Rachael McKelvey

• So are we all moving to Threads now?
• Should we teach conspiracy theories in schools?
• What are we going to do about Inflation?
• Can you tell which muppets are predators and which are prey?
• Happy 75th Birthday to the NHS

So are we all moving the Threads now?
This week saw Meta launch is rival app to Twitter, it looks like Twitter, it acts a lot like Twitter but apparently its called Threads. As at writing there are currently 97 million Thread users registered, when it had passed the 5m sign-up mark within the first four hours of launching which has far exceeded Zuckerbergs expectation. No great surprise I have feelings.

So much of the good in my life has come from Twitter and I know it’s not the platform it was 18 months ago, let alone the many years ago I joined the platform, but even with the purchase by Musk…all the platforms are problematic, you can leave on whatever grounds you like but you can’t take the moral high ground like it makes you better than those of us who will only leave when the ship sinks. This is a hill I am willing to die on, I am part of the orchestra.

What I will miss on Twitter when the ship does sink, is all the wonderful commentators and specialists in their respective fields I’ve collected along the way, and for that reason alone I do have a Threads account by virtue of being on the gram and I am picking up their handles as they move, there is so much wonderful stuff shared on Twitter…I know there is some durge and maybe I am just lucky that I don’t see it, that it’s crowded out with substack links that dissect current issues in an interesting and accessible way.

I was in the office this week, but far from present (hi month end), so I haven’t had a chance to catch up with our marketing team to see what they think, to immediately have another platform to have to roll into social postings must be hideous.

Should we teach conspiracy theories in schools
Professor Sander van Der Linden, a scholar in social psychology at the University of Cambridge thinks that one way to combat the very real threat of conspiracy theories is to “implement this stuff in the national education curriculums” and it’s an interesting idea. I’d still place teaching kids about finances as my top curriculum change, but this I favour more than Campbells idea of how to argue, but why shouldn’t children learn relevant useful skills and I can’t think of one more relevant now than being able to identify a conspiracy theory, then at least the choice to believe is an empowered one.

The principle of van Der Lidens book Foolproof is all about the best way to fight misinformation is to under the psychology behind it. It’s currently sat in my TBR and based on its current position I might be able to get to it in *checks diary* autumn 2024, why is reading books not a paying job please? It’s all I want to do.

Back in 2014 Finland introduced an anti-fake news initiative, two years before the fated American Elections, and has since scored very highly on the Media Literacy Index on how to spot fake news, training critical thinking and how to spot propaganda is actually really useful.

What are we going to do with Inflation?
Nothing quite makes me realise we are all just making it up quite like inflation, everything they’re “trying” do isn’t working and please know they are heavily accented air quotes. Andrew Bailey makes me miss Mark Carney. With investors now seemingly betting against a likely reduction in UK interest rates, which would like see them climb to over 6% to levels not seen since the late 90’s I thought the FT interview with Economist Kate Barker stating that ‘to tackle inflation we should put taxes up for the better-off’ was really interesting.

How do you compensate for the fiscal stimulus following the financial crash without a course correction of tighter policy to reduce demand and theoretically who should have the most flex in their income to absorb a tightening? Those that are better off. As Kate, former Bank of England MPC says ““The truth is that the pain is rather badly distributed,”.

Also once again the article echoes the pretty constant theme that I come back to when we talk about inflation…the lack of planning and joined up thinking to deal with something that was quite obviously staring us right in the face. Inflation was not a surprise, we have not been ambushed by the Spanish Inquisition. The article is well worth your time with no further parroting from me.

Can you tell which muppets are predators and which are prey?
Sometimes I flipping love the internet, this week IFLScience shared an article about how the internet had worked out which muppets are predators and which are prey based solely on their eyes, the placement and the kind of eye.

The article is pure joy and the chat around it on Twitter delightful, animals with eyes on the side of their heads are typically prey, while those with eyes at the front are typically predators…making Furby’s predators, obviously. Oh poor Kermit.

Happy Birthday to the NHS
On Wednesday the NHS marked 75 years of service since its creation in 1948, treating over a million people every single day. The NHS is the first universal health system available to everyone for free at point of delivery and while I think everyone was in a celebratory mood with their own happy memory of NHS care, we all have a recent experience that feels hard to defend but that’s through no fault of the front line staff, who deserve the moon on a stick and some pay restoration.

Most of the talk in the media on the day was whether the NHS can survive the next 75 years and simply based on the numbers of staff leaving the NHS and those currently planning on its hard to see it will make it another 75 years. The quality of care in the NHS has declined in many key areas since the coalition government’s austerity measures in the early 2010s. Can’t wait to here Ed Balls and George Osbourne discuss that one at length…

I really hope the NHS makes it, I really hope it gets the investment it needs, sorts out the management problems and becomes the service everyone wants it to be.

Current watch: Fleabag – This week has been a trip down memory lane, good and bad, but I had reason to talk about the fourth wall in visual story telling and a few weeks ago I mentioned how much I love it when it happens and I was not wrong. No finer example than Fleabag, she is not talking to all of us – she is talking to you. A friend had finally seen the one women show, which is devastatingly clever and I just had to check in, for comfort and support. It’ll pass.

Current read:
One of Them: An Eton College Memoir by Musa Okwonga – I came back to this book to find a quote and ended up staying once again for the words. A very person and unflinching memoir of Musa’s time at Eton as a immigrant black kid who found himself surrounded by the white privileged elite at Eton in the 90’s. I remember on the first read thinking this isn’t the book people thought it was, it’s beautifully written, insightful and measured. In the world of racism and classism on steroids, this book asks the big questions about social and political pressures and just quite how we ended up exactly where we are.

Most Impactful Listen: How To Academy Podcast: Peter Turchin – Will the West Fall Like Rome? – Absolutely no idea why I was delighted to see this as a discussion (when is capitalism falling & when can I go live in the woods please?) Historian Peter Heather joined Luke Naylor Perrot to explore the new lessons we can learn from history, was Rome destined to fall, is it the same for the western world too as a result? An absolute masterclass in what we must learn and a timely reminder how economists always don’t give enough weight to history.