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Tom Calver

@tomcalver.bsky.social
28K followers 1.5K following 430 posts

Data Editor, @thetimes.com 🇬🇧 How is Britain doing? 👉 thetimes.com/data 🔗 www.thetimes.com/profile/tom-calver 📧 thomas.calver@the-times.co.uk

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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
NEW: the Iran war may have cost households nearly £1,000 a year by 2029 – and wiped out any gains in living standards for this parliament! Why is Britain so bad at withstanding energy shocks? 1/2
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Amid all the talk of freezing the price of groceries, I looked at what goes into the cost of a pint of milk. Two things jump out... 1/3
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Voters like the idea of cutting welfare in principle, but singling out an undeserving group — eg stripping winter fuel payments from pensioners, or reducing payments for those unable realistically to work — quickly becomes unconscionable (£) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/... By @tomcalver.bsky.social
thetimes.com
Labour’s Achilles’ heel: has welfare doomed Keir Starmer?
When the party’s history of rebellion on benefits collided with a low-growth, high-debt economy, a leadership crisis was quick to follow
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Are resident doctors still underpaid? The BMA’s case for industrial action is undermined by the way the union uses data. 1/6 www.thetimes.com/article/895f...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
There are two big problems with the triple lock One: it makes future spending impossible to predict. If we keep it, pension spending by 2050 could be a just a little higher than it is now. Or, if we have anything like recent volatility, it could be tens of billions higher. 1/5
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Sam Taylor @staylorish.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
1/ Good explainer in today’s Sunday Times from @tomcalver.bsky.social on why renewables are not cheap. I’d add this: The wholesale market price of electricity is the *short-run* marginal cost. When renewables dominate, it will often be close to zero.
thetimes.com
Why is the rush into renewable energy not lowering our bills?
Wind power is hitting records, yet bills are set to rise. From the ‘dark calm’ to a £70bn grid overhaul, here is why green energy costs a premium
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
The Greens are doing well in urban areas with insufficient incomes and poor access to housing. They have gained traction among the growing cohort who have gone to university and moved to the city but are struggling to keep up. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social
thetimes.com
The Green Party is soaring in the polls. Who are its supporters?
While Reform leads among men, some pollsters now have the Greens closing on first place among women
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Green support is rising under Zack Polanski. Who are its new voters? The party's new voter base is younger, student-y, more female, and less financially comfortable than their 2024 voters. They are the heirs of Corbynism: 39% of current supporters backed Labour in 2019 1/2
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Will the rush to net zero save us from future energy price shocks? Since 2004, the UK has engaged in a risky experiment: generating less electricity. The bet is that enough wind will reverse that by 2030. But gas – overtaxed and neglected – will still matter www.thetimes.com/article/0227...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
This week's column: choose your university wisely Post-1992 providers have been rapidly expanding business, law and computing courses. Yet the returns for students 5 years after graduating from these courses have, to date, been woeful 1/4
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
The death of the housing ladder The average income of a first-time buyer is £61k. But the average second or third-time buyer is earning £91k! Poor price growth in starter homes, plus rising moving costs, is trapping Brits in the first homes they buy www.thetimes.com/article/9302...
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Scrapping the Equality Act would not conjure up better schools in coastal towns, or new graduate jobs in post-industrial areas. The real divide is between thriving places and surviving ones, which is a far more expensive problem to fix. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social
thetimes.com
Is class a bigger obstacle to social mobility than race?
As class and race collide in the debate over social mobility, new data suggests socioeconomic background is now the primary driver of inequality
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Here's the real reason the government keeps freezing the student loan threshold The part of the loan that's repaid is classed as an asset on Treasury spreadsheets. But when plan 2 student loans started to be repaid, the percentage received back was less than expected... 1/4
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
What happens if Britain’s population starts shrinking - which could happen as soon as 2029? Really enjoyed recording this edition of @thetimes.com's story podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Is the UK’s official child poverty measure about to be revised downwards? The survey used by the DWP to measure poverty misses an astonishing £43bn of benefits income a year! 1/4
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Georgina Sturge @georginasturge.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Great article by @tomcalver.bsky.social on why income is often a poor indicator of whether someone is in poverty. Income is under-reported in the main survey used for poverty stats. A correction to that could soon shrink our official poverty figures overnight. www.thetimes.com/article/fb88...
thetimes.com
Is child poverty really as widespread as official figures show?
