A distraction from the biggest public health challenge we have faced in a century: six problems with scrapping PHE

Clare Wenham outlines six reasons why abolishing Public Health England in the middle of a lethal pandemic poses real and serious problems. She writes that ultimately, Public Health England provides a convenient scapegoat for the government’s many failures in responding to COVID-19

On Cicero's Interpretation of 'Katastematic' Pleasure in Epicurus

The standard interpretation of the concept of katastematic pleasure in Epicurus has it referring to “static” states from which feeling is absent. We owe the prevalence of this interpretation to Cicero’s account of Epicureanism in his De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum. Cicero’s account, in turn, is based on the Platonic theory of pleasure. The standard interpretation, when applied to principles of Epicurean hedonism, leads to fundamental contradictions in his theory. I claim that it is not Epicurus, but the standard interpretation that generates these errors because the latter construes pleasure in Epicurus according to an attitudinal theoretical framework, whilst the account of pleasure that emerges from Epicurean epistemology sees it as experiential

Clare Wenham: women have been largely ignored in the COVID-19 response. This must change

Every Thursday the UK is encouraged to ‘clap for carers’ – who are far more likely to be women. Yet the government has not considered how measures such as furlough and school closures affect women disproportionately, and there is an absence of female representation at the top of government and in the COVID-19 working group. Clare Wenham (LSE) says that this needs to change as it develops an exit strategy

Chronic mental illness and its effects on the Portuguese family

Australian studies have indicated that NESB mentally ill live with and are cared for by their families to a much greater degree than the ESB host community. The possibilities for interaction between migration stressors and the stressors associated with caring for a mentally ill person, have health and quality of life implications for NESB carers and mentally ill. So far the experiences of NESB carers have received little research. This study is a qualitative evaluation of the experiences of four Portuguese families caring for a person with a chronic psychotic illness. In depth interviews of both carers and Health workers working with Portuguese carers and clients were used to reveal aspects of carer experience such as Migration, Leisure, and Knowledge of Mental illness. The study concluded that the Portuguese carers and mentally ill have been successful migrants who have achieved what they came here to do. The Portuguese women were found to be the major providers of care to the mentally ill and their experiences appear to parallel those of other NESB and ESB carers of the mentally ill or other chronically ill or disabled persons. For two carers however the personal cost of caring was very high. The negativity of their experience can be directly attributed to the cultural factors of male alcoholism and domestic violence which appear to be endemic in Portuguese communities. The client directed orientation of mental health servicing whereby the expertise and/or the difficulties of carers and their children are not assessed or incorporated in care planning was also found to contribute directly to carer burden

Rent strikes in the neoliberal university: Critical pedagogy for reimagining educational futures

Against the backdrop the Covid-19 pandemic, student rent strikes took place in many universities in England. Students were at times required to pay rent for accommodation they were unable to occupy, or which offered significantly reduced amenities. These students were largely first-year undergraduates, housed in accommodation owned, overseen or marketed by their university. They often did not know other students even within their accommodation blocks. Nonetheless, these students joined together to resist, to act collectively and to refuse to pay their rent. Their action resulted in at least partial victory, in some places, for some moments.   Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students involved in these rent strikes and the data were analysed thematically. Through the lens of Freire’s critical pedagogy, we examine students’ lived experiences of participating in the rent strikes and of imagining alternative educational futures. Ideas of dialogue and praxis pervade the data. Exploring this particular coming-together through political action and resistance, elucidates a tangible thread, fleshing-out the stages which interweave and coalesce to raise critical consciousness. The research neatly illustrates every step of the process of raising critical consciousness and shows how students can learn through action to bring about change in the neoliberal university

Too exhausted even to watch the news: a plea for COVID-19 policy that considers women

Our experience of the first lockdown tells us that Lockdown 3.0 will disproportionately affect women. Clare Wenham (LSE) looks at the extent of the harm and suggests what the government could do right now to mitigate the impact. Closing schools means parents must take over childcare and homeschooling, and during the first UK lockdown women ... Continue

A history of Richmond school, Yorkshire

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