Ratio Talks is a podcast focusing on relationships, health and public policy. Past series covered community power and coping with the pandemic. The current series is focused on the potential for a relational social policy.
It is hosted by Michael Little, a co-founder of Ratio.
thisisratio.substack.com (https://thisisratio.substack.com/s/ratio-talks?utm_medium=podcast)
Caroline Knowles is an academic and writer, exploring unusual but important issues. For example, in this episode of Ratio Talks she reflects on lessons from her book Serious Money based on a walk through, as she puts it, plutocratic London, talking to people who have more money than most of us can imagine. This isn’t a book that equates great fortune with joy. Severe and multiple advantage, as I call it, turns out to be about as much fun as severe and multiple disadvantage.
In the podcast, I ask Caroline if some of the downside of disadvantage -shame, backing away from society, social isolation- apply to those who live a life of abundance. What marks the two groups apart is the impact on the places they live. One of Caroline’s academic collaborators drew the map below representing the distribution of English ‘high net work individuals’ -those with more than a million dollars of disposable income. As I say in the podcast, these people literally screw up the map of the country. Caroline has followed up this themes with a new book, Uneasy Streets (https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/uneasy-streets/), which shows how Chinese money is reshaping urban life in Britain. Serious Money was published by Allen Lane. The diagram is from Roger Burrow’s article (with colleagues) Welcome to Pikettyville?: Mapping London's Alpha Territories, Sociological Review, 2016.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com (https://thisisratio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
11 Jun 2026
Jason Strellitz reflects on the pandemic
My guest on Ratio Talks this week has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in public health. He worked with Michael Marmot in his early efforts to translate research on health inequalities in public policy. I have enjoyed many conversations with Jason about how we recover the innovative zeal of early 20th Century public health leaders with their steadfast focus on the power of ‘we’. Jason has sought to apply this thinking as public health lead in three London boroughs, and in important reviews of public policy such as his report (https://www.jsna.info/sites/jsna.info/files/Journey%20of%20Recovery%20Needs%20Assessment_0.pdf) of learning from the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in 2017.
Jason was public health lead in the London Borough of Newham, and he has published his reflections in a new book Same Storm Different Boats (https://hawksmoorpublishing.com/book/same-storm-different-boats-covid-community-and-how-we-come-together), available, as they say, in all good bookstores.
We are joined by Libby Sallnow, lead author of the Lancet Commission on The Value of Death (https://www.thelancet.com/commissions-do/value-of-death), and Professor at the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department at University College London.
In the conversation, we refer to Jacqueline Rose’s The Plague (https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/the-plague/), a collection of essays on inequalities in and lack of respect for death.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com (https://thisisratio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
28 May 2026
Matt Hyde on a New Strategy for Lloyds Bank Foundation
This episode of Ratio Talks is timed to coincide with the launch of the new nine year strategy (https://www.lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk/about-us/our-strategy/) for the Lloyds Bank Foundation. The episode is a continuation of the conversation with Matt Hyde, CEO of the Foundation. There are reasons for deep scepticism when it comes to philanthropy and strategic change (especially in the U.K.) But Matt has spent his first 18 months at Lloyds listening to his colleagues, to grantees and to people in communities around England and Wales. The result is a radical change in thinking, giving and collaborating.
Matt sets out some of the main tenets of the strategy in the podcast and then we spend some time kicking the tyres to see if it is ready for the road. We are particularly fortunate to be joined at the end by Patrick McCarthy, former President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the largest philanthropy working with children in the United States, Patrick is a big Matt Hyde fan, and that encourages him to be robust in his analysis of the strategy.
The Foundation is inviting people in England and Wales to contribute. If you have ideas about the strategy, ways it could be improved, things you are doing that may be relevant, or people and organisations that can help take the work forward, Matt would love to hear from you.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com (https://thisisratio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
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Podcast Authority Score: 37 / 100
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