As a country, Britain is quite good at measuring poverty – even if we’re not quite as good at tackling it. But the answers are there, if you know how to look for them. So I asked Helen Jackson, a brilliant data analyst, to delve into the British Cohort Study, which keeps track of 17,200 children born in April 1970. We looked at those who had avoided poverty: did it matter if their father was rich or poor? Not so much. Did it matter if their parents read to them when they were younger? Only a bit. And anyway, no child can help such issues: you play the hand you’re dealt. But a lot depends on how you play it.