Labour has staked its credibility on cutting it, so it’s worth straightening out the data
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
None of this is an argument for mass sackings or football manager turnover rates. Stability and institutional memory are important. But we accept a system in which officials are much more likely to die than be sacked for weak performance (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social
thetimes.com
How difficult is it to get sacked from a civil service job?
Whitehall is widely criticised as underperforming and oversized — yet just 0.76 per cent of civil servants were dismissed or made redundant in 2024-25
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
This week's column: how can Scotland afford tax cuts? Its tax system may be more progressive the than rest of UK's. But the answer is not because it has cracked the code of Scandinavian-style democracy: it is because England pays the difference www.thetimes.com/article/ede4...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
This week's column is about how we spend our most valuable asset of all: time Life has become less obviously strenuous. For women, unpaid work is being replaced with paid work. Men enage in more leisure than ever. Both sexes sleep more. Why, then, does life feel rushed? 1/3
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
What can 40 years of song lyrics tell us about society? I analysed the lyrics of 1,600 pop songs going back to 1985. Our music appears to be getting gloomier, less future-looking and more self-obsessed 1/6
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Net migration was negative as recently as the 1970s. The difference was that Britain had a surplus of young people. We have never before been an ageing country that is also shrinking. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... Interesting by @tomcalver.bsky.social Britain on trend to shrink + consequences
thetimes.com
Could Britain’s population actually start shrinking soon?
By 2029 the ONS expects more deaths than births
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Britain’s population could start shrinking sooner than we think Successive changes to immigration rules are seeing visa applications plummet. Meanwhile, revisions to data - plus an expected student exodus next year - should send the official emigration figures higher 1/4
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Britain’s hospitals average 90% bed occupancy throughout the year, and 95% in winter. This is not normal! 1/3
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
I am helping man the phone lines for @thetimes.com Christmas appeal! We are raising money for three amazing charities this year, covering restorative justice, loneliness and bicycles! Give us a call on 020 7782 5555 if you can spare anything and fancy a chat
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Ben Zaranko @benzaranko.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Great to see @tomcalver.bsky.social using this IFS chart in his (excellent) piece about the UK's economic and fiscal travails. The combination of low growth and high debt interest really does make for some unpleasant fiscal arithmetic. It's a tough time to be Chancellor.
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
After Liz Truss's mini-budget, just 15 per cent of people felt the Tories were the best party at handling the economy Today, the equivalent figure for Labour is 12 per cent www.thetimes.com/article/470f...
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Her decisions may have had a small impact on borrowing costs & inflation. Other factors, like BoE policies & decades of poor growth have done more combined damage. Perhaps Reeves’s greatest failure has been to not see all of this coming (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @tomcalver.bsky.social
thetimes.com
How much of our economic mess is Rachel Reeves’s fault?
The chancellor was at pains last week to blame everyone else for the tax rises she is likely to announce in the budget
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Xavier MacDuff @xvrmdf.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Superb work from @tomcalver.bsky.social and @jburnmurdoch.ft.com showing how the UK's upper-middle classes have born the brunt of our 20yr long productivity stagnation, whereas lower earners have been insulated from this via ongoing minimum wage hikes, compressing earnings across the spectrum.
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John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Fair-minded discussion by @tomcalver.bsky.social on the Brexit impact. I'm more worried about the trade data though - goods exports volumes declining since 2019 is a big problem, and finance and transport services have significantly lagged other advanced economies. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
thetimes.com
Would UK be better off without Brexit?
Ministers may be tempted to use it as an excuse for tax rises, but there’s far more to it than that
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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Fascinating as always by @tomcalver.bsky.social on the impact of Brexit. Would UK be better off without Brexit? www.thetimes.com/article/860b... 1/2
thetimes.com
Would UK be better off without Brexit?
