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China’s marriage rate is in steep decline. There were 6.1 million marriage registrations nationwide in 2024, down from 7.7 million the previous year. This decline has prompted Chen Songxi, a Chinese national political adviser, to propose lowering the legal marriage age from 22 to 18.

The drop in China’s marriage rate has been driven by a combination of factors. These include increased economic pressures, evolving social attitudes towards marriage, and higher levels of education.

Urban Chinese women, in particular, are increasingly pushing back against traditional gender expectations, which emphasise marriage and childbearing as essential life milestones. Rising living costs are also making it increasingly difficult for many young people to afford to get married.

At the same time, China is grappling with a longstanding gender imbalance, a legacy of the country’s sweeping one-child policy and cultural preference for male children. In the early 2000s, when the imbalance was at its peak, China’s sex ratio at birth reached 121 boys for every 100 girls. For every 100 girls born in some provinces, there were more than 130 boys.

The gender imbalance is particularly pronounced among those born in the 1980s, a generation I belong to. This is due to the widespread use of ultrasound technology from the mid-1980s onward, which offered parents the ability to terminate pregnancies if their child was female.

Unmarried men in China have become part of the so-called “era of leftover men” (shengnan shidai in Chinese). This is an internet term that loosely refers to the period between 2020 and 2050, when an estimated 30 million to 50 million Chinese men are expected to be unable to find a wife.

A Chinese couple walk through Beijing with their child in 2015.
TonyV3112 / Shutterstock

The conundrum is that many of these “leftover” men want to marry – I know this firsthand. Some of my peers from primary and secondary school have been desperately searching for a wife, but have struggled to find a spouse. A widely used phrase in China, “difficulty in getting married” (jiehun nan), encapsulates this struggle.

Unable to find a domestic spouse, some Chinese men have turned to “purchasing” foreign brides. The growing demand for these brides, particularly in rural areas, has fuelled a rise in illegal marriages. This includes marriages involving children and women who have been trafficked into China primarily from neighbouring countries in south-east Asia.

According to a Human Rights Watch report released in 2019 on bride trafficking from Myanmar to China “a porous border and lack of response by law enforcement agencies on both sides [has] created an environment in which traffickers flourish”.

The Chinese government has now pledged to crack down on the industry. In March 2024, China’s Ministry of Public Security launched a campaign against the transnational trafficking of women and children, calling for enhanced international cooperation to eliminate these crimes.

‘Purchased’ foreign brides

These marriages are often arranged through informal networks or commercial agencies, both of which are illegal according to China’s state council.

Human Rights Watch says that women and girls in neighbouring countries are typically tricked by brokers who promise well-paid employment in China. They find themselves at the mercy of the brokers once they reach China, and are sold for between US$3,000 (£2,300) and US$13,000 to Chinese men.

Determining the extent of illegal cross-border marriages in China is challenging due to the clandestine nature of these activities. But the most recent data from the UK’s Home Office suggests that 75% of Vietnamese human-trafficking victims were smuggled to China, with women and children making up 90% of cases.

The Woman from Myanmar, an award-winning documentary from 2022, follows the story of a trafficked Myanmar woman who was sold into marriage in China. The film exposes the harsh realities faced by many trafficked brides.

It captures not only the coercion and abuse many of these women endure, but also their struggle for autonomy and survival in a system that treats them as commodities. Larry, a trafficked woman who features in the documentary, explained that she saw her capacity to bear children as her pathway to survival.

The Chinese authorities constantly warn of scams involving brides purchased from abroad. In November 2024, for example, two people were prosecuted over their involvement in an illegal cross-border matchmaking scheme. Chinese men were lured into extremely expensive “marriage tours” abroad with promises of “affordable” foreign wives.

There have also been cases where the undocumented brides themselves have disappeared with large sums of money before marriage arrangements are completed.

Most of the foreign brides are trafficked into China from neighbouring countries in south-east Asia.
MuchMania / Shutterstock

China’s marriage crisis has far-reaching implications for the country’s demographic future. A shrinking and ageing population is often cited as the greatest challenge for Chinese economic growth and social stability. Beijing has resisted this characterisation, saying that constant technological innovations will continue to drive economic growth.

