Blog version: https://roycross.blog/

1. SHORT NOTICE: 18:30 UK time tomorrow, Friday 21^st February, an RSA online event, Russia’s war in a global perspective, with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, and BBC journalist Clive Myrie. More info and tickets here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/russias-war-in-a-global-perspective-tickets-1123563070389?ref=ebtn

2. Where now for the UK’s development policy? The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) and other speakers review the effectiveness of government development assistance at 12:00 UK time on Wednesday 26 February 2025. Online and face-to-face at Chatham House if you happen to be in London; register here https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/open-event/where-now-uks-development-policy You’ll need to create a free account first.

The government has committed to ‘rebuilding Britain’s reputation on international development’. But it does this at a time of multiple, significant global challenges, including slow progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and wider geopolitical volatility. It also faces heavy pressure on public finances – and with one-third of UK aid now being spent domestically on refugee and asylum support, there is heightened scrutiny placed on how and where the government spends aid money. Following the release of a new report by ICAI setting out the current trends in UK aid, experts will reflect on where recent developments and patterns have left us, including what to consider for the immediate future. ICAI is the independent body that scrutinises the UK aid budget, through evaluation of the impact and value for money of UK development assistance.

3. From the Runnymede Trust, A hostile environment: language, race, politics and the media by Maka Julios-Costa & Camila Montiel-McCann from Lancaster University. Background to the report here https://www.runnymedetrust.org/publications/a-hostile-environment-language-race-politics-and-the-media and PDF here (also attached below) https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/61488f992b58e687f1108c7c/6798ec9f5e429b786277f9db_A%20hostile%20environment_report_v4.pdf

The ‘hostile environment’ is the latest manifestation of longstanding racist/xenophobic beliefs and ‘white replacement’ anxieties that have always driven immigration law in the UK. It is a form of modern racism, designed to keep as many people of colour and ethnically minoritised people as possible out of the UK, without appearing to be racist. In light of the riots that took place around the country in August 2024, where asylum accommodation, mosques and minority-owned businesses were systematically attacked by groups of mostly white supporters of the far right, we need to acknowledge that media and politicians play a key role in perpetuating beliefs and expectations about who belongs in the country and who doesn’t. Our research shows how large sectors of the media and parliament engaged in widespread hostility towards migrants long before the announcement of the ‘hostile environment’ was made by Theresa May in May 2012. This hostility was then amplified once the ‘hostile environment’ was officially recognised as government policy.

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4. There’s a reflective, rueful piece by Simon Anholt, “acknowledged as the world’s leading authority on national image”, in the latest issue of the Place Branding and Public Diplomacy journal on place and nation branding, two terms he pretty much invented Place branding: has it all been a big misunderstanding? https://tinyurl.com/457hzeh4

Here’s Simon’s introduction to his piece: My first published essay on the topic of national image appeared in the Journal of Brand Management in 1998: this was, I believe, the first time the words “nation” and “brand” had appeared next to each other in print. The piece elicited positive interest so the journal’s publisher, Brenda Rouse, suggested that I guest-edit a Special Edition of the journal, devoted to the topic of national image. The Special Edition duly appeared in 2002, and again the response was warm enough to encourage Henry Stewart Publications to allow me to launch a new journal, Place Branding (we renamed the Journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy in Volume 3), which was first published in 2004.My Editor’s foreword to the first edition of the new journal began in a rather excitable tone: ‘Place branding is happening. A new field of practice and study is in existence, and whatever we choose to call it or however we wish to define it, there can no longer be any doubt that it is with us’. Sadly, much of my writing on this topic during the twenty years since I wrote those words has been less upbeat: actually, it’s been partly a series of retractions or, as some have wittily called them, product recall notices. The dangerously faulty product I’ve been trying to recall is of course the term “branding”, which as I realised far too late, is vague, ambiguous and potentially misleading in this context (in fact, in most contexts).

5. And, finally, I’m getting to an age where I take the findings of articles such as this one seriously, even if I don’t really understand them, Individual and additive effects of vitamin D, omega-3 and exercise on DNA methylation clocks of biological aging in older adults from the DO-HEALTH trial https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00793-y