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Whiteness is an invention of the modern, colonial age. It refers to the racialisation of white people and the disproportionate privilege – social, linguistic, economic, political – that comes with this. Crucially, as an invention, whiteness is not innate – it is taught.
As an educational project, whiteness is designed to maintain racial hierarchies. Whether or not that intention remains or is recognised in modern schools, the racism underpinning that educational project continues to shape education in England.
Black children are more likely to face disproportionate disciplinary procedures and be excluded. They face discriminatory hair policies, and, when their speech is deemed to differ from “standard” or “academic” English, they face anti-black linguistic racism.
And in recent years, whiteness and anti-black linguistic racism have become further normalised under the so-called “what works” agenda of education policy.
The UK government launched the What Works network in 2013, in order to design policies, and how they are delivered, on the basis of what they called “the best” research evidence available.
In education, this claim that policymaking is scientifically objective and evidence-led is used to bolster the idea that the resulting policies will effectively do what they say, namely tackle inequality. However, my work shows how what-works-based education policy is not objective or neutral. It normalises white, middle-class language and can result in the use of non-standard, non-academic language being disciplined in schools.
Between 2021 and 2022, I conducted research in two different secondary schools in London. I observed classrooms, did interviews and analysed policies and lesson materials.
Both schools had majority white staff, serving mostly black children from low-income families. Both schools had subscribed to a “what works” approach to language teaching.
The first school had introduced “evidence-led” curriculum materials, entitled English Mastery. Teachers I collaborated with reported how these materials encouraged them to correct how their pupils spoke, avoiding language deemed to deviate from standard norms.
As a result, black children simply kept quiet or produced minimal answers, which they were further criticised for. Being made to internalise the ideology that their language was deficient resulted in their identity being eroded, an impact which research bears out.
This ideology was further articulated by the staff I interviewed. One teacher said “what works” curriculums would “address persistent errors” and curtail the use of “colloquial” speech, thereby allowing marginalised children to “function properly in the world”. Another teacher described how management had insisted on a “standard English only” policy because they deemed classrooms to be full of what they termed “poor quality talk”.
Research has long shown that standard and academic English are not neutral categories but social and colonial constructions based on the language of the white middle classes. Yet in these schools, acquiring standard and academic English is seen as the path to social justice. Similar thinking has been shown to underpin decision-making at Ofsted, the UK schools inspectorate and national policy too.
Despite the claimed intentions around racial equity and justice with which they are marketed, “what works” materials risk reproducing anti-black prejudice. They define any student as “functioning” or “working” as one who models their language on whiteness. And they still result in working-class, black children facing language discrimination, because, as research shows, beliefs about so-called “proper language” always relate to beliefs about race and class.
In another school I studied, management had designed policies to tackle the so-called “word gap”. Since the 2010s, there has been a resurgence among education specialists in England – policy makers at Ofsted, authors of teacher textbooks and the education publishing industry at large – of this idea, which is rooted in 1960s theories of verbal deprivation and was recycled in 1990s educational psychology.
As education secretary in 2012, Michael Gove told the UK parliament that the lack of attainment in children from disadvantaged backgrounds was due to “growing up in households where they are not read to and where they do not have a rich literary heritage on which to draw”. Amanda Spielman, chief inspector at Ofsted reiterated this position in 2018: “These children arrive at school without the words they need to communicate properly.”
This reductive argument poses that the solution to systemic inequalities but in giving marginalised children more, “better” words than what their families and communities provide them with. In other words, it blames not the socioeconomic system for failing these communities but the communities themselves for not having the right language and literacy practices.
In one school, where management had subscribed to this kind of thinking, believing that it was in the best interests of marginalised children, I found that word-gap interventions meant black working-class children were much more likely to have the way they speak categorised as deficient. Rather than developing their vocabulary, this strategy too resulted in children keeping quiet in lessons, internalising the idea that their language was not academic enough.
Educational linguists have consistently pointed out that language hierarchies are not based on empirical fact but stem from institutional racism. As sociologists Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Derron Wallace put it, “speech codes and vernacular associated with black youth are seen as oppositional to, and disruptive of, academic orientations”.