The labour force is undoubtedly important when it comes to economic growth. But according to Justin Lin Yifu, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference advisory body, what matters more is effective labour – the product of both the quantity and quality of the labour force.

China has increased its investment in education continually over recent years in anticipation of future challenges surrounding its ageing population.

But, notwithstanding this, an even greater concern is the large number of leftover men, as this could pose a serious threat to social stability. Studies have found a positive correlation between high male-to-female sex ratios and crime rates both in China and India, where there is also a significant gender imbalance.

In China, research has found that skewed male sex ratios have accounted for around 14% of the rise in crime since the mid-1990s. And in India, modelling suggests that a 5.5% rise in the male sex ratio would increase the odds of unmarried women being harassed by more than 20%.

The question of who China’s leftover men will marry is becoming a pressing issue for Beijing. The government’s response will shape the country’s future for decades to come. Läs mer…

Optical illusions are great fun, and they fool virtually everyone. But have you ever wondered if you could train yourself to unsee these illusions? Our latest research suggests that you can.

Optical illusions tell a lot about how people see things. For example, look at the picture below.

The Ebbinghaus illusion.
Hermann Ebbinghaus

The two orange circles are identical, but the one on the right looks bigger. Why?
We use context to figure out what we are seeing. Something surrounded by smaller things is often quite big. Our visual system takes context into account, so it judges the orange circle on the right as bigger than the one on the left.

This illusion was discovered by German psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus in the 19th century. This and similar geometrical illusions have been studied by psychologists ever since.

How much you are affected by illusions like these depends on who you are. For example, women are more affected by the illusion than men – they see things more in context.

Young children do not see illusions at all. To a five-year-old, the two orange circles look the same. It takes time to learn how to use context cues.

Neurodevelopmental conditions similarly affect illusion perception. People with autism or schizophrenia are less likely to see illusions. This is because these people tend to pay greater attention to the central circle, and less to the surrounding ones.

The culture you grew up in also affects how much you attend to context. Research has found that east Asian perception is more holistic, taking everything into account. Western perception is more analytic, focusing on central objects.

These differences would predict greater illusion sensitivity in east Asia. And true enough, Japanese people seem to experience much stronger effects than British people in this kind of illusion.

This may also depend on environment. Japanese people typically live in urban environments. In crowded urban scenes, being able to keep track of objects relative to other objects is important. This requires more attention to context. Members of the nomadic Himba tribe in the almost uninhabited Namibian desert do not seem to be fooled by the illusion at all.

Gender, developmental, neurodevelopmental and cultural differences are all well established when it comes to optical illusions. However, what scientists did not know until now is whether people can learn to see illusions less intensely.

A hint came from our previous work comparing mathematical and social scientists’ judgements of illusions (we work in universities, so we sometimes study our colleagues). Social scientists, such as psychologists, see illusions more strongly.

Researchers like us have to take many factors into account. Perhaps this makes us more sensitive to context even in the way we see things. But also, it could be that your visual style affects what you choose to study. One of us (Martin) went to university to study physics, but left with a psychology degree. As it happens, his illusion perception is much stronger than normal.

Training your illusion skills

Despite all these individual differences, researchers have always thought that you have no choice over whether you see the illusion. Our recent research challenges this idea.

Radiologists need to be able to rapidly spot important information in medical scans. Doing this often means they have to ignore surrounding detail.

Radiologists train extensively, so does this make them better at seeing through illusions? We found it does. We studied 44 radiologists, compared to over 100 psychology and medical students.

Below is one of our images. The orange circle on the left is 6% smaller than the one on the right. Most people in the study saw it as larger.

The orange circle on the left is actually smaller.
Radoslaw Wincza, CC BY-NC-ND

Here is another image. Most non-radiologists still saw the left one as bigger. Yet, it is 10% smaller. Most radiologists got this one right.

Does the left orange circle look bigger or smaller to you?
Radoslaw Wincza, CC BY-NC-ND

It was not until the difference was nearly 18%, as shown in the image below, that most non-radiologists saw through the illusion.

The left orange circle is smaller.
Radoslaw Wincza, CC BY-NC-ND

Radiologists are not entirely immune to the illusion, but are much less susceptible. We also looked at radiologists just beginning training. Their illusion perception was no better than normal. It seems radiologists’ superior perception is a result of their extensive training.

