Professor Archie Brown on the ‘dangerous myth’ of the strong leader

In politics, it is generally seen as a good thing to be considered a ‘strong leader’, with Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher often used as examples of the dovetailing of strength, electoral success, and policy achievement. But is this necessarily the case? In a new book, ‘The Myth of the Strong Leader‘, Archie Brown argues that this widely held belief is not only wrong, but most likely dangerous, too. Democratic Audit asked Professor Brown to answer some questions about his argument, with part one of two appearing below

Professor Archie Brown on redefining, revolutionary and transformational political leaders

In a previous post, Archie Brown argued that the notion that ‘strong leaders’ are better equipped to win elections and display leadership is flawed, with the opposite in many cases being true. In the second part of an online Q&A session with Professor Brown, he explains the concept of redefining and transformational leaders – those political leaders who do, for better or worse, fundamentally change the polity in which they operate

Political leadership in the Cold War’s ending: Thatcher and the turn to engagement with the Soviet Union

Archie Brown draws on his latest book to discuss Margaret Thatcher’s role in the end of the Cold War, which he argues was more significant than commonly believed. He writes that no alternative Conservative leader would have enjoyed the close relationship she enjoyed with Reagan, while it is highly questionable whether an alternative British prime minister would have made such a strong impact on Gorbachev

All power to 10 Downing Street: Johnson's first major reshuffle and the perils of presidentialism

Despite ups and downs in prime ministerial power over the years, the general tendency has been to expect the prime minister to do more than in the past, writes Archie Brown. He traces this tendency back to Margaret Tharcher’s premiership, which gave a huge impetus to the idea that political power belongs to the prime minister rather than to the government. He explains how an expansive interpretation of this idea was taken several steps further in Boris Johnson’s first significant cabinet reshuffle

The Self‐Magnification of British Leaders: Prime Ministers’ Perceptions and Projections of their Powers and Roles in the Postwar Era

Within the extensive literature on the powers and constraints of British prime ministers, there has been little comparison of the extent to which the premiers themselves have perceived or projected a personal entitlement to determine government policy. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, this article compares prime ministers who have asserted a right to be the ultimate decision maker with those who have embraced, and even emphasised, the determining role of government ministers and collective bodies in major policy making. For quantitative comparison, the focus is on prime ministers’ speeches to their party's annual conference, from Attlee in 1946 to Starmer in 2024. Margaret Thatcher's leadership emerges as a transition point. Post‐Thatcher, prime ministers have an augmented sense of their own prerogatives and a greater willingness to claim increasingly capacious powers

Accelerating Systemic Change Network (ASCN): Demonstrating Impact

The goals of this presentation for participants was: •Learn about the Accelerating Systemic Change Network (ASCN), why it is important, what it can do for you, and how you can get involved. •Learn about work done by ASCN on demonstrating impact and how measurement and communication can be used to promote change. •Learn about areas where educational research is needed and you can contribute

Multi-ancestry study of blood lipid levels identifies four loci interacting with physical activity.

Many genetic loci affect circulating lipid levels, but it remains unknown whether lifestyle factors, such as physical activity, modify these genetic effects. To identify lipid loci interacting with physical activity, we performed genome-wide analyses of circulating HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglyceride levels in up to 120,979 individuals of European, African, Asian, Hispanic, and Brazilian ancestry, with follow-up of suggestive associations in an additional 131,012 individuals. We find four loci, in/near CLASP1, LHX1, SNTA1, and CNTNAP2, that are associated with circulating lipid levels through interaction with physical activity; higher levels of physical activity enhance the HDL cholesterol-increasing effects of the CLASP1, LHX1, and SNTA1 loci and attenuate the LDL cholesterol-increasing effect of the CNTNAP2 locus. The CLASP1, LHX1, and SNTA1 regions harbor genes linked to muscle function and lipid metabolism. Our results elucidate the role of physical activity interactions in the genetic contribution to blood lipid levels

Interpretation of porosity and LWD resistivity from the Nankai accretionary wedge in light of clay physicochemical properties: Evidence for erosion and local overpressuring

International audienceIn this study, we used porosity to assess the compaction state of the Nankai accretionary wedge sediments and any implications for stress and pore pressure. However, hydrous minerals affect porosity measurements, and accounting for them is essential toward defining the interstitial porosity truly representative of the compaction state. The water content of sediments was measured in core samples and estimated from logging data using a resistivity model for shale. We used the cation exchange capacity to correct the porosity data for the amount of water bound to clay minerals and to correct the porosity estimates for the surface conductivity of hydrous minerals. The results indicate that several apparent porosity anomalies are significantly reduced by this correction, implying that they are in part artifacts from hydrous minerals. The correction also improves the fit of porosity estimated from logging-while-drilling (LWD) resistivity data to porosity measured on cores. Low overall porosities at the toe of the accretionary wedge and in the splay fault area are best explained by erosion, and we estimated the quantity of sediments eroded within the splay fault area by comparing porosity-effective stress relationships of the sediments to a reference curve. Additionally, a comparison of LWD data with core data (resistivity and P wave velocity) obtained at Site C0001 landward of the mega-splay fault area, suggested a contribution from the fracture porosity to in situ properties on the formation

Impact of preeclampsia on cardiovascular events: an analysis of the Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study

Preeclampsia is a recognised cause of an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events when compared to the background risk in women who did not have hypertensive disorders during pregnancy. The Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS) is a population cohort of more than 20,000 members of the Scottish population. Using the Scottish Morbidity Records, we linked the women in the GS:SFHS cohort to validated maternity and inpatient admission data. This allowed us to robustly identify cardiovascular outcomes in the form of inpatient admission for cardiovascular events, We also aimed to explore the risk of pregnancy on future cardiovascular events, using data from nulliparous and parous women.In total, 9732 women were selected. 3693 women were nulliparous, and after study exclusion, 5253 women with 9583 pregnancies remained. Pregnancies from 1980 until the end of the study period of 1st of July 2013 were included. Cardiovascular events occurred in 9.0% of nulliparous women, 4.2% of women with pregnancies and in 7.6% of women with a history of preeclampsia. A total of 218 parous women experienced cardiovascular events, 25 in the preeclampsia group and 193 in the normotensive group.Survival analysis was undertaken, with index pregnancy taken as first pregnancy in normotensive controls and first preeclampsia pregnancy in cases. Endpoint of interest was admission to hospital with first cardiovascular event. After further exclusions a total of 169 cardiovascular events occurred in the normotensive pregnancy group and 20 in the preeclampsia group. Women with a history of preeclampsia were more likely to have cardiovascular events later in life than women with normotensive deliveries., This was statistically significantly different on Kaplan Meier survival analysis, (log rank Mantel-Cox p-value < 0.001). The women in our study were middle-aged, within 33 years of pregnancy, with a mean age of 53 years in the preeclampsia cardiovascular events group.Our study supports the urgent need for uniform guidelines and implementation to improve the health in women with this medical history. Increased awareness among the public of the cardiovascular risk associated with PE is vital to aid uptake of cardiovascular prevention programmes

Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods