[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":137},["Reactive",2],{"post:dog-days-changing-political-weather":3},{"_id":4,"authors":5,"body":9,"categories":7,"imageCredit":116,"imageUrl":117,"parent":7,"plainTextBody":118,"publishedAt":119,"slug":120,"submenuItems":123,"subtitle":7,"title":136},"e74e0461-bd95-4971-8a09-ab218d045852",[6],{"image":7,"name":8,"organisation":7,"slug":7},null,"Nik Elvy",[10,21,29,37,45,52,60,68,76,84,92,100,108],{"_key":11,"_type":12,"children":13,"markDefs":19,"style":20},"64b615c0ab73","block",[14],{"_key":15,"_type":16,"marks":17,"text":18},"11fd30792462","span",[],"The air is stifling, hot, with high humidity. It’s actually a bit hard to breathe. Working in school today, staff were wondering why the floors were wet. At first they thought something was spilt and not cleaned up. The heat and unbearable moisture in the air condensates on the flooring, adding another risk to having too many children and adults in spaces never designed for these high temperatures. No one knows what the rules are. Guidance from the DfE is light on decision making but there is a definite lean towards: don’t close schools as schools are the best place for children to learn.",[],"normal",{"_key":22,"_type":12,"children":23,"markDefs":28,"style":20},"6672fc8662d5",[24],{"_key":25,"_type":16,"marks":26,"text":27},"1c9da198213a",[],"Attention and concentration decline in continued high heat. Working memory is less efficient. Decision making is more impulsive with a higher tendency to cut corners and take shortcuts. Academic performance is affected as our cognitive processes focus on keeping a balance in our whole system, drinking enough, staying cool and calm. Emotional regulation is harder to achieve.",[],{"_key":30,"_type":12,"children":31,"markDefs":36,"style":20},"bc26a0531e3d",[32],{"_key":33,"_type":16,"marks":34,"text":35},"9b2d243b5181",[],"I see posts about the impact of the heatwave on different populations. Women suffer more in the heat, neurodivergent people can’t always sense that they need to drink or that they are too hot, older people and young children don’t regulate in heat as well as others. People on certain medications might be in danger from heat exposure. People who already struggle with health conditions may feel the impacts of the heatwave more and this is a risk. The Met Office red warning means there is a risk to life, even for healthy people.",[],{"_key":38,"_type":12,"children":39,"markDefs":44,"style":20},"1abeecb22627",[40],{"_key":41,"_type":16,"marks":42,"text":43},"2757f0aa07b5",[],"On needing to drive to work in my dated and non air-conditioned car, I stopped to let the postwoman cross the road, she looked unduly grateful. Workers were out cutting verges in the strongest heat of the day. A cafe stopped serving hot food early at a financial cost to themselves, in order to protect their staff. The owner explained how just turning off all of the heat producing equipment in the kitchens had made conditions slightly more bearable for staff. However, she was surprised at complaints and lack of empathy from tourists, who were angry with her about the reduced menu. ",[],{"_key":46,"_type":12,"children":47,"markDefs":51,"style":20},"8cf6a0239569",[48],{"_key":41,"_type":16,"marks":49,"text":50},[],"A stop at the supermarket on the way home meant we couldn’t see food hidden behind protective foiled screens, as fridges were malfunctioning and leaking onto the floor, water also dripped from the ceiling. A high end supermarket throws perfectly good food away due to freezers failing. Leaving the supermarket, people explained that it felt like getting off the plane on holiday to a hot country. I’ve never flown to a hot country and so the comment on a post that said, walking out of an air-conditioned space feels like walking into soup, is something I relate to more. The homeless guy is in this soup. Unable to escape the hot concrete. Unable to buy a fan, go indoors or close the curtains.",[],{"_key":53,"_type":12,"children":54,"markDefs":59,"style":20},"0afe2b077f1c",[55],{"_key":56,"_type":16,"marks":57,"text":58},"0ab1de630277",[],"As the UK is suffering from heat exhaustion and the heat related malfunctioning of infrastructure, our Prime Minister resigns. You couldn’t make it up! The heatwave build up, the failure of systems and the confusion of a whole population attempting to cope in a Nation built for a different climate. It feels like the opening to a film where the unbearable heat wave serves as a metaphor for the rising emotions, frayed patience, changing