Ministers may be tempted to use it as an excuse for tax rises, but there’s far more to it than that
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Strip out London, and Britain’s GDP per capita is just 3% larger than Poland’s 🤯
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle 12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up 1/3
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Great chart from @tomcalver.bsky.social showing how a third of Britain’s economic output in the mid-1990s comprised fossil fuel extraction, electricity generation and mining. And financial services then stepped in before the financial crisis www.thetimes.com/article/a394...
Chart showing value added to the economy by certain sectors. Growth in the 1990s was helped by oil and gas extraction

Figures unavailable before 1990
Chart: Tom Calver | The Times and The Sunday Times • Source:
ONS
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
NEW: Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, 17 out of 27 EU nations have spent more on Russian oil and gas than they’ve sent to Ukraine in aid! Despite an oil embargo, Europe is still sending £1bn a month on Russian energy. This week’s column: www.thetimes.com/article/dd9d...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
Which country works the hardest? 🇺🇸 = long hours, minimal holidays 🇬🇧 = long hours, modest holidays 🇩🇪 = modest hours, lots of holidays This week’s @thetimes.com column 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/5463...
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
"The real mystery is why, during a period of mass migration, the number of foreign prisoners hasn't risen by more." Good piece by @tomcalver.bsky.social (IMO bottom line is that migration/nationality status has little correlation, +be or -ve, with criminality). www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
thetimes.com
Does anyone know whether migrants really commit more crimes?
News reports suggest asylum seekers are more likely to break the law than people born in the UK — so what does the data show?
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
NEW: Are migrants more likely to commit crimes than non-migrants? Here’s what the data does and doesn’t show. 1/8 @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/article/72b6...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Data finally proves it: online dating leads to worse relationships This week’s column is about choice overload, the importance of shared context, and how too much data - when it comes to dating - is a bad thing @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/article/82b7...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
This is what $10,000 invested in Palantir on election day would be worth now. But can you do any better? Introducing @thetimes.com trading game. How much money can you make in 9 months? Free link 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/086b...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
This is what $10,000 invested in Palantir on election day would be worth now. But can you do any better? Introducing @thetimes.com trading game. How much money can you make in 9 months? Free link 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/086b...
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The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 05/08/2025
Imagine you could go back to election day in November 2024, with $10k and everything you know now. Could you successfully dodge Trump’s tariffs and outperform the market? Play our stock trading game ⬇️
thetimes.com
Can you beat Trump’s tariffs? Play our stock trading game
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Michael Keith @michael-keith.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
If you could go back in time, to the day of the 2024 US election, with $10,000 US dollars and everything you know now, how much money do you think you could make? Try for yourself and watch how Trump's first six months in office have affected the markets. www.thetimes.com/us/news-toda...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
This week’s @thetimes.com column is about how we’re bad at investing Decades of data shows that rather than investing for profit, UK savers are motivated by pessimism This “when shit hits the fan, save all you can” approach is bad for our finances, and bad for the economy 1/5
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
This week’s @thetimes.com column: what is a comfortable salary in Britain? Money does buy you happiness - but there’s a definite hump between £50k and £80k 👇 www.thetimes.com/article/f4dd...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Britain’s grocery prices used to be the envy of Europe; not anymore. This week’s column on food inflation 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/5c2c...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
A third of people in Britain now think the Covid pandemic was exaggerated to control people 🤯🤯 And 22% think the moon landings were staged! One of many striking findings from new @moreincommonuk.bsky.social report on shattered Britain. My write up here: 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/bb0f...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
🧵 This week's column is all about council tax! It's England's most hated tax, and hasn't been touched since 1993. The withdrawal of subsidies has made it even more regressive over time Yet don't expect it to be reformed anytime soon: nobody can agree what to change it to 1/3
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Scientists spent much of the 20th century worrying about overpopulation. Their fears went unfounded: humans became richer as our numbers grew. Now, demographers are starting to worry about the opposite problem Review in @thetimes.com www.thetimes.co.uk/article/afte...
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
One down, four to go!
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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
Rising wages, falling waiting lists: an unpopular take, but in a few ways, life in Britain has been (slowly) improving over the past year. But it doesn’t feel that way — and that’s a problem for Labour Free to read: 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/33c0...
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