The Stats of the Nation: Older people, education, prisons and the weather

What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.

In the fourth episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:

Are one in four pensioners millionaires?

Is England’s education system performing better than Finland’s? And how does it compare to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Are our prisons going to run out of space?

Is the weather getting weirder?

Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: [email protected]

Contributors:

Heidi Karjalainen, Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies

Harry Fletcher-Wood, Director of Training at StepLab

John Jerrim, Professor of Education and Social Statistics at University College London

Cassia Rowland, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government

Friederike Otto, Professor of Climate Science at Imperial College London

Credits:

Presenter: Tim Harford

Producers: Lizzy McNeill, Nathan Gower, Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald

Series producer: Tom Colls

Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele

Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and Neil Churchill

Editor: Richard Vadon