According to current theories of expertise, this shouldn’t happen. Becoming an expert in chess, for example, makes you better at chess but not anything else. But our findings suggest that becoming an expert in medical image analysis also makes you better at seeing through some optical illusions.

There is plenty left to find out. Perhaps the most intriguing possibility is that training on optical illusions can improve radiologists’ skills at their own work.

So, how can you learn to see through illusions? Simple. Just five years of medical school, then seven more of radiology training and this skill can be yours too. Läs mer…

The NHS was hit hard by COVID. And no amount of appreciative clapping or painted rainbows could distract from the vulnerabilities which were exposed by the pandemic – or the challenges it created.

Some of those challenges – like the staggering backlog in patient care, or the huge mental and physical toll experienced by staff – will take years to overcome.

And anyone compelled to attend a hospital in the UK at the moment can see the evidence at first hand. Wards are very busy and staff are overstretched.

This is part of the legacy of a fast-spreading virus which killed 232,112 people in the UK and left an estimated 2 million suffering from the effects of long-COVID. It demanded urgent action from hospitals and health workers and brought immediate and widespread disruption to routine care, with appointments for elective surgery, cancer screenings and chronic disease management all delayed.

One 2024 study I worked on analysed appointment cancellations for cancer patients during the pandemic, and found that they waited an average of 19 days longer than before for rescheduled appointments. (Mortality rates remained stable though, indicating that the NHS effectively prioritised the most urgent cases.)

This kind of disruption has left the healthcare system facing a monumental backlog, with treatment waiting lists soaring to record levels. According to the British Medical Association, there are over 7.5 million people now on waiting lists (compared to 4.5 million before the pandemic) – and those waiting times are longer.

Cutting this waiting list is apparently one of the prime ministers’s priorities. But there is no easy fix.

The basic infrastructure of the NHS – the buildings, IT equipment, offices – is creaking, with outdated facilities, insufficient beds and a lack of specialised equipment. And one study suggests that capital funding – investment in assets that will be used for more than a year – for NHS trusts in England is down by 21% over the past five years.

This is primarily because the Department of Health and Social Care has been diverting long-term investment funds to cover day-to-day operational costs such as staff salaries and medicines.

Since 2019, £500 million of capital investment has been cancelled or postponed. And while overall NHS budgets have been growing, the increased spending has often been absorbed by inflation, rising demand and the need to address immediate pressures. This leaves little for infrastructure upgrades, new equipment or technological advancements.

The Health Foundation has warned that the lack of a long-term capital funding strategy could further jeopardise patient care in the future. Many NHS facilities no longer meet the needs of a modern health service, with some hospitals requiring complete refurbishment or replacement rather than just repairs.

And of course, treating patients is not just about equipment and buildings. Nurses and doctors are under extreme pressure, facing unprecedented levels of stress, burnout and trauma. A recent survey revealed that one in three NHS doctors are experiencing extreme tiredness, impairing their ability to treat patients effectively.

NHS key workers wave from inside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, May 2020.
Guy William/Shutterstock

A similar number said their ability to practice medicine may have been negatively affected by fatigue, with some even reporting cases of patient harm or a near-miss incident.

Stressed NHS

And although the NHS workforce has actually grown over the past five years, it has not been sufficient to reduce waiting lists, deal with growing demand, or improve staff morale. Anxiety, stress and depression accounted for for over 624,300 working days lost in one month last year.

Without a healthy and motivated workforce, the NHS’s recovery efforts will remain severely hampered. Other contributing factors include increased demand for healthcare services, partly due to an ageing population and the growing prevalence of chronic conditions.

To address these challenges, the NHS needs a modernised approach to patient care. Research suggests that technology including telemedicine (online consultations) and AI-driven diagnostics, could streamline services and reduce waiting times.

Other possible steps include the expansion of community diagnostic centres, to ease access to tests, and screenings, to improve efficiency.

Overall, the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of a robust and resilient healthcare system. As the NHS navigates its own path to recovery, it must prioritise both immediate solutions to the backlog crisis and long-term strategies. This will require significant investment, but also a commitment to innovation and the wellbeing of healthcare workers.

