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Ever since Conservative MP Neil Parish was caught looking at inappropriate content on his phone inside the House of Commons chamber, I’ve been plagued by one question: why would anyone do that?
I couldn’t understand what could possibly drive someone to risk their career in this way. And like many others, I found Parish’s excuse – that he had stumbled into the wrong website when “looking at tractors” online – laughably unsatisfactory.
I approached psychologist Craig Jackson and asked him to help me understand what was going on here and, to be honest, I now feel a bit naive. He revealed two important insights to me from the get-go: first, the tractor excuse wasn’t even remotely surprising. It is in fact a variation on a common theme among people caught doing what Parish was doing. Second, this incident is far from a rare event. More people than I realised are accessing content of this kind
while they are meant to be working.
Meanwhile, experts analyse Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day speech and inform us about what our eyes can tell us about our health.
The Conversation illuminates current affairs with insights drawn from research. If you value what you read here, please consider donating today or forward to a friend, and help us reach 1,000 new donors this year.
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Laura Hood
Politics Editor, Assistant Editor
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Shutterstock
Craig Jackson, Birmingham City University
MP Neil Parish resigned after using porn in the House of Commons – but his case is not as rare as we might think.
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attends a flower-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier close to the Kremlin.
EPA-EFE/Anton Novoderekhkin/Kremlin pool/Sputnik
Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham; Tatyana Malyarenko, National University Odesa Law Academy
May 9 this year is “no victory day” as Putin has little to show after 74 days of aggression against Ukraine.
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Irina Bg/Shutterstock
Barbara Pierscionek, Anglia Ruskin University
The eyes can reveal many health problems, from high cholesterol to thyroid disease.
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Ukraine Invasion
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Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato
The crisis in Ukraine, and the real risk of it spilling across borders, is precisely the kind of great power conflict the United Nations was formed to prevent.
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Environment
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Lewis Blackburn, University of Sheffield
Scientists have been working on a solution for decades.
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Freya Womersley, University of Southampton; David Sims, University of Southampton
World’s largest fish is struggling to navigate crowded ocean highways, a new study suggests.
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Business + Economy
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Sam Gilbert, University of Cambridge
Young people have lost out from recent developments in the labour market. Could the shift to working in virtual reality be about to turn the tables?
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Arts + Culture
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Leah Henrickson, University of Leeds; Simone Natale, Università di Torino
What makes a robot an artist?
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Education
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Olivia Keenan, Queen Mary University of London; Jen Gupta, University of Portsmouth
Girls report not feeling clever enough to take physics.
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Health
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Evangeline Mantzioris, University of South Australia
Water and lemon juice on their own are healthy. But what if you combine them?
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Science + Technology
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Greig Paul, University of Strathclyde
Politicians have criticised social media platforms for years for their failure to tackle illegal content
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