Hetan Shah

It's based on the 23/24 figures as that is the latest data available. You can see the full report if you follow the thread down

UK Poverty 2026: The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK This report sets out the nature of poverty in the UK, and evaluates changes under the last Conservative-led Government. It also sets out the scale of action necessary for the current Government to del...

You can read the full UK Poverty report here. It shows the headline poverty rate has been relatively flat since 2005/06, with overall poverty being between 20% and 22% in every year since then. But under the headline rate, numbers in deep poverty have been increasing
www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2...

The analysis is based on data for the year 2023-24 - the latest for which official figures are available.

The estimate shows about 3.8 million UK people experienced destitution – a category even more extreme than very deep poverty, in which households cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed

Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds problem is ‘deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years’

About 6.8 million people – half of all those in poverty – were in very deep poverty, the highest number and proportion since records began three decades ago - @jrf-uk.bsky.social analysis
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Carney, Trump and the power of a good speech Leaders don’t need to write every word themselves, but they do need to make sure it clearly represents their vision

This is good from @stephenkb.bsky.social - the power of speeches isn’t just to reach a public, but to let your organisation be able to understand what its leader wants
www.ft.com/content/1b23...

NAO review of audits finds common issues across government Addressing financial management weaknesses can 'help improve productivity and resilience in public service delivery”, watchdog says

Review across financial audits shows common issues across Government departments - basics of financial data; weaknesses in IT controls for financial systems and asset management
www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

This is true. Trump will use the US's privileged positions in global systems to try to leverage power and payments - and other countries will respond by moving away.

The US Dollar has been notably weak since Trump returned to office - understandably so given his undermining of the Fed etc.

The promise and pitfalls of AI in health | LSHTM There has been considerable hype about the transformative potential of AI across many domains of society. Hetan will consider the promise and pitfalls of AI in health, and how we should think about

I'm giving the 2026 Annual Health Services Research Lecture at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I'll be speaking on the 'promise and pitfalls of AI in health'. 10th March - all welcome
www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/e...

Another reason I wish Prince were still around

ICYMI - the first of our papers on Global Disorder were published this week. Circa 4000 words they get properly under the skin of an issue but are accessible for a general reader. The first two papers look at the past, present and future of the global dollar system

We’ve just published some relevant papers
bsky.app/profile/heta...

Sweet-and-sour peanut dal with pappardelle Gujarati dal dhokla is one of my ultimate comfort foods, and this dish takes inspiration from that. The dhokla (or pasta) part is normally made from scratch but I've swapped it here for pappardelle.

No

Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month

A German study of Google AI Overviews ‘that analysed responses to more than 50,000 health queries, captured using Google searches from Berlin, found the top cited source was YouTube’ (4.43% of the time)
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"Imagine if all that money had gone to teachers instead."

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless Independent research identifies few learning gains

‘A 2024 meta-analysis of 119 studies of early-literacy tech interventions, led by Rebecca Silverman of Stanford University, found the studies described programmes that delivered at best only marginal gains on standardised tests.’
economist.com/united-state...

Less than advertised United States, average test scores* of fourth-grade students, 2019 plotted against Students' in-classroom computer use

‘In major assessments for maths, science and reading from 2011 to 2019, greater in-school computer use for learning correlates with lower scores. In contrast, students in classes with rare or no computer use at all typically score highest’

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless Independent research identifies few learning gains

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com.

‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’
economist.com/united-state...

As an interesting weak signal, my hairdresser - who spends all day talking to people who get expensive haircuts, and so knows all about what people who have expensive haircuts think is important - was asking me about the AI bubble yesterday and was *very* knowledgeable.

Women spend more time on unpaid work than men in China

The average Chinese woman is often far more educated than her male peer.

Women on average spend 87% more time on unpaid work such as cleaning and caregiving than men

Graph showing China has the lowest fertility rate of the world's most populous countries

‘More people are also deciding against or delaying marriage. About 30 per cent of 30-year-olds were unmarried in 2023, compared with 14.5 per cent in 2013, according to official data.’
www.ft.com/content/8434...

Dollar drop in value over the week

The dollar has had it’s worst week since last May. A good time for us to have published the two papers above on whether we are going to witness the end of dollar supremacy and what that might mean for the global order.

Yes I really felt that

Any game theorists want to explain the Traitors? Have we seen emergent co-operation between Traitors over several series/games?

You can read more about our Global Disorder programme - a partnership between @britishacademy.bsky.social and @carnegieendowment.org - here including footage of panels from our opening conference
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/g...

So @soumayakeynes.ft.com wrote this about buying Greenland, but it turns out it already has wider application
www.ft.com/content/3fb7...

Cover of paper ‘The Hollow Dollar’

And see our new paper by Alexander Evans on the ‘Hollow Dollar’. Are we seeing the end of the period of dollar dominance as the weaponisation of the dollar has led to strategic responses from China, Russia and India which may fragment the financial system
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...

Cover of discussion paper ‘The US dollar system as a source of international disorder’

‘The more that other countries look to escape US financial coercion, the more the US will scale it up… The global dollar system may now be a source of instability rather than stability.’ Our new paper by
@dsquareddigest.bsky.social & @himself.bsky.social
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...

Cartoon on Board of Peace inaugural dinner with ‘dove’ on the menu

The British Academy CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Global (Dis)Order international policy programme The US dollar system as a source of international disorder Daniel Davies, Frontline Analysts and Henry Farrell, John Hopkins University

The second paper is by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social and @himself.bsky.social. It shows how dollar centrality was weaponised by the US to help maintain order but is now plausibly undermining it. Great topical read on some of the underlying faultlines
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...

The British Academy CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Global (Dis)Order international policy programme The hollow dollar? Alexander Evans, London School of Economics

The first from Alexander Evans asks if we are seeing signs of a 'hollow dollar' and whether a more plural financial order will emerge…
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...