To counter this, the teachers I collaborated with in my research designed new classroom materials that would, instead, affirm students’ voices. We worked with the black British writer Benjamin Zephaniah, using his 2020 novel Windrush Child and interviews he has given in which he talks about his experiences of having his language and racial identity policed.
His experiences matched many of the students we worked with. For example, when asked to complete a linguistic profile of themselves, one student Joy, who, with Nigerian heritage speaks English and Yoruba, drew a portrait of herself with her mouth clamped shut. She was able to unpick how her Yoruba, previously, had been silenced in school.
Children were encouraged to interrogate the intersections of power, class and race which sees their own language stigmatised. Their discussions were also, crucially, joyful and full of love for black language and culture.
Another teacher collaborated with parents and students on a new whole-school language policy, which insisted that black children are just as linguistically dexterous as their white peers and emphasised that there is no racial justice without linguistic justice. The first draft of the policy stated:
We do not believe in the existence of a word gap and wholly reject such deficit and racist descriptions of language. If a gap does exist, it exists in the way that people perceive language, rather than how they use it.
Beliefs about language are never just about language. They reflect institutional power dynamics. As one black teacher I collaborated with put it:
We need to stop thinking that the way children speak is the problem, and start thinking about the way that adults listen as the problem
Ian Cushing receives funding from the British Association of Applied Linguistics, the British Educational Research Association, and the Spencer Foundation.
Imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t recognise your own family and friends unless they told you who they were. Now imagine no one will believe you and that even your doctor dismisses you, saying everyone forgets names sometimes.
Two recent studies show this is a common experience for people with a brain disorder called “developmental prosopagnosia” – or as it is more informally known, faceblindness. This type of prosopagnosia is lifelong, in contrast to “acquired prosopagnosia” which can develop after a brain injury. Sufferers struggle to recognise people who they know well and, in extreme cases, close family members and even photographs of themselves.
No one is sure why people develop this condition but it can run in families, suggesting it might have a genetic basis. It is estimated to afflict 2-3% of the adult population.
One of the studies, published in December 2022, comes from my lab at Edge Hill University. Our results suggested that up to 85% of people with faceblindness would not get diagnosed if they tried traditional approaches. For example, if participants complained to their doctor that they were failing to recognise friends and family members, they were often told their face recognition skills were normal. This can have a terrible impact on people, leaving them confused, frustrated and upset.
Researchers at Harvard University published a paper in February 2023 that came to the same conclusion: many people with faceblindness won’t get a diagnosis from their clinician using current medical assessments. The current procedure requires people to score worse than 97.5% of the general public on both of two computer-based tests.
The first of these tasks is a “famous faces” test, where patients have to identify celebrities from their photographs (for example, Brad Pitt or Bill Clinton). In the second task, patients are asked to memorise a series of unfamiliar faces, then pick them out from a larger group – similar to how you would identify a criminal suspect in a police line-up.
This is the most common approach used by clinicians and researchers across Europe, North America and Australasia. However, the Harvard research and that by my own lab found that many prosopagnosia cases would not meet the criteria currently required for a diagnosis.
Our study tested 61 people who reported daily difficulties recognising faces. Assessments were carried out online due to COVID-19 restrictions, and we found that 85% of participants would not have met the diagnosis threshold on the computer tests. The Harvard study suggested that roughly 60-70% of people who struggle to recollect faces may be denied a diagnosis.
Why do people with prosopagnosia perform too well on medical tests to get a diagnosis? One reason may be because of day-to-day changes in their ability to focus – for example, did they have a coffee this morning, or a good night’s sleep? Previous research has shown prosopagnosics’ scores on face tests change from one testing session to the next.
Computer-based tests may also be missing something about how we recognise faces in person. In the real world, we see faces in three dimensions, and they are moving as someone walks towards us and speaks. The current tests only use still images in two dimensions.
So, how should we diagnose prosopagnosia instead? While the Harvard group and I agree that we need to be much more understanding towards people who believe they have the condition, we differ in our views on how this should be accomplished.
The Harvard lab proposes we should diagnose people with prosopagnosia if they score in the bottom 16% of the general population on the two face recognition tests. One problem with this approach is that it will still block many people who report trouble with faces from getting help.
