Positive thinking

This week the long-awaited second stage of Brexit finally gets started, as the UK begins its formal trade negotiations with the EU. Tensions are already evident. The UK government made clear in its negotiating mandate published last week that it is refusing to lock in any minimum standards on labour rights, food quality or environmental protection, claiming the UK leads the way in these areas and will not accept “the compulsion of a treaty ”. Campaigners are concerned that these could be eroded after Brexit, especially if the UK bends to lower US standards through a free trade deal. Meanwhile, the EU considers these minimum standards (known as the ‘level playing field) to be a vital pre-condition for an agreement. If the UK won’t sign up to them, the EU insists it will not grant the UK tariff-free, quota-free trade with the bloc. The stand-off is intense and could lead to no trade deal at all if neither side backs down. The picture is no less complex at the national level, as...

Calvin Jones, Cardiff University   English towns with struggling economies will receive £ 1.6 billion of funding over six years. The UK government announced the creation of the “stronger towns fund” – the lion’s share of which will be distributed to towns in Northern England and the Midlands. Critics have focused on the fund’s assumed purpose as a “bribe” to gain Labour MPs’ votes for Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal to leave the EU, and on the inadequate size of the pot. Leaving the first criticism aside, the second certainly has some merit: £1.6 billion sounds a large sum for a single project (at least, for one outside London ). But it’s a tiny amount to complete a “transformative” programme of work in many places over a number of years – especially when those places have already lost much more than that during the past decade of austerity, and stand to lose further billions in EU support if and when the UK exits the union. The difficulties the fund will face hav...

Maria Goddard, University of York   The good news is that the NHS has received a 70th “birthday gift” in the form of a 3.4% per year increase in real spending over the next five years. The bad news is that, although this may be enough to fight the current battle, it may not be enough to win the war against rising pressures on the NHS. The planned expenditure, announced by Theresa May, the prime minister, on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, amounts to an extra £20.5 billion over the period up to 2023-24, which is actually not remarkable in terms of historical trends. Average annual increases in spending on the NHS since it was founded in 1948 have been around 3.7% – so 0.3% higher than the current proposed annual increment. There are some concerns that the increase is based only on the money received by one part of the system – NHS England – which is responsible for spending on the day-to-day running of the NHS, but not for public health, training and infrastructure, such...

Craig McKenzie, University of Dundee and Niamh Nic Daeid, University of Dundee Could fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller that has been linked to an alarming increase in drug overdose deaths in North America , now be gaining a foothold in the UK? Drugs-related deaths are increasing in the UK, and the issue of fentanyl and its chemical relatives (or analogues, known as fentanils) require specific attention due to their potential for harm, having already killed thousands in the US including, in the form of a fake prescription drug, the singer Prince . Fentanyl is used in medicine as a strong, low-dose, short-duration, fast-acting pain reliever. But its potency and the perceived ease of smuggling it have made it attractive to illegal drug suppliers interested in profit margins, with little concern for users. In the UK, fentanyl is appearing as an additive in street heroin. Fentanils, and other controlled psychoactive substances such as the synthetic cannabinoids foun...

Anne Wesemann, The Open University It started with a letter . A seemingly simple request for information, sent by the Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris to university vice-chancellors . But you don’t even have to read between the lines before alarm bells start to ring, because in the letter, Heaton-Harris requests access to university course documents as well as the names of professors involved in “the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit”. The UK government has distanced itself from the letter, which has understandably caused outrage at universities across the UK. Many academics have spoken of their anger at such requests, calling the letter “sinister” and accusing the MP of carrying out a “ McCarthy-style witch hunt ”. To put this into context, while asking a vice-chancellor for information regarding the institution generally is of no concern, it is unusual to address them for detailed matters of curriculum in this way. This is mai...

Jonathan Parry, University of Birmingham When you think of child soldiers, it might conjure up images of young children far away, taken from their homes and forced to take part in war and fighting, often held against their will. It may surprise you then to learn the UK employs child soldiers – about 23% of army personnel were recruited before their 18th birthday . By recruiting 16-year-olds, the UK is an international outlier, an honour it shares with Iran, North Korea, and Zimbabwe. No other member of the EU or NATO, or permanent member of UN Security Council, recruits so young. This policy has earned criticism from humanitarian organisations – including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child . And the UK public seems to agree – nearly 80% think the age of enlistment should be at least 18 . And yet this is something the UK government arguably wants to see more of. A recently published government report on military recruitment, by the MP Mark Francois , wa...

Kate Pickett, University of York and Richard Wilkinson, University of York If moving forward is the goal, it’s a not a good policy to stand still. Yet we hear little from the government about solutions to Britain’s poor record on social mobility. Earlier this year both the current administration and its predecessors were roundly condemned for their failure to make any headway. Research has repeatedly shown the clear link between high levels of income inequality and low levels of social mobility. This graph, from our book The Spirit Level shows that far from being the land of opportunity, the US has very low social mobility. You’re much more likely to achieve the “American dream” if you live in Denmark.  Mobility and inequality. The Spirit Level , Author provided British social mobility is damaged by the UK’s high income inequality. Economists have argued that young peo...