A Comparison of Tobacco Policy in the UK and Japan: If the Scientific Evidence is Identical,Why is There a Major Difference in Policy?

Tobacco policy in the UK and Japan has diverged markedly. In the 1980s, both countries oversaw regimes with minimal economic and regulatory policies. Now the UK has become one of the most, and Japan one of the least, controlled (advanced industrial) states. These developments are puzzling to public health scholars who give primary explanatory weight to scientific evidence and a vague notion of “political will”, because policy makers possessed the same evidence on the harms of tobacco, and made the same international commitment to comprehensive tobacco control. Instead, we identify the role of a mutually reinforcing dynamic in policy environments, facilitating policy change in the UK but not Japan: policy makers accepted the scientific evidence, framed tobacco as a public health epidemic, placed health departments at the heart of policy, formed networks with public health groups and excluded tobacco companies, and accentuated socio-economic conditions supportive of tobacco control. This dynamic helps explain why the UK became more likely to select each tobacco policy control instrument during a series of “windows of opportunity”. Such analysis, generated by policy theory, is crucial to contemporary science/practitioner debates on the politics of “evidence-based policy making”: the evidence does not speak for itself, and practitioners need to know how to use it effectively in policy environments.     

The 2017 General Election,Brexit and the Return to Two‐Party Politics: An Aggregate‐Level Analysis of the Result

The outcome of the 2017 general election—a hung parliament—defied most predictions. In this article, we draw on aggregate‐level data to conduct an initial exploration of the vote. What was the impact of Brexit on the 2017 general election result? What difference did the collapse of UKIP make? And what was the relative importance of factors such as turnout, education, age and ethnic diversity on support for the two main parties? First, we find that turnout was generally higher in more pro‐remain areas, and places with high concentrations of young people, ethnic minorities and university graduates. Second, we find that the Conservatives made gains in the sort of places that had previously backed Brexit and previously voted for UKIP . But, third, we find that the gains the Conservatives made from the electoral decline of UKIP were offset by losses in the sort of places that had previously supported the Conservatives, particularly areas in southern England with larger numbers of graduates. The implication of these findings is that while a Brexit effect contributed to a ‘realignment on the right’, with the Conservative strategy appealing to people in places that had previously voted for UKIP , this strategy was not without an electoral cost, and appears to have hurt the party in more middle class areas.     

Infrastructure Provision on the Margins: An Assessment of Broadband Delivery UK

ABSTRACT

Many governments have recognised the socio-economic importance of broadband. The market often provides a broadband connection but when this does not occur governments have stepped in. Through focusing on one government intervention, Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) in the UK, this paper highlights the cost of providing broadband connections to areas unserved by the market. The difficulty of assessing demand in such areas is illustrated, as is how the lack of transparency complicates any assessment of the value for money.     

Was there a ‘Youthquake’ in the 2017 general election?

Studies using data from the British Election Study and the British Social Attitudes survey have concluded that the case for a significant rise in turnout amongst young people at the 2017 general election remains unproven. A limitation of these data sets for assessing the so-called Youthquake thesis is the small number of younger voters they contain. In this research note we use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey to produce more robust estimates of turnout amongst people aged under thirty between the 2010, 2015, and 2017 general elections. Our findings support the claim that turnout increased markedly among voters in this age group in 2017. They also demonstrate that the increase in youth turnout was not specific to 2017 but, rather, represented a continuation of a change between 2010 and 2015. Our analysis confirms the heightened importance of age as a predictor of vote choice in 2017, with younger voters significantly more likely to vote Labour compared to 2010 and 2015.     

Politicians and Civil Servants: Unfinished Business—The Next Steps Report,Fulton and the Future*

This article discusses the origins of the Efficiency Unit's ‘Next Steps’ Report, published 20 years ago which recommended the executive agency as an organisation for much of the British government. Within five years more than half the civil service had been transferred to work in agencies but the other major recommendation of the report – improving the management skills of the senior civil service received far less enthusiastic attention. From the Fulton Report, the Next Steps report to the Capability Reviews of current Whitehall the same problem is highlighted: there is still too little management competence within the public service despite the endorsement of the need for improvement by successive governments.     