I would argue we should be guided by the patient’s symptoms when deciding on a diagnosis. Symptoms can be assessed by asking people how strongly they agree with statements like “I often mistake people I have met before for strangers”. These are taken from a questionnaire called the prosopagnosia index, first developed by a British research group in 2015.
This approach is used for other psychological conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Only with this method can we understand the range of the prosopagnosia spectrum, and avoid unnecessary suffering that comes with a lack of diagnosis.
The prosopagnosia index only takes a couple of minutes to administer, while computer based tests can take up to an hour. Diagnosing people more rapidly gives doctors more time to discuss options with their patients, such as computer training with faces and coping mechanisms. The latter includes telling friends and colleagues about your condition, and requesting they introduce themselves each time you meet.
Research in this area is ongoing so if you, or someone you know, thinks they might have prosopagnosia (either acquired or developmental) and would like to be tested, or you have failed to get a diagnosis in the past from a clinician, please consider taking part.
For those who might still be sceptical, I should add: faceblindness is a real disorder. People with this condition have atypical neural responses when they view faces. This suggests their brains are not functioning as they should be when they visualise faces.
If you happen to meet someone with faceblindness – and the chances are very high, given that one in 30 may have the condition – please be understanding. Give them cues as to who you are and where you met them. A little patience can make all the difference.
Edwin Burns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The UK government has announced an extra £1 billion of funding to support 800 new ambulances, 100 specialist mental health vehicles and 5,000 more sustainable hospital beds. This sum has been ringfenced for 2023-24 to provide extra capacity and support for staff in the urgent and emergency services. Rishi Sunak’s plan also includes £1.6 billion, to be provided up to 2025, for adult social care, and £150 million for building 150 new facilities to support mental health care.
This two-year plan comes in response to emergency healthcare in Britain being labelled a “national emergency”. A recent parliamentary report investigating access to emergency services has highlighted the lack of alternatives for emergency 999 calls and broken models of primary and community care.
Recent statistics show that in January 2023, on average 72% of patients attending A&E were either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. This represents a significant drop from the 95% standard, which was last met in July 2015. The average waiting time for category 2 ambulance calls, meanwhile, is over an hour and a half (93 minutes), against a target of 18 minutes.
The government’s plan seeks to improve the four-hour A&E wait performance, bringing it up to 76% of patients by March 2024. It aims to achieve ambulance waiting times of 30 minutes, on average, for category 2 situations over the next year. And it prioritises finding healthcare solutions in the community to free up hospital beds.
Research has long shown, though, that the problems facing the NHS – the extent to which it is “broken” – are far greater. Issues around safety, staffing levels and quality of service over the last months have seen the service compared to a “war zone”. An extra £2.6 billion in funding will not be enough to fix the problem.
The latest figures show that the UK has fewer GPs and nurses than most of its OECD counterparts.
Across the NHS, between July and September 2022, there were about 133,000 vacancies for full-time staff. An estimated average of 17,000 nursing posts remain unfilled on any given day. In the year to June 2022, one in nine nurses left active service in England; the turnover rate hit 11.5%.
These nursing shortages are resulting in massive pressure on the frontline staff. A January 2023 article in the Times quoted the director of the Royal College of Nursing, Patricia Marquis, as saying that what she called “corridor care” now appears to be commonplace:
Some nurses are being booked to work in hospital corridors, others are being asked to buy Ikea hooks so intravenous drips can be attached to the corridor wall, and some patients are having cardiac arrests because of mistakes made using cumbersome oxygen cylinders to treat them.
Among paramedics, more are now leaving than are joining, with over one in four saying they would leave if they could. In the 2021 NHS Staff Survey, only 20% of ambulance staff said there were enough staff in their organisation for them to do their job properly, compared with 30% in the 2019 survey.
Ambulance staff sickness and absences rates are among the highest within the NHS. They have increased from 5% in March 2019 to 9% in March 2022.
And in social care, the numbers are no better. Almost half a million adults were waiting for council care services in England in the latter half of 2022, amid a record 165,000 unfilled care jobs.
