Read briefly appeared in national media in February 2023 in relation to the September 2022 United Kingdom mini-budget, after he stated in a Twitter thread that a lecture he had given to a civil service body, as well as a letter he had written to Kwasi Kwarteng on a historical February 1847 budget, should have been seen as a warning for the Truss government to avoid its subsequent collapse.
[4][5] He completed his BA, MPhil and PhD degrees focussed on economic history at Christ's College, Cambridge.
It argues much of the death toll was the result of austerity the British government was forced to impose after the February 1847 budget that announced borrowing to expand spending on relief triggered the financial panic of 1847.
An article by a business and human interest journalist in a local Cambridge paper stated Read aims to stake a claim to be 'Cambridge's avatar economist for the 21st century'.
[10] Read is primarily known for a Twitter post that received a thousand four hundred shares, in which he stated a lecture he gave to civil servants and a letter he had chosen to write to Kwasi Kwarteng in September 2022 about the problems the UK faced in 1847, comparing the historical situation with the present, contradicts Liz Truss' claim that she had not been formally warned about the effects of the budget.