The colours of the Sun

We compile a sample of Sun-like stars with accurate effective temperatures, metallicities and colours (from the UV to the near-IR). A crucial improvement is that the effective temperature scale of the stars has recently been established as both accurate and precise through direct measurement of angular diameters obtained with stellar interferometers. We fit the colours as a function of effective temperature and metallicity, and derive colour estimates for the Sun in the Johnson/Cousins, Tycho, Stromgren, 2MASS and SDSS photometric systems. For (B-V)_Sun, we favour the ``red'' colour 0.64 versus the ``blue'' colour 0.62 of other recent papers, but both values are consistent within the errors; we ascribe the difference to the selection of Sun-like stars versus interpolation of wider colour-Teff-metallicity relations.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted by MNRA

A Diminutive Enigma: New perspectives on Arthur Phillip, first Governor of New South Wales

A sardonic and private man, Arthur Phillip has always been an enigma. His private papers were mostly dispersed and lost, his origins were covered in obscurity and misinformation and few personal descriptions have survived. This essay examines the available information to consider Phillip's personal life and rumours about his death

Be careful what you wish for

Can the promotion of liberal norms have an unintended – and damaging – impact on how states confront the challenges of irregular immigration

The bipartisanship of appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy is more affected by domestic factors than international

Many academics and commentators on American foreign policy have maintained that since the end of the Vietnam and Cold Wars, foreign policy-making has become subject to the kind of partisan political battles that have long afflicted domestic politics. By using data on over 1,000 individual appointees to the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy Michael Flynn tests this view, and finds that there is no evidence to support the idea that bipartisanship in appointments has undergone a structural shift. He argues that domestic political conditions play an important part in promoting bipartisanship, and that as Congress has become more polarized, bipartisan appointments have become increasingly scarce. He warns that we should expect to see less bipartisan cooperation through presidential appointments in the future