The road ahead for the NHS will be tricky, but with the right measures in place, it could emerge stronger and more resilient than ever. The lessons learned from COVID should serve as a catalyst for transformative change, ensuring that the UK’s healthcare system is better prepared to face whatever the future may hold. Läs mer…

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has announced plans to abolish NHS England, the organisation that oversees and manages the NHS in England, employing 19,000 people.

He declared he was bringing the NHS back under “democratic control” and cutting unnecessary bureaucracy by moving oversight of the NHS back into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). This will reverse plans put in place by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2013 when it tried to “take the politics out of the NHS” by having NHS England as an independent body.

The NHS is the largest public sector organisation in England, seeing 1.7 million people each day including in patients’ own homes, local GP surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals. It employs 1.7 million people, is funded largely out of general taxation, and has an annual budget of about £190 billion.

The NHS is, however, one of the most centrally organised health systems in the world. This contrasts with many European and other countries where there is typically a national ministry of health to set strategy, with the detail of how this is implemented being left to regional and local councils, health authorities and hospitals.

Some analysts have suggested that the NHS has become even more centrally managed in recent years, but the truth is it has always been held very close by its political masters.

The NHS employs 1.7 million people.
Colin McPherson / Alamy Stock Photo

On the face of it, there are advantages to abolishing NHS England, allowing DHSC to focus on clarifying politicians’ priorities for how and on what NHS funding will be spent. These will include reducing waiting lists for operations, making it easier to get an appointment with a GP, and ensuring that emergency departments can deal quickly with patients without resorting to “corridor care”.

In turn, local NHS organisations such as integrated care boards (who among other things organise GP, dental, pharmacy and optometry services) and NHS trusts (who run hospitals, community, mental health and ambulance services) can concentrate on making sure these policy priorities are put into practice in ways that work best for local communities.

NHS England has a range of other important roles that will need to be reallocated, whether to an expanded DHSC or elsewhere. These include planning the training of healthcare staff, organising vaccination and screening programmes, purchasing medicines, and collating huge amounts of data about NHS activity and performance.

The government has also announced plans to halve staffing in the 42 local integrated care boards, so any move of former NHS England roles to this level will probably only happen if these local boards merge, which now seems likely.

The government appears therefore to have signalled another NHS management “redisorganisation” – something the NHS has suffered on a periodic basis, a consequence of its highly centralised and political nature. Research evidence is clear that management reorganisations struggle to achieve their objectives, causing instead significant distraction away from work to improve services for patients.

In his major review of the NHS for the new Labour government in September 2024, Lord Ara Darzi – a former Labour health minister – highlighted the urgent need for more skilled and effective managers to support NHS staff in restoring and improving the service after years of economic austerity and the challenges of the pandemic. This seems to run counter to recent announcements about “cutting bureaucracy”.

With careful planning, there is, however, potential for the abolition of NHS England to lead to a slimmer DHSC (more akin to some of its European counterparts) with a smaller number of well-resourced and managed integrated care boards who could effectively steer, support and monitor local NHS trusts and primary care services.

In 2002, Alan Milburn, then secretary of state for health in Tony Blair’s government, issued a white paper called Shifting the Balance of Power Within the NHS. Milburn is now a leading figure in the Starmer government’s health team, so it is perhaps not surprising that we have these new plans to slim the policy centre, shift power and decision-making more locally, and enable stronger accountability to politicians and the public.

What is likely to happen?

What will matter as much as what is done is how these changes are made. The government has Lord Darzi’s clear and comprehensive diagnosis of the NHS’s problems. It now needs to prioritise what should be done first and what can wait, and has made a good start on this with its recent planning guidance to the NHS.

What will be much more difficult will be to decide exactly how to reduce and then abolish NHS England – doing this in a way that ensures important roles are moved smoothly to DHSC, integrated care boards and NHS trusts.

History is not encouraging. There is a big risk that NHS managers will find themselves focusing too much attention on handling a major reorganisation when they (and patients) would rather they concentrate on improving services.