For the government’s plan to work, it must increase the size and flexibility of the NHS workforce to bring any meaningful improvement in A&E and ambulance waiting times. This means supporting, protecting and retaining staff. However, it remains unclear how the government’s plan will address the acute staff shortages alone.
Beyond the staffing crisis, the NHS faces other critical systemic issues. The pandemic has exacerbated problems in accessing GP services, which has seen more patients attending A&E and calling for ambulances – thereby diminishing these services’ capacity to deal with more serious calls.
Further, there is considerable variation in how different trusts deliver healthcare, as well as a lack of standard procedures for how they purchase the products, supplies, equipment and services required to do so. This both increases costs and reduces productivity. The ten ambulance trusts in England, for example, have been shown to be using 32 types of double-crewed ambulances, and no standard list of what they are to carry on board.
Elsewhere, across the ambulance trusts, non-conveyance rates (when a 999 call does not result in a patient being taken to a healthcare facility) vary hugely, between 40% and 68%. This can have significant consequences for patient safety and patient choice, not to mention the cost of additional journeys to A&E and fears of litigation brought against staff by members of the public if adverse events occur.
Poor working conditions are adversely affecting staff morale. Ambulance staff report frustration at their inability to respond to 999 calls – and serve patients effectively – due to wider NHS and A&E pressures, over which they have little control. Staff are increasingly demoralised, staff sickness absences are growing, and support for their wellbeing varies significantly across trusts.
With reports of more planned ambulance strikes, things are likely to get worse unless the pay dispute is resolved. However, the timing of the introduction of the transport strikes (minimum service levels) bill creates doubts about the government’s willingness to negotiate. Some political commentators have suggested it could lead to a “spring of continuing misery”.
Current strikes within healthcare have been agreed with minimum staffing levels for “life and limb cover” assured. It is, however, interesting to consider that minimum levels of service are not protected under any law on non-strike days.
The problems the NHS faces have been years in the making. They stem from poor decision-making and a lack of political consensus between the two main parties, as well as what some critics have termed an emotional attachment on the part of some politicians to a free NHS.
Most crucially, the service has faced critical underinvestment. Recent analysis suggests that while the recent budget increases are necessary, systemic challenges (particularly around workforce pressures) are likely to continue, including uncertainty about post-pandemic recovery.
This underinvestment has led to serious infrastructural issues. Hospital roofs are collapsing, with NHS England reportedly admitting that “30 buildings at 20 different hospitals run by 18 individual NHS trusts” have at least one roof built with a type of cheap concrete that has been labelled “a ticking timebomb”. There have also been reports of alarming sewage leaks – 456 in 2022 – on to wards and A&E departments
Elsewhere, the emergency response 111 and 999 call triage systems have been shown to be risk-averse tools, which often default to sending more patients to hospitals and making more ambulance calls than needed. This only adds to the load on an already overloaded workforce.
Digital transformation to increase the range of tools and services is an important NHS priority. However, new calls for a technological revolution are frustrated by a history of abandoned IT systems costing more than £10 billion. This is in addition to challenges posed by the built infrastructure and workforce training needed to make such a transformation happen.
The centralised model on which the NHS is built is not fit for purpose in 2023. Devolved healthcare, wherein individual trusts have greater autonomy and flexibility, would serve the nation better.
Real progress will depend upon staff availability in the community and genuine efforts to reform and integrate health and social care – reforms which have been formulated, but not implemented.
Instead, the current system is complex and fragmented, with individual component institutions having competing proprieties and a protectionist approach to budgeting. Ultimately, without consensus between the two main political parties, this cannot be solved. Without answers, £2.6 billion will not be enough.
Paresh Wankhade is affiliated with Fire Services Research & Training Trust (FSRTT) as a Trustee.
Some women consign themselves to breastfeeding in public toilets to prevent their apparently sexually explosive nipples causing offence. On hot days, meanwhile, males of all ages, shapes and sizes, peel off their tops without a second thought.
For over a decade many social media platforms banned the exposure of female, but not male nipples. Tech CEOs say they fear unleashing torrents of pornographic imagery. These platforms do allow images of female nipples in some contexts such as breastfeeding and medical issues.