politics and even madness of a community.",[],{"_key":61,"_type":12,"children":62,"markDefs":67,"style":20},"faaef7076350",[63],{"_key":64,"_type":16,"marks":65,"text":66},"27d630c5831e",[],"On social media, Mums, worried about sending their children to school in the highest temperatures ever recorded in June, are attacked by anonymous commenters, like packs of dogs made mad by the heat: “I was alive in the 1976 Heatwave and I’m ok” barks one, “It’s called weather” snarls another. “Let’s protect the little snowflakes, talk about woke,” growls yet another. In a heatwave crisis, in the absence of healthy leadership, the people of the country, distressingly, appear to turn on each other. What fuels it? Climate denial? British Exceptionalism? Pining for the Empire? A dog eats dog individualism?",[],{"_key":69,"_type":12,"children":70,"markDefs":75,"style":20},"f7f5b6a048dc",[71],{"_key":72,"_type":16,"marks":73,"text":74},"004edcd16a57",[],"Can a new leader help? Can we afford to hope? During the Covid and lockdown years, Andy Burnham (the proposed new prime minister) was inspiring, fighting for ordinary people in a way other leaders were not. It was easy to envy Manchester for the support it had. We can imagine this leader would surely understand the people in a heatwave. He would know that the vulnerable were most at risk in a changing climate. He would know that lower paid workers were the most at risk of heat exposure, that there was no safe legal temperature for workers. Because, like in the Covid Pandemic, the essential workers were also the ones more at risk and those with least were impacted most.",[],{"_key":77,"_type":12,"children":78,"markDefs":83,"style":20},"df58609dd697",[79],{"_key":80,"_type":16,"marks":81,"text":82},"c59806e0d5be",[],"This week I made a post about the folklore of heatwaves. In the UK, despite our abundance of stories and folk beliefs about rain, storms and wind we don’t really have a strong tradition of stories about heat waves. The absence of this in our cultural narrative is important. This is a new problem and one we are not ready for and one that it feels we are ignoring. Folklore borrowed from the Mediterranean, explores the experience of drought, extreme heat, crop failure, spoiled food and extreme human behaviours to match, as corresponding to the appearance of the star Sirius. Sirius is also known as the Dog Star. The impact of heat on the land and people was attributed to the dog star being visible in the night sky during the summer months. For this reason, times like these earned themselves the name, The Dog Days.",[],{"_key":85,"_type":12,"children":86,"markDefs":91,"style":20},"9fcced86449f",[87],{"_key":88,"_type":16,"marks":89,"text":90},"ec00420fc628",[],"We are in the Dog Days. The heat is on. Tensions are high.",[],{"_key":93,"_type":12,"children":94,"markDefs":99,"style":20},"e94f9f17ec21",[95],{"_key":96,"_type":16,"marks":97,"text":98},"7e747bf2f34b",[],"Let’s look to Europe and how the heat wave has impacted them and the responses that leaders have had. Cool rooms have been provided in public buildings, and rules about work in the hottest hours of the day are introduced. If workers are not safe to work in the heat, there are schemes that ensure they do not lose pay. Water mist arches and spray fountains have been introduced in cities, more drinking water fountains, cool stations, maps of cool places for those without air conditioning, temporary shading, extra tree planting in urban areas. Europe shows us that discomfort and health risk can and should be mitigated on a state level. The UK seems to leave the heat risk to individual responsibility. This might explain why people turn on each other if they find the heat difficult. We are in a heat competition with each other that we never agreed to enter. Being vulnerable in dangerous heat is framed as individual weakness not as state health responsibility.",[],{"_key":101,"_type":12,"children":102,"markDefs":107,"style":20},"effcd4c75c18",[103],{"_key":104,"_type":16,"marks":105,"text":106},"8298aa3d36c1",[],"I joined the Covid Realities project during the covid lockdowns, it recorded and supported those on lower incomes at a strange juncture in our UK and global history. Covid and lockdowns brutally exposed the inequalities of the UK. This Heatwave has also exposed some of the same inequalities. What will a new leader bring? What will Andy Burnham bring? Nicknamed The King of the North, some political commentators have labelled his rise to leadership as The Return of the King. That’s a lot to live