The government clearly wants to hold on to setting policy direction for the NHS while letting go of the detail of implementation to local level. But ultimately, it will be held to account by a population impatient for improvements to NHS services. Läs mer…

Sir Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, announced on March 13 that the government will move to abolish NHS England in the next two years. During this period, the government plans to bring its functions under the UK’s health ministry, with the aim of bringing the health service “into democratic control”. What does this mean, and what difference will it make?

When the NHS was established in 1948, part of the aim was to make the local health problems of patients across the country the concern of the national government. The plan succeeded. Today, the NHS is politically highly important – it matters enormously to patients and the public, and has one of the largest spending budgets in the UK.

At the same time, it is technically difficult to manage, with local needs and opportunities and complex organisation that are hard and sometimes inefficient to manage centrally.

Striking the balance between delivering high-quality patient care and addressing the technical complexity of doing so is a continual challenge for governments. The solution chosen as part of the 2012 health and welfare reforms was to establish NHS England as an organisationally independent government body to provide technical and operational leadership for the NHS – leaving ministers insulated from those day-to-day issues and free to set an overall strategy.

The government’s decision to abolish NHS England marks a change back to direct ministerial grip on the system. This may reflect high public concern about the NHS and pressure on its services, as well as a desire by the recently elected government to exercise more direct control over the health service.

How does this compare to other health systems?

The NHS has long been an unusually centralised system. Although the English NHS covers more than 55 million people, it has historically been run by central government, which this change reinforces.

In contrast, although Spain has a similar NHS-style system, the Spanish health system is run by the 17 regional governments through their departments of health, with the largest covering 8.6 million people.

Europe’s other large national health system, in Italy, now also has a decentralised system. The national government sets the overall principles and benefits, but the actual services are under the control of regional governments.

Italy also has a decentralised health system.
Massimo Todaro/Shutterstock

These decentralised systems strike a different balance between political control and operational management, by bringing them together at a more local level.

If the UK government was to extend its aim of bringing the NHS into democratic control by taking a similar decentralisation approach to other NHS-style systems in Europe, what would this look like?

The NHS already has 42 integrated care systems at the local level. These already work with upper-tier local authorities, such as county councils, and are mostly aligned with their boundaries, but are under the control of central government.

Other countries already decentralise their health systems to similar levels. In Sweden, for example, the 21 counties are responsible for financing, purchasing and providing their health services, under the democratic control of the county councillors. While there might be questions about the capacity of local government in England to take on such a role, experience from elsewhere shows that it should be possible.

Compared with those decentralised systems, the abolition of NHS England is a relatively minor change. It puts ministers more directly in charge of the English NHS, but does not change the basic structure of the service nor its control by central government.

Examples from other countries suggest that if the ambition is to bring the health service more into democratic control, there are options for much more profound change. This would strike a whole new balance between political control and local management. Läs mer…

Prime Minister Mark Carney and his cabinet have been sworn in, ending Justin Trudeau’s time in office and paving the way for a spring election. Canadians are soon heading to the polls as they watch American democracy crumble.

United States President Donald Trump recently argued “he who saves his country does not violate any Law” as he ignores Congress and the courts, governs by executive order and threatens international laws and treaties.

Read more:
Is Donald Trump on a constitutional collision course over NATO?

Once stable democratic institutions are failing to hold an authoritarian president in check.

What lessons are there to protect Canadian democracy as the federal election approaches?

President Donald Trump sits inside the presidential limousine as Elon Musk, waits for his turn as they arrive at Palm Beach International Airport on March 7, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Elites lead the way

First, it’s important to delve into how so many Americans have become tolerant of undemocratic actions and politics in the first place. It’s not that Republican voters first became more extreme and then chose a representative leader. Rather, public opinion and polarization are led by elites.

Republican leaders moved dramatically to the right, and the primary system allowed the choice of an extremist. Republican voters then aligned their opinions with his. Trump’s disdain for democratic fundamentals spread quickly. Partisans defending their team slid away from democratic values.

Canada’s more centrist ideological spectrum is not foolproof against this type of extremism. Public opinion can be moved when our leaders take us there.

Decline can start slowly and then accelerate. America’s democratic backsliding in the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency follows the erosion of democratic norms over decades. Republican attacks on institutions, the opposition, the media and higher education corrosively undermined public faith in the truth, including election results.

Trust in government is holding steady in Canada, however. That provides an important guardrail for Canadian democracy.