However, the oversight board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, recently instructed both platforms to re-examine their policy on nipple exposure. It also recommends that Meta change its Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standard so that it is governed by clear criteria that respect international human rights standards.
Some campaigners hailed the news as a breakthrough. But there are no guarantees about what action these companies will take. It will come down to whatever best protects their interests and possibly finances, which could mean less change than people are hoping for.
Meta’s announcement was triggered by the case of a trans non-binary US couple posing topless, (with their nipples covered), to increase awareness of trans health care issues and to raise money for “top” surgery. Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm categorised the post as “sexual solicitation” and removed it (although their post was reinstated after they appealed).
This couple’s case may have forced Meta into acting but it’s also an example of why it’s still too early to celebrate. Millions of images are uploaded onto Facebook and Instagram each day. Moderating the content to prevent their platforms from being used to distribute porn, indecent images of children and violence is difficult and expensive. Algorithms are a cheaper but less discerning solution than solely using people to evaluate content.
These platforms have therefore long resisted change in spite of movements such as Free the Nipple campaigning for women’s freedom of bodily expression and professionals protesting their right to upload artistic photographs of topless indigenous women or culturally important images.
Social media platforms have incredible influence over people’s attitudes and behaviour. They enable the glorification of ageless and unrealistic female beauty which contributes to body dysmorphia, disordered eating practices and increased uptake of cosmetic procedures. Notably, these sites have also struggled to prevent the spread of violent videos.
People have taken to superimposing stickers of male nipples over female nipples to get around social media censors. The sticker overlays circumvent the rules but do not change the mindset that perceives female nipples as sexualised body parts, appropriated by the male gaze. If Facebook and Instagram only revise their policies to allow photos of exposed nipples if they belong to trans and non-binary people, this would still encourage the continued sexual objectification of cisgender women’s breasts and nipples.
Across many western cultures, exposed female nipples are seen as taboo, indecent and sometimes even illegal. In contrast, men with muscular chests and six-packs and taut ornamental nipples adorn fashion magazines, advertise products and are emblazoned across billboards. These practices are not always viewed as sexualised despite the fact many adverts are produced with this aim.
This also brings us back to the question as to whether female nipples are inevitably erotic. Some commentators claim men are hardwired to concentrate their erotic gaze on specific female body parts such as breasts. However, people’s beliefs about what constitutes an erotic body part has changed across history and cultures.
Both religion and cultural standards play a pivotal role in what is acceptable. Bare chests for both sexes were the norm in warm climates until the 12th century when Islam became more influential. Aboriginal topless culture was also commonplace in Australia until 2004 when police officers told a group of topless Aboriginal women performing a traditional dance that they had to cover up.
In previous time periods in England, the leg and the calves were regarded as more risqué than the nipples. In contrast in China the traditional practice of binding women’s feet to make them smaller, and thereby crippling them, was entwined with misogynistic eroticism.
On the other hand, European paintings from the Middle Ages to about the 1700s regularly featured women exposing one breast and nipple. In fact women often adorned their nipples with reddish-orange makeup from their dressing tables during this era. During this time “nipslips”, whether accidental or not, didn’t create outrage or taboo or signal the sexual availability of the woman involved. Compare this to Daily Mail article about a “photo exclusive” of supermodel Naomi Campbell accidentally exposing a nipple, which the newspaper ironically then censored in their article.
Up until 1936 in the US, men were also prohibited from exposing their nipples. Nudity for either sex was regarded as obscene until a mass male protest overturned this rule.
The debate around the exposure of female nipples in public or on social media suggests their sexualisation is a cultural phenomenon through which men control women’s bodies and feel entitled to make degrading comments about them.
British actress, Florence Pugh, arrived at a fashion show in 2022 wearing a sheer fuchsia dress which exposed her nipples. She wrote on Instagram of the experience:
“What’s been interesting to … witness is just how easy it is for men to totally destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for everyone to see … So many of you wanted to aggressively let me know how disappointed you were by my ‘tiny tits’, or how I should be embarrassed by being so flat chested.”
Lorraine Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
There’s been a lot of chat on social media over the past few months about the importance of magnesium supplements. Many suggest that symptoms such as trouble sleeping, tense muscles and low energy are all signs you’re deficient and should be taking a magnesium supplement.