Journey history reconstruction from the soils and sediments on footwear: An empirical approach

The value of environmental evidence for reconstructing journey histories has significant potential given the high transferability of sediments and the interaction of footwear with the ground. The importance of empirical evidence bases to underpin the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of forensic trace materials is increasingly acknowledged. This paper presents two experimental studies designed to address the transfer and persistence of sediments on the soles of footwear in forensically relevant scenarios, by means of quartz grain surface texture analysis, a technique which has been demonstrated to be able to distinguish between samples of mixed provenance.It was identified that there is a consistent trend of transfer and persistence of sediments from hypothetical pre-, syn- and post-crime event locations across the sole of the shoe, with sediments from ‘older’ locations likely to be retained in small proportions. Furthermore, the arch of the shoe (the area of lowest foot pressure distribution) typically (but not exclusively) retained the highest proportion of grain types from previous locations including the crime scene. A lack of chronological layering of the retained sediments was observed indicating that techniques that can identify the components of mixed provenance samples are important for analysing footwear sediment samples. It was also identified that the type of footwear appeared to have an influence on what particles were retained, with high relief soles that incorporate recessed areas being more likely to retain sediments transferred from ‘older’ locations from the journey history. In addition, the inners of footwear were found to retain sediments from multiple locations from the journey history that are less susceptible to differential loss in comparison to the outer sole. These findings provide important data that can form the basis for the effective collection, analysis and interpretation of sediments recovered from both the outer soles and inners of footwear, building on the findings of previously published studies. These data offer insights that enable inferences to be made about mixed source sediments that are identified on footwear in casework, and provide the beginnings of an empirical basis for assessing the significance of such sediment particles for a specific forensic reconstruction.     

Transcultural body spaces: re-inventing and performing headwrap practice among young Congolese women in London

ABSTRACT

This article examines embodied representation of race, ethnicity, and gender, questioning ideas of cultural appropriation. Using the London-based Congolese transnational fashion brand Kiyana Wraps as a case study, the article addresses how young Congolese designers re-invent their cultural heritage to conceive the label stylisation and construct meanings of Blackness/Africanness. The article also explores the brand’s social spaces, where the headwrap ritual is used by different actors to perform hybrid identities. In addition, wearing the headwrap reveals symbolic metaphors of empowerment, through which intertwined ‘feminist’ and ‘feminine’ identities are evoked. The paper examines how Congolese women are creatively taking inspiration from the environment of London to produce innovative fashion trajectories as lived socio-cultural experiences. It argues how the headwrap ritual signifies an aesthetic and material process through which specific racial and ethnic boundaries are transcended, fabricating transcultural body spaces which encompass individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds.     

英国有关海上保险法的最新修改议案及对中国的借鉴

为通过法律平衡被保险人和保险人之间的利益,反映现代保险实务的需要以及保证保险合同双方明确各自的权利和义务,英国法律委员会与苏格兰法律委员会自2006年起将保险合同法的审查和修改提上日程。法律委员会通过发布咨询文件的形式提出修改涉及英国《1906年海上保险法》多个重要条款的保险合同法的方案。整个法律修改项目预计于2012年完成,届时英国海上保险法会有很大程度的改变。通过介绍英国海上保险法的修改,为中国海商法相关问题的修改提供参考和借鉴。     

Whitewashing Hitler: ‘Revisionist’ history‐distorters at work

In April 1983 Canadians were shocked to learn of a politically active school teacher in Alberta who taught his students an antisemitic view of history. The teacher was dismissed but he had expressed antisemitic views in the classroom for years.     

Repression and reaction: militant democracy and the radical right in Germany and France

The June 2004 elections offered the British National Party unique opportunities for growth. There were three different elections being held at once: for seats on local councils, for the London mayor and the London Assembly, and for members of the European parliament (MEPs). Following boundary changes, the local council election was being conducted on a three-candidates-per-seat basis. The London and European elections were being run according to the rules of proportional representation. Both systems favour minor parties. The BNP went into the elections buoyed up by almost four years of considerable success. However, the party failed to achieve the gains anticipated. After several years that witnessed increasing votes, this was the first instance of the BNP vote stagnating. Renton explains the BNP's failure in terms of a series of factors: poor leadership, tactical errors, the hardening of Conservative anti-BNP voters, the press publicity garnered by the UK Independence Party, and the successful intervention of anti-BNP campaigners.