Pnewsology

The week’s news with a dash of psychology!

Jane Ogden (Professor in Health Psychology, Emeritus; email janeogden509@gmail.com; based on a conversation with James Cannon at Radio Surrey; 8.40 am 24/07/2026)

Week ending 24/07/2026

All opinions are those of Jane Ogden

I used to teach my students that everything was text and could be read – clothes, hair, body language, cars as well as the spoken and written word.  It’s all a form of language and all signalling something.

This week there’s been a lot of signalling with people doing and saying whatever they can to tell us ‘this is me!’

It’s been Andy Burnham’s first week as PM and during this time he had no lectern outside number 10, wore a polo shirt and no tie, capped bus fares at £2, cut tax on pubs and cafes, removed VAT on electricity and announced he was going to use influencers.  He’s signalling! He’s one of us, a normal guy, who cares about the same things as us and is going to get going on the job straight away!

Meanwhile we’ve had photos of Trump shaking the hand of the Energy Minister of Saudi Arabia stating they have made a deal to enable the Saudis to have nuclear power (and the US to make a fortune from selling enriched uranium).  He’s signalling!  Power and wealth are what matters.

Then a Russian warship fired missiles off the coast of Plymouth!  We are here and we do what we want – they are telling us.

And Iran have threatened to attack the UK as we are allowing the US to use our airbases to carry out ‘defensive’ attacks on Iran.  Iran are saying the UK are our enemy and there will be consequences for your support of Israel and the US.  And we are saying – that’s scary! And we are pathetic for caving to the US.

Its all language and a form of global communication with everyone making sure we see them as they want to be seen and posturing to each other.  Whether its real or true or good is another matter. But we are being coached (manipulated?) into seeing the world as they want!

And then there’s the Clacton by election and Count Binface (together with Nick the incredible Flying brick, Woke Trump Carrzee, Baron Von Thunderclapp and Howling Laud Hope) who are signalling what? That politics stinks? That fun is good? That we a proud democracy? And that they just can? And for the first time in a while I feel proud to be British!

Everything is text and everything can be read and often without knowing it, we are reading this text and changing how we think and feel.  This is just the way of the world but it’s very powerful, as as soon as we have formed an impression it’s very hard to change.  We search for evidence to support what we think, ignore evidence that contradicts it and base our views of people often on our very first snap judgements.  For Andy Burnham, this has been a good week and I’m sure lots of people will have formed the impression that he wanted.  For other more malign people, it often means they can get away with literally murder as once their supporters have decided to support them it seems to take an awful lot for them to change their minds.