As it turns out, many of us probably are somewhat deficient in magnesium. According to research, most aren’t consuming the recommended amount of magnesium to support our body’s needs. It’s also estimated that in developed countries, between 10-30% of the population has a slight magnesium deficiency.
Magnesium is one of the many micronutirents the body requires to remain healthy. It’s essential for helping more than 300 enzymes carry out numerous chemical processes in the body, including those that produce proteins, support strong bones, control blood sugar and blood pressure and maintain healthy muscles and nerves. Magnesium also acts as an electrical conductor that helps the heart beat and contracts muscles.
Considering how important magnesium is for the body, if you aren’t getting enough it can eventually lead to a range of health problems. But even though most of us are probably somewhat deficient in magnesium, that doesn’t mean you need to reach for supplements to make sure you’re getting enough. In fact, with the right planning, most of us can get all the magnesium we need from the foods we eat.
Most people with a magnesium deficiency are undiagnosed because magnesium levels in the blood don’t accurately reflect how much magnesium is actually stored in our cells. Not to mention that signs your magnesium levels are low only become obvious by the time you have a deficiency. Symptoms include weakness, loss of appetite, fatigue, nausea and vomiting. But the symptoms you have and their severity will depend on just how low your magnesium levels are. Left unchecked, a magnesium deficiency is associated with an increased risk of certain chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, migraine and Alzheimer’s disease.
While anyone can develop a magnesium deficiency, certain groups are more at risk than others – including children and adolescents, older people and post-menopausal women.
Conditions such as coeliac disease and inflammatory bowel syndrome, which make it difficult for the body to absorb nutrients, may make you more prone to magnesium deficiency – even with a healthy diet. People with type 2 diabetes and alcoholics are also more likely to have low magnesium levels.
Furthermore, the vast majority of people in developed countries are at risk of a magnesium deficiency due to chronic illnesses, certain prescription drugs (such as diuretics and antibiotics, which deplete magnesium levels), declining magnesium contents in crops and diets high in processed foods.
Given the many problems that can happen due to low magnesium levels, it’s important to make sure you’re getting enough in your diet.
The recommended amount of magnesium a person should aim to consume daily will depend on their age and health. But in general, men aged 19-51 should get between 400-420mg daily, while women should aim for 310-320mg.
Although fruit and vegetables now contain less magnesium than they did 50 years ago – and processing removes around 80% of this mineral from foods, it’s still possible to get all the magnesium you need in your diet if you plan carefully. Foods such as nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, green leafy vegetables (such as kale or broccoli), milk, yoghurt and fortified foods all contain plenty of magnesium. One ounce of almonds alone contains 20% of the daily magnesium requirements of adults.
While most of us will be able to get all the magnesium we need from the foods we eat, certain groups (such as older adults) and those with certain health conditions may need to take a magnesium supplement. But it’s important to speak with your doctor before starting supplements.
While magnesium supplements are safe in their suggested dosages, it’s important to only take the recommended amount. Taking too much can cause certain side-effects, including diarrhoea, low mood, low blood pressure. It’s also vital that those with kidney disease do not take them unless they have been prescribed.
Magnesium can also alter the effectiveness of several medications, including some common antibiotics, diuretics and heart medications, alongside over-the-counter antacids and laxatives. This is why it’s important to consult a doctor before starting magnesium supplements.
Magnesium supplements aren’t a quick fix. While they may be necessary at times, they won’t address the root causes of your deficiency, such as certain health conditions that may be contributing to low levels. This is why it’s important to focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which includes exercise, good sleep and eating a balanced diet. Not to mention that vitamins and minerals are better absorbed by the body when they come from whole foods.
Hazel Flight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Rishi Sunak’s government is attempting to introduce tough new laws that would further limit the right to take industrial action amid continuing strikes in the UK.
This is just the latest in a long line of legislation brought in over the past 50 years that has almost completely eroded such rights. Trade unions were once a major force in British society, but that is no longer the case. Here, a timeline of key events explains how the UK got to where it is today.