up to. During Covid he was supporting the people but will he still support the people in the Dog Days? Many of us are exhausted, precarious, unwell, unheard, hungry, lonely, unsupported, overworked and unhoused. That’s a lot to fix.",[],{"_key":109,"_type":12,"children":110,"markDefs":115,"style":20},"735c5ad07b9c",[111],{"_key":112,"_type":16,"marks":113,"text":114},"288e55658e7c",[],"In a film or in a novel, the melting tarmac, cancelled trains, broken fridges in supermarkets, lack of air con, lack of planning, the obligation to work even when unsafe, increases in hospital admissions, a rise in heat related deaths, a suffering population and failing infrastructure would symbolise the fracturing of social and political systems. What makes our dog days harder is maybe that we believe we are temperate. We see ourselves as temperate in climate and temperate in mood. But things have been changing, the weather and our politics with it.",[],"Author's own","https://cdn.sanity.io/images/brhp578m/production/9aab4ec2cc2c9bb0aa4dac1bbb8802ae8975c5ad-1080x1350.jpg","The air is stifling, hot, with high humidity. It’s actually a bit hard to breathe. Working in school today, staff were wondering why the floors were wet. At first they thought something was spilt and not cleaned up. The heat and unbearable moisture in the air condensates on the flooring, adding another risk to having too many children and adults in spaces never designed for these high temperatures. No one knows what the rules are. Guidance from the DfE is light on decision making but there is a definite lean towards: don’t close schools as schools are the best place for children to learn.\n\nAttention and concentration decline in continued high heat. Working memory is less efficient. Decision making is more impulsive with a higher tendency to cut corners and take shortcuts. Academic performance is affected as our cognitive processes focus on keeping a balance in our whole system, drinking enough, staying cool and calm. Emotional regulation is harder to achieve.\n\nI see posts about the impact of the heatwave on different populations. Women suffer more in the heat, neurodivergent people can’t always sense that they need to drink or that they are too hot, older people and young children don’t regulate in heat as well as others. People on certain medications might be in danger from heat exposure. People who already struggle with health conditions may feel the impacts of the heatwave more and this is a risk. The Met Office red warning means there is a risk to life, even for healthy people.\n\nOn needing to drive to work in my dated and non air-conditioned car, I stopped to let the postwoman cross the road, she looked unduly grateful. Workers were out cutting verges in the strongest heat of the day. A cafe stopped serving hot food early at a financial cost to themselves, in order to protect their staff. The owner explained how just turning off all of the heat producing equipment in the kitchens had made conditions slightly more bearable for staff. However, she was surprised at complaints and lack of empathy from tourists, who were angry with her about the reduced menu. \n\nA stop at the supermarket on the way home meant we couldn’t see food hidden behind protective foiled screens, as fridges were malfunctioning and leaking onto the floor, water also dripped from the ceiling. A high end supermarket throws perfectly good food away due to freezers failing. Leaving the supermarket, people explained that it felt like getting off the plane on holiday to a hot country. I’ve never flown to a hot country and so the comment on a post that said, walking out of an air-conditioned space feels like walking into soup, is something I relate to more. The homeless guy is in this soup. Unable to escape the hot concrete. Unable to buy a fan, go indoors or close the curtains.\n\nAs the UK is suffering from heat exhaustion and the heat related malfunctioning of infrastructure, our Prime Minister resigns. You couldn’t make it up! The heatwave build up, the failure of systems and the confusion of a whole population attempting to cope in a Nation built for a different climate. It feels like the opening to a film where the unbearable heat wave serves as a metaphor for the rising emotions, frayed patience, changing politics and even madness of a community.