Alan Smith

@theboysmithy

Head of Visual and Data Journalism @financialtimes.com; Honorary Prof @UCL Social Data Institute. Views expressed are my own. Reposts are not necessarily endorsements.

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Alan Smith@theboysmithy· 8d

Rolling out the Marimekko to visualise the impact of ODA funding cuts on African countries. Read from @pmdfoster.bsky.social and @lucyfisher.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/ef45...

A marimekko chart showing the proportion and scale of ODA funding cuts by comparing 2024-25 country allocations with plans for 2028-29. Sudan is the only country that will retain nearly all of its funding. Kenya faces a 94% cut, Ethiopia loses £134million

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· 21d

Mexico now exports more hardware for data centres than it does cars - quite the reshaping of an economy... New, with Christine Murray www.ft.com/content/ac32...

A chart of exports for vehicles and data centre hardware showing that monthly exports of server-related hardware now outstrip exports of cars

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· 23d

New with Kieran Smith - why is UK mobile phone coverage so bad? www.ft.com/content/db17...

A pair of maps, one showing Southwark in London, the other Derbyshire in the East Midlands. Each map is coloured according to the number of operators (between 0 and 4) that achieve good performance, using 135 metre swide cells. In urban London there is wide variation within the borough, particularly in the south. In rural Derbyshire, poor service is a feature of main transport arteries

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· 29d

🔍

A scatter plot showing scores for government responses on modern slavery with estimates ot the prevalence of modern slavery per 1,000 people, coloured according to Section 301 tariffs. It shows many countries that score poorly on forced labour metrics have not been targeted by new US tariffs...

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 21

By my reckoning the median latitude of the cabinet has shifted north from Wolverhampton/Leicester to betwixt Sheffield and Knowsley ...

A pair of maps comparing the locations of the constituencies between Starmer's outgoing cabinet and Andy Burnham's new cabinet. There is a greater cluster of MPs now in the North West

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 15

Ready for this… 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇦🇷

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 7

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jun 21

Celtic Cross, Hindhead Common, on the summer solstice

A Celtic cross in early morning sunshine

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jun 13

Cracking out the Gruyère and Emmental to support the Swiss

A photo of some cheese in front of a TV showing World Cup football Switzerland v Qatar

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· May 6

It's that time again #psephologist

A google trends chart showing search interest in 'psephologist' in the UK this year. It is a flat line until April when it soars to 100

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Mar 3

Indeed - but we have now updated the Sankey...

Sankey diagram of crude oil transported through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia is top source of 5.3mn barrels per day, China is top destination with 5.4mn barrels per day

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Feb 15

8 years ago, at the British Library, I first saw this map: an FT reader competition to predict the boundaries of Europe after WW1. I made a note to find out more one day - which ultimately led me last month to this tomb in West Norwood cemetery. You can read more here: www.ft.com/content/79a4...

A photo of an elegant grade-II listed tomb in West Norwood cemetery

A 1914 competition map: Changing the map of Europe

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jan 17

Surprised I didn’t see you in Harajuku last summer!

Screenshot of an insta post from FiveG in Harajuku

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jan 17

Fun new toy - Waldorf Protein

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Nov 26

New: 'Shark's fin' chart reveals the uneven impact of 'fiscal drag', the stealth tax beloved of recent chancellors. Plus use our interactive calculator to see how fresh freezes announced by Rachel Reeves at todays Budget could affect you on.ft.com/3KqOYUL

A chart of the projected percentage point increase un share of income paid as income tax and national insurance from 2025/25 through to 2029/30. It whos that 'fiscal drag' is set to hit those at or near frozen personal tax thresholds

Screenshot of financial times fiscal drag calculator.