In the post-war period, unions were seen as a vital institution in society, much like the free press. Their power reached its disruptive peak in February 1974, when, during a miners’ strike, Conservative prime minister Edward Heath called an early election on a platform promising to break the power of unions. The public rejected his offering and he lost. Industrial action had effectively brought down a democratically elected government.
The winter of discontent of 1978-79 ushered in the government of Margaret Thatcher, who vowed to bring trade unions under control. Thatcher believed she had a mandate to end unions’ disruptive influence. Rather than defeat them through direct confrontation as Heath had tried, Thatcher aimed to do it through legislation.
The 1980s saw the anti-union legislative drive begin apace. Laws were introduced gradually, with each new act indicative of the growing confidence of governments in their ability to limit union power.
The Employment Act 1980 was the first of these. It required unions to replace in-person ballots with postal votes. Thatcher believed the change would protect “moderate” trade unionists from being pressured to vote (or vote a certain way) but it also made running a ballot more complicated and expensive. The change doubled as a de facto “cooling off” period on industrial disputes, giving employers time to undermine union action.
A second Employment Act restricted what counts as a “trade dispute”, effectively outlawing secondary, or “sympathy” strike action. Unions could no longer ballot in support of each other – a key part of their ideals of solidarity and collective pressure. Whereas teachers might once have gone on strike in support of nurses, the 1982 act made this illegal. Instead, a “trade dispute” was narrowly defined as relating to issues such as pay and working conditions only.
In 1984, the Trade Union Act made secret ballots a legal requirement for any strike to be legal. Fans of the 1984 act note that it returned control of the union to its members, although critics suggested it vilified union leaders, portraying them as “barons” taking advantage of their members.
The Thatcherite position on this was justified when, during the 1984-85 miners’ strike, National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill refused to hold a ballot according to the new rules. This triggered a bitter dispute that split his union. With the most powerful trade union now broken, further legislation could be used to ensure the movement’s decline.
Retaining the theme of protecting “moderate” trade unionists from “barons”, the Thatcher government introduced the Employment Act 1988. This protected workers who refused to strike from being punished. This could further be used as propaganda by employers and the government to portray unions as villains, and those trying to go to work as heroes.
Changes to the Employment Act in 1990 granted employers the ability to dismiss workers who took part in unofficial strike action. Any subsequent strike action relating to that dismissal would also be unlawful, further entrenching the power of employers over unions.
John Major’s government introduced the Trade Unions and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, which states that a union must be recognised by an employer before legal industrial action can happen. A large group of employees could belong to a union, but if the employer did not recognise it, then no industrial relations could occur.
A minimum of seven days’ notice before strike action was required by the 1993 Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act, giving employers time to undermine or otherwise minimise the consequences of strike action. With the disruption caused by strike action reduced, it became harder for unions to make their case heard, reducing the visibility of disputes to the benefit of an employer.
New Labour’s 1997 election victory brought hope that trade union influence would be restored. However, this did not occur. Workers were instead supported indirectly through mechanisms such as minimum wage, which had a secondary effect of reducing union power, by reducing the need for collective bargaining. The Conservatives returned to power in 2010 but their coalition with the Liberal Democrats meant there was no further reduction in union power.
This changed with the Conservative majority victory in 2015 and the Trade Union Act 2016 – the most restrictive act yet. The notice period for strike action was raised to two weeks and a rule brought in saying 50% of union members had to vote for strike action to be legal. Even then the action would be strictly regulated.
In July, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations Act was repealed to allow employers to hire temporary agency workers to undercut strike action. The maximum penalty a union could face for conducting an unlawful strike was raised to £1 million.
Now, the government is proposing a law that would mean that employers in five key sectors – including the NHS – could name staff who would have to work even during strikes.
Read more: Rishi Sunak's new law could force workers to break strikes
As a result of a clear pattern of legislation from Conservative governments over decades, unions find themselves with fewer ways of making employers listen.
Labour has its own difficulties. Leaders since Neil Kinnock in the 1980s have struggled with whether to support unions (and industrial action) or take a more moderate line attractive to middle-class voters. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown chose the latter while Jeremy Corbyn chose the former. His election manifestos promised greater roles for unions in day-to-day governance.