Supporters wait for President Donald Trump to depart in his motorcade from the Trump International Golf Club on March 1, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The dangers of courting the far right

There are also lessons for our political parties. To maximize their seats, Republicans accepted extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but soon needed those types of politicians for key votes.

The so-called Freedom Caucus, made up of MAGA adherents, forced the choice of a new, more extreme, leader of the House of Representatives. This provides a clear lesson that history has shown many times: it is dangerous for the party on the political right to accommodate the far right, which can quickly take control.

Once established within the ruling party, extremists can hold their party hostage.

At a recent meeting of the Munich Security Conference, Vice-President JD Vance pushed European parties to include far-right parties, and Elon Musk outright endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Austria recently avoided the inclusion of the far right in its new coalition, and now Germany is working to do the same. As Canada’s Conservatives look for every vote, courting far-right voters and candidates risks destabilizing the system.

United States Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, in February 2025.
(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Can it happen in Canada?

How safe is Canada’s Westminster-style parliamentary democracy?

The fusion of legislative and executive power in parliamentary systems like Canada’s seems prone to tyranny. America’s Constitutional framers thought so when they designed a system with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches that could check each other’s power.

They clearly did not imagine party loyalty negating the safeguards that protect democracy from an authoritarian-minded president. The Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate and impeach, limits the executive’s power to spend and make appointments, gives the judiciary power to hold an executive accountable and contains the 25th amendment allowing cabinet to remove a president.

But when one party controls the legislative and executive branches during a time of hyper-partisanship, these mechanisms may not constrain an authoritarian. Today, Republican loyalty has eroded these checks and balances and American courts are struggling to step up to their heightened role.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett listen as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 4, 2025.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Although counter-intuitive, parliamentary systems like Canada’s are usually less susceptible to authoritarianism than presidential ones because the cabinet or the House of Commons can turn against a lawless leader.

Still, if popular, authoritarian leaders can still retain their party’s support — and then things can slide quickly. The rightward pull of extremists seen in the U.S. House would be more dangerous here since the Canadian House of Commons includes our executive.

Guarding against xenophobia

Lastly, Canada should be wary of xenophobic rhetoric.

“America First” is not simply shopping advice. It began as an isolationist slogan during the First World War but was soon adopted by pro-fascists, American Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. These entities questioned who is really American and wanted not only isolationism, but racist policies, immigration restrictions and eugenics.

Trump did not revive the phrase accidentally. It’s a call to America’s fringes. Alienating domestic groups is a sure sign of democratic decline.

“Canada First” mimics that century-long dark theme in America. In combination with contempt for the opposition, it questions the right of other parties to legitimately hold power if used as a message by one party.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during a news conference in January 2025 in Ottawa.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Also, asserting that “Canada is broken” — as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre often does — mimics Trump’s talk of American carnage, language and imagery he uses to justify extraordinary presidential authority.

Such language erodes citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and primes voters to support undemocratic practices in the name of patriotism. Canadian parties and politicians should exit that road.

Ultimately, institutions alone do not protect a country from the rise of authoritarianism. Democracy can be fragile. As a federal election approaches in Canada, it’s important to know the warning signs of extremism and anti-democratic practices that are creeping into our politics. Läs mer…

Prime Minister Mark Carney and his cabinet have been sworn in, ending Justin Trudeau’s time in office and paving the way for a spring election. Canadians are soon heading to the polls as they watch American democracy crumble.

United States President Donald Trump recently argued “he who saves his country does not violate any Law” as he ignores Congress and the courts, governs by executive order and threatens international laws and treaties.

Read more:
Is Donald Trump on a constitutional collision course over NATO?

Once stable democratic institutions are failing to hold an authoritarian president in check.

What lessons are there to protect Canadian democracy as the federal election approaches?

President Donald Trump sits inside the presidential limousine as Elon Musk, waits for his turn as they arrive at Palm Beach International Airport on March 7, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Elites lead the way

First, it’s important to delve into how so many Americans have become tolerant of undemocratic actions and politics in the first place. It’s not that Republican voters first became more extreme and then chose a representative leader. Rather, public opinion and polarization are led by elites.