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Nov 19

New: A quiz - How well do you know your Budgets? Turns out you can learn a lot about the UK from these questions... on.ft.com/4pijy1y

Screenshot of quiz showing budget announcement: 'Introducing independent taxation of married women' and chancellor quote: "“Married women increasingly resent … that a wife's income is treated … as that of her husband, depriving her of the independence and privacy she has a right to expect”" - with challenge to guess year: 1956, 1964. or 1986

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Oct 9

Council tax valuation bands in England are increasingly disconnected from house prices - new with Sam Fleming and Jonathan Vincent. You can even tap in your own details to see how unfair your council tax bill is on.ft.com/46JBbB9

Screenshot of an interactive Sankey diagram showing how sale prices since January 2024 of properties in Waltham Forest relate to Council Tax bands. Band C sales are highlighted, which show sale prices ranging from under £200,000 to £1mn+

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Sep 29

@olihawkins.com getting deep into blockchain nerdery with maths students at @ucl.ac.uk

Oliver Hawkins pictured delivering a lecture to UCL students, who are seated in a lecture theatre

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Aug 1

A second seismic event of the week that has failed to create the impact most feared... According to Yale Budget Lab, the US effective tariff rate as at August 1 is now 17.3% (after consumption shifts). This is the highest since 1935, but still a shade down on estimates earlier this week...

A chart of the effective US tariff rate - now at 17.3, the highest level since 1930s. Based on actual trade, the rate at the end of May 2025 was 8.8%

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 29

New: Donald Trump's tariff blitz brings US levies to highest level since 1930s on.ft.com/3IRgx8M

A chart showing the proprtion of non-USMCA 2024 US goods imports covered by Trump tariff deals. It shows that seven deals mean that more than 60% of US imports threatened with 'reciprocal tariffs' are now covered by a Trump tariff deal

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 22

The UK government is set to raise tens of billions of pounds in debt to fund the Sizewell C nuclear power station - the costliest nuclear power plant in the world on.ft.com/40s9GZh

A scatter plot showing the comparative capacity and cost of nuclear power plants that shows Sizewell C is now set to be the costliest nuclear reactor in the world

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jul 12

Great to do Hikarigaoka parkrun this morning - but once you see Donald Trump’s hair in the GPS track, you can’t unsee it…

A map of Hikarigaoka park showing the route of the parkrun. It resembles an outline of Donald Trump

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jun 26

There's been a lot of talk of oil prices as the 'dog that didn't bark' over the past couple of weeks — but what happened to prices during and after previous crises in the Middle East? Our latest draw your own chart game with @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/c618...

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· May 23

I’ve always wanted to demo an #XR version of a 75-year old water computer in a medieval piazza #trento

Photo of Piazza di Fiera in Trento, setting for the annual economics festival. A medieval wall surrounds it

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Apr 1

New with @pmdfoster.bsky.social - ahead of 'Liberation Day', a look at what an escalating trade war could mean for the global economy, based on new modelling by @shepotylo.bsky.social and Jun Du at @astonuniversity.bsky.social. Gift link: on.ft.com/4iOHIOi

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Mar 25

GIS nerds with a penchant for UK maps might appreciate Sir George Airy photobombing this Ian Bott illustration of the Airy Transit Circle. Check out Ian's amazing illustrated guide to London's Royal Observatory at Greenwich just in time for the clocks going forward (gift link: on.ft.com/4iVA2u1)

An illustration of the Airy Transit Circle of 1851, a device to fix the position of stars and other celestial bodies by determining two coordinates. Inventor Sir George Airy is shown to scale next to the machine which is considerably bigger than him

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Mar 17

New: The end of Europe's 'peace dividend' - [gift link] on.ft.com/41T31az

A grid of four charts shows how armed forces personnel numbers have contracted across Europe since the 1990s - in France, Germany, the EU overall - and the UK

Screenshot of an interactive calculator that allows reader to select a defence spending target (as a % of GDP) and see how much cuts in spending to health, education would be required to fund it

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Mar 6

👀 Latest US trade figures ... via our Trade tracker (free to read link on.ft.com/4bwBsYF)

Screenshot from an FT US trade tracker page. Featured is a bar chart of the US trade deficit which shows it reached a record $131bn in January 2025

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Feb 6

Waldo Tobler's first law of geography is alive and well on our new US trade and tariff tracker. Gift link: on.ft.com/3CAC7eT

A bar chart showing exports of G20 countries to the US as a & of each country's total exports in 2023. Neighbouring Mexico and Canada rely on the US for around 80% of their exports. the next highest is Japan at just over 20%. Data is from Unctad.

Alan Smith@theboysmithy· Jan 21

I can now add 'running in sub-zero temperatures' to the list of things I've done for the @financialtimes.com - a little celebration of the international phenomenon that is Parkrun on.ft.com/4jlBXbN