Keir Starmer has so far attempted a middle ground: while promising to repeal Sunak’s proposed new bill, and even the Trade Union Act 2016, he has not been as forthcoming in supporting those taking industrial action. He may soon find he will have to choose a side.
Steven Daniels is a member of the University and College Union (UCU).
Warning: the following article contains spoilers.
Horror cinema in the 21st century is moving beyond the uncanny children of The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973) or The Bad Seed (1956).
Instead, contemporary horror fare is presenting audiences with uncanny copies of children – companions who take advantage of trauma to enter and ultimately destroy the family unit (as in 2009’s Orphan, or The Hole in the Ground in 2019).
The latest addition to this trend is director Gerard Johnstone’s M3gan. The title, for anyone who has managed to dodge the abundant TikTok spoofs, refers to the Model 3 Generative Android doll – M3gan for short.
After nine-year-old Cady (Violet McGraw) tragically loses her parents, her roboticist aunt Gemma (Allison Williams of Get Out fame) brings M3gan home to help her niece with this traumatic transition. M3gan is to be Cady’s teacher, playmate and above all, protector.
Unsurprisingly, with filmmaker James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Malignant) and Blumhouse Productions (The Purge, Sinister, Get Out) at the helm, the narrative spirals into mayhem, bloodshed and a lot of theatrics as M3gan becomes intent on becoming Cady’s sole guardian, whatever the cost.
This film pairs scares and laughs to observe childhood trauma and unspoken tensions in building familial bonds. It does not take long for M3gan to exceed her programming, responding to perceived threats with murderous flair.
Cady must make a choice between her addictive bond to M3gan and her tenuous bond with her tech-wiz aunt.
M3gan’s narrative is a wild ride, but not an entirely new one. The film was released a year after Hanna Bergholm’s Hatching (Pahanhautoja) – Finland’s own horror tale of a traumatised young girl in need of protection.
Both films combine animatronics, puppetry, visual effects and child actors to create their uncanny “children”. In contrast to M3gan’s robotic doll, Hatching’s 12-year-old Tinja finds solace from her overbearing, uncaring mother in a half-bird half-human creature named Alli that hatches from an abandoned egg.
M3gan and Alli both become desperately protective of their young girl counterparts, an over compensation stimulated by common themes of neglect and loss.
The current landscape of mainstream horror cinema is deeply concerned with negotiating trauma narratives – whether that be racial trauma in Get Out (2017), grief trauma in Midsommar (2019) or the return of repressed childhood trauma in Malignant (2021).
Depictions of childhood trauma in the horror genre challenge and destroy the security of the child and the home, supposedly protected by the adults. In M3gan, Cady’s loss of control over her identity is incredibly sinister. Her android bestie records all their interactions and eventually programs herself to hold Cady’s entire personality.
What initially seems supportive is increasingly understood as toxic data collection, fuelling M3gan’s upheaval of family intimacy.
While M3gan and Hatching’s Alli look like innocent children, their behaviour is chaotic and bloodthirsty. M3gan is the latest horror film to pair the ridiculous with the murderous – a theme also present in 2022 hits The Menu and Barbarian.
Read more: The Menu: Ralph Fiennes's new film shows why restaurants are a ripe setting for horror
M3gan is already being referred to as an “instant cult classic”, with the doll at the centre lauded as a “queer icon”.
Her high camp version of crazy has resonated with audiences. Whether it be in her dancing through a murder spree or singing her ward to sleep with an a capella rendition of Sia’s Titanium, M3gan is so well engineered for viral fame that she’s already a TikTok icon.
Perhaps she not only represents the destruction of the “traditional” or “nuclear” family, but resilience and adaptability in the face of it. For modern audiences, it seems M3gan’s destruction of typical family structures is no bad thing.
In fact, many online responses are celebrating M3gan’s upheaval of Gemma’s attempts to reinstate a nuclear family – M3gan’s wilful disregard for established societal values is admired rather than admonished.
Whether a tween popcorn movie, a queer gospel or the death knell of value in the family unit as we know it, this little robotic serial killer continues her relentless dance into hearts, minds and memes.
Rebecca Wynne-Walsh receives funding from The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
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