Republican leaders moved dramatically to the right, and the primary system allowed the choice of an extremist. Republican voters then aligned their opinions with his. Trump’s disdain for democratic fundamentals spread quickly. Partisans defending their team slid away from democratic values.

Canada’s more centrist ideological spectrum is not foolproof against this type of extremism. Public opinion can be moved when our leaders take us there.

Decline can start slowly and then accelerate. America’s democratic backsliding in the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency follows the erosion of democratic norms over decades. Republican attacks on institutions, the opposition, the media and higher education corrosively undermined public faith in the truth, including election results.

Trust in government is holding steady in Canada, however. That provides an important guardrail for Canadian democracy.

Supporters wait for President Donald Trump to depart in his motorcade from the Trump International Golf Club on March 1, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The dangers of courting the far right

There are also lessons for our political parties. To maximize their seats, Republicans accepted extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but soon needed those types of politicians for key votes.

The so-called Freedom Caucus, made up of MAGA adherents, forced the choice of a new, more extreme, leader of the House of Representatives. This provides a clear lesson that history has shown many times: it is dangerous for the party on the political right to accommodate the far right, which can quickly take control.

Once established within the ruling party, extremists can hold their party hostage.

At a recent meeting of the Munich Security Conference, Vice-President JD Vance pushed European parties to include far-right parties, and Elon Musk outright endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Austria recently avoided the inclusion of the far right in its new coalition, and now Germany is working to do the same. As Canada’s Conservatives look for every vote, courting far-right voters and candidates risks destabilizing the system.

United States Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, in February 2025.
(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Can it happen in Canada?

How safe is Canada’s Westminster-style parliamentary democracy?

The fusion of legislative and executive power in parliamentary systems like Canada’s seems prone to tyranny. America’s Constitutional framers thought so when they designed a system with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches that could check each other’s power.

They clearly did not imagine party loyalty negating the safeguards that protect democracy from an authoritarian-minded president. The Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate and impeach, limits the executive’s power to spend and make appointments, gives the judiciary power to hold an executive accountable and contains the 25th amendment allowing cabinet to remove a president.

But when one party controls the legislative and executive branches during a time of hyper-partisanship, these mechanisms may not constrain an authoritarian. Today, Republican loyalty has eroded these checks and balances and American courts are struggling to step up to their heightened role.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett listen as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 4, 2025.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Although counter-intuitive, parliamentary systems like Canada’s are usually less susceptible to authoritarianism than presidential ones because the cabinet or the House of Commons can turn against a lawless leader.

Still, if popular, authoritarian leaders can still retain their party’s support — and then things can slide quickly. The rightward pull of extremists seen in the U.S. House would be more dangerous here since the Canadian House of Commons includes our executive.

Guarding against xenophobia

Lastly, Canada should be wary of xenophobic rhetoric.

“America First” is not simply shopping advice. It began as an isolationist slogan during the First World War but was soon adopted by pro-fascists, American Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. These entities questioned who is really American and wanted not only isolationism, but racist policies, immigration restrictions and eugenics.

Trump did not revive the phrase accidentally. It’s a call to America’s fringes. Alienating domestic groups is a sure sign of democratic decline.

“Canada First” mimics that century-long dark theme in America. In combination with contempt for the opposition, it questions the right of other parties to legitimately hold power if used as a message by one party.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during a news conference in January 2025 in Ottawa.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Also, asserting that “Canada is broken” — as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre often does — mimics Trump’s talk of American carnage, language and imagery he uses to justify extraordinary presidential authority.

Such language erodes citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and primes voters to support undemocratic practices in the name of patriotism. Canadian parties and politicians should exit that road.

Ultimately, institutions alone do not protect a country from the rise of authoritarianism. Democracy can be fragile. As a federal election approaches in Canada, it’s important to know the warning signs of extremism and anti-democratic practices that are creeping into our politics. Läs mer…

The UK government has published its planning and infrastructure bill, a cornerstone of its strategy for growth. The bill aims to “get Britain building again and deliver economic growth” and includes the hugely ambitious target of building 1.5 million homes in England over this parliament.

The bill is ambitious in scope – 160 pages long and very technical. But what does it promise exactly?

