree with

There are some significant differences between the current US government and the Technocrats, however. Musk’s approach to commerce remains firmly embedded in the free market.

His ventures thrive on competition and private enterprise rather than that of centralised, expert-led planning. And while the Technocrats believed in the abolition of money, wages and traditional forms of trade, the Trump administration clearly doesn’t.

Trump believes that politicians like him should run the country, along with partners such as Musk. Technocrats worried about elected politicians being driven by self-interest, but the current US administration seems to value mixing business interests with government decisions.

Although the technocracy movement never became a dominant force, its ideas influenced later discussions on topics such as scientific management and economic planning. The concept of data-driven governance championed by the Technocracy movement is part of modern planning, especially in areas like energy efficiency and urban planning.

The rise of AI and big data has reignited discussions about the role (and reach) of technocracy in modern society. In countries including Singapore and China governance is dominated by departments headed by those with technological backgrounds, who gain an elite status.

In the 1930s, the Technocrats faced significant criticism. The unions, more powerful than today, were almost entirely supportive of the progressive New Deal and its protection of workers’ rights, rather than the Technocrats. The US public’s resurgent belief in the US government during the New Deal era was far greater than today’s declining support in its political institutions, so those institutions would have been better equipped to resist challenges than they are today.

The technocracy movement of the 1930s may have faded, but its central ideas continue to shape contemporary debates about the intersection of technology and governmental planning. And, possibly, who should be in charge. Läs mer…