Measuring a shattered nation: 'People have stopped saying my numbers must be wrong' – Danny Dorling

The UK's children are getting shorter – and millions of them are going hungry several times a month. Not just peckish – but empty-stomach hungry. Stories like these fill Professor Danny Dorling's latest book, Shattered Nation, in which the renowned inequalities expert and geographer maps out the poverty and despair that are now impossible to ignore in one of the richest nations in the world.

Is Britain a shattered nation? Yes. And you don't need to be one of the left-wing attendees at London's socialist bookshop Bookmarks, where Professor Dorling delivered this talk, to agree that this is happening all around us, he says.

"The interesting thing is that nobody has said to me – nobody has written a review of the book – saying you're wrong; you're not measuring things properly; if you measure them this way, you'll see it's getting better.... I've not had one person say that. That's a big change. I haven't had the Spectator saying I'm talking Britain down, not being patriotic enough."

Things are changing; but is there the will to create change for good? And, as Dorling muses at the end, could it actually be the Tories who – in their dying months in office – unexpectedly decide to do it?

Audio-only recording of a book talk on 19 January 2024. Note that sound levels vary during questions from the audience, as microphones were not used.

Read more about Danny Dorling's books, talks and events:

Read more about Shattered Nation: Inequality and the Geography of a Failing State (Verso, 2023)

Find out more about Bookmarks, the largest socialist bookshop in Britain, and the place Tony Benn called “university for activists“.