\n\nOn social media, Mums, worried about sending their children to school in the highest temperatures ever recorded in June, are attacked by anonymous commenters, like packs of dogs made mad by the heat: “I was alive in the 1976 Heatwave and I’m ok” barks one, “It’s called weather” snarls another. “Let’s protect the little snowflakes, talk about woke,” growls yet another. In a heatwave crisis, in the absence of healthy leadership, the people of the country, distressingly, appear to turn on each other. What fuels it? Climate denial? British Exceptionalism? Pining for the Empire? A dog eats dog individualism?\n\nCan a new leader help? Can we afford to hope? During the Covid and lockdown years, Andy Burnham (the proposed new prime minister) was inspiring, fighting for ordinary people in a way other leaders were not. It was easy to envy Manchester for the support it had. We can imagine this leader would surely understand the people in a heatwave. He would know that the vulnerable were most at risk in a changing climate. He would know that lower paid workers were the most at risk of heat exposure, that there was no safe legal temperature for workers. Because, like in the Covid Pandemic, the essential workers were also the ones more at risk and those with least were impacted most.\n\nThis week I made a post about the folklore of heatwaves. In the UK, despite our abundance of stories and folk beliefs about rain, storms and wind we don’t really have a strong tradition of stories about heat waves. The absence of this in our cultural narrative is important. This is a new problem and one we are not ready for and one that it feels we are ignoring. Folklore borrowed from the Mediterranean, explores the experience of drought, extreme heat, crop failure, spoiled food and extreme human behaviours to match, as corresponding to the appearance of the star Sirius. Sirius is also known as the Dog Star. The impact of heat on the land and people was attributed to the dog star being visible in the night sky during the summer months. For this reason, times like these earned themselves the name, The Dog Days.\n\nWe are in the Dog Days. The heat is on. Tensions are high.\n\nLet’s look to Europe and how the heat wave has impacted them and the responses that leaders have had. Cool rooms have been provided in public buildings, and rules about work in the hottest hours of the day are introduced. If workers are not safe to work in the heat, there are schemes that ensure they do not lose pay. Water mist arches and spray fountains have been introduced in cities, more drinking water fountains, cool stations, maps of cool places for those without air conditioning, temporary shading, extra tree planting in urban areas. Europe shows us that discomfort and health risk can and should be mitigated on a state level. The UK seems to leave the heat risk to individual responsibility. This might explain why people turn on each other if they find the heat difficult. We are in a heat competition with each other that we never agreed to enter. Being vulnerable in dangerous heat is framed as individual weakness not as state health responsibility.\n\nI joined the Covid Realities project during the covid lockdowns, it recorded and supported those on lower incomes at a strange juncture in our UK and global history. Covid and lockdowns brutally exposed the inequalities of the UK. This Heatwave has also exposed some of the same inequalities. What will a new leader bring? What will Andy Burnham bring? Nicknamed The King of the North, some political commentators have labelled his rise to leadership as The Return of the King. That’s a lot to live up to. During Covid he was supporting the people but will he still support the people in the Dog Days? Many of us are exhausted, precarious, unwell, unheard, hungry, lonely, unsupported, overworked and unhoused. That’s a lot to fix.\n\nIn a film or in a novel, the melting tarmac, cancelled trains, broken fridges in supermarkets, lack of air con, lack of planning, the obligation to work even when unsafe, increases in hospital admissions, a rise in heat related deaths, a suffering population and failing infrastructure would symbolise the fracturing of social and political systems. What makes our dog days harder is maybe that we believe we are temperate. We see ourselves as temperate in climate and temperate in mood. But things have been changing, the weather and our politics with it.","2026-07-09T13:30:42.322Z",{"_type":121,"current":122},"slug","dog-days-changing-political-weather",[124,127,130,133],{"path":125,"title":126},"/blog","Blog",{"path":128,"title":129},"/our-work","See our work",{"path":131,"title":132},"/write-ups","Write-ups",{"path":134,"title":135},"/zines","Our zines","DOG DAYS Changing Political Weather",1784819844824]