On infrastructure, it outlines reforms to limit vexatious repeat use of judicial review to block development. There are also some measures for a stronger electricity grid to ease the move towards renewable energy. While the plan to reward people living near new pylons with £250 off their bills grabbed headlines, just as important are measures for energy storage to level out peaks in demand and supply.

On the planning side, planning departments will be allowed to charge more to those making applications. This should speed up decisions by funding more planning officer roles. But there are no measures to increase funding for drawing up local plans. This is important because councils often fall behind schedule in producing these. And where there is no up-to-date plan, there is a danger that developers will push through controversial proposals.

The bill also provides for more decisions to be delegated to planning officials rather than planning committees – this means council staff rather than elected representatives. This already happens for smaller planning applications, so is not entirely new. But it does raise concerns about democratic scrutiny.

The government argues that local democracy will not be undermined, as planning officers will be making their decisions in the context of democratically approved local plans as well as national legislation. But this could be misleading, unless planning authorities have the funds to update local plans regularly.

There are also changes to existing development corporation legislation, to support the building of new towns. Particularly welcome is the responsibility on development corporations – government organisations dealing with urban development – to consider climate change and design quality. This is in order to hit net-zero targets and avoid cookie-cutter housing estates.

Other measures are aimed at ensuring appropriate infrastructure is built to serve these new towns.

Read more:
Why building new towns isn’t the answer to the UK’s housing crisis

There are changes planned too on when compulsory purchase orders can be used to buy sites that are broadly to be used for the public good. This could be for affordable homes, health or education facilities, for instance. It would work by reducing payments to the actual value of the land rather than its “hope value” (when landholders hold out for price rises once planning permission is granted).

There is also a commitment to creating a nature restoration fund, which the government hopes will overcome some of the delays to approving new housing caused by potential threats to wildlife.

The fund will aim to unblock development in general rather than specific sites, as happens at the moment, and will pool contributions from developers to fund nature recovery. Where there are concerns for wildlife, experts will develop a long-term mitigation plan that will be paid for by the fund while allowing the development to go ahead in the meantime.

Will it work?

As a professor of urban and environmental planning, the question for me is will the bill encourage development to progress more speedily? Almost certainly – probably mostly in terms of bringing forward improvements to critical national infrastructure schemes such as the electric grid. For residential development, some incremental speeding up is likely as developers crave certainty in planning decisions.

But on their own, these measures are unlikely to be enough to provide the 1.5 million new homes set out in the government’s target. They offer nothing to tackle critical bottlenecks in terms of both labour and materials. It is also difficult to see the target being met without much more government involvement – by building social housing in particular.

Will the bill result in better quality development? There is surprisingly little in the plans about improving design quality, other than in development corporation areas. This is disappointing, and a missed opportunity to ensure that developers raise their game in residential building and neighbourhood quality.

And might it override local democracy? Arguably yes, but in practice not as much as some critics might argue. Most of the reforms are finessing existing practices, such as delegated powers to planning officers. Much depends on what the national government guidance turns out to be.

The biggest concern is that it might increase invisible political pressures on planning officers by councillors and senior officials. It would have been good to have seen more measures to protect their independence and professional judgement.

Hopefully the bill will speed up delivery of nationally important schemes for critical infrastructure. This means things like modernising the electricity grid and removing repeated use of judicial review to block a development. These elements should create jobs sooner and support economic growth.

Where the bill will make absolutely no difference is in improving living standards for people with older homes. This bill is focused on new builds and has little to offer those hoping for support in retrofitting ageing housing stock with more energy-efficient features or creating green spaces in areas where new development is increasingly in demand.

Development should be compatible with nature restoration.
Nick Beer/Shutterstock

Despite some of the ministerial bluster about removing red tape, much of the content of this bill is not about removing planning regulations. It is much more about improving them. Some measures will work better than others, but overall, given the government’s electoral mandate to deliver growth and protect the environment, this is a reasonable balancing act.

It’s unlikely to deliver much growth in its own right, but as an enabler of growth, it is promising. More worrying is whether it will lead to poor-quality housing built at pace and massive scale to inadequate energy-efficiency and design standards. This would fail to deliver on net-zero and biodiversity ambitions. It is very much a minor win for facilitating growth, but for nature it is nothing more than maintaining the status quo. Läs mer…