More or Less
Tim Harford explains and sometimes debunks the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news, and everyday life.
Episodes
Education, Education, Education (and immigration)
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:(00:32) The internet is abuzz with the claim that twenty-seven young migrants are hired for every British young person. We explore the truth behind this misleading claim. (08:40) Last year two nerds made a bet on our programme. Those nerds are Substacker Sam Freedman and Maxwell Marlow from the Adam Smith Institute, and they were
Factchecking claims that 400 churches were burned to the ground in France
In certain corners of the internet some suspicious numbers are cropping up again and again. People claiming that 400 churches have been burnt to the ground or attacked in an assortment of countries, including France, the US and Canada. So, what is going on? Is there a spate of anti-Christian crime sweeping the globe?We look into what the data actually tells us. If you've seen a number in the news
Debunking the claim that migrants will get half of new homes
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:The Daily Express claims that ‘Migrants will get half of all new homes’, based on a calculation from the Conservatives. We explain why that’s not what the numbers say, and ask what the Conservatives own record on migration and housing tells us. Does one in five Welsh pupils leave school functionally illiterate? We take a dive into
The known unknowns of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
On the 17th of May the World Health Organisation declared a new outbreak of Ebolavirus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an International Emergency. Ebola virus is an extremely nasty viral disease with a high death toll. But despite its severity, very little is known about the number of infections in this current outbreak, in part because this particular species of Ebola is a rare one. He
Does a fall in the UK's healthy life expectancy mean what you think it means?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Headlines have claimed that “healthy life expectancy” in the UK has fallen by two years. What does this actually mean?A new government report estimates that HS2 will cost almost double its original estimate. We ask where the money’s gone.Chancellor Rachel Reeves has reduced VAT on theme parks, aquariums and other summer fun. But w
Is the ‘loneliness epidemic’ real?
What does it mean if you say that something is an epidemic? In the case of a virus, it usually means that it is spreading rapidly and that more and more people are getting infected. When a disease isn’t on the rise but is there in a population at a reasonably steady level, we tend to say that the disease is endemic.
But what if the thing you’re talking about is not a virus, but a feeling? In 202
Are refugees more likely to commit crime?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. On the programme:Last week, Annunziata Rees-Mogg took to X to post a claim about the proportion of sex offences in Dorset that are committed by asylum seekers, writing that “asylum seekers make up 0.8% of Dorset’s population and 44% of alleged sex offenses. So unbelievable I had to check.” We checked too, and the number isn’t right.In the l
Erdos Problem 1196: Can AI now solve maths that no human can?
It’s said that AI could soon be coming for the jobs of artists, lawyers, and software engineers. But it might now also be threatening a role at the height of academia – are pure mathematicians safe?
Last month, a Stanford mathematician woke up to an email, claiming to have the solution to a problem he'd been working on for seven years - a 60-year-old conundrum known as "Erdos Problem 1196".
T
Why it’s wrong to say vaping is as bad for you as smoking
According to the World Health organisation, smoking kills some 7 million people every year. It is one of the world’s leading causes of preventable death.Because smoking causes lung cancer and other awful health conditions, many smokers switch to vaping - using nicotine-based e-cigarettes.But the World Health organisation is also concerned about vaping. Last year they said 100 million people around
Does it take 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef?
If you spend much time on social media, and we don’t necessarily recommend it, then you’ve probably come across a strange fascination with water consumption.Mainly, this is people telling you that using AI is terrible for the planet because of how much water it uses. We’ve already made a couple of programmes about the numbers in those arguments and, long story short, they probably aren’t saying wh
Have RFK and MAHA really changed American views on vaccines?
Vaccine policy in the US is something of an ideological battleground. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is a vaccine sceptic, and since taking office he has attempted to remake US vaccine policy. In March a judge blocked his proposal to cut the number of jabs that are recommended for kids. At the same time, last year saw the worst measles outbreak in the US in decades. There were more than 2000
Is Trump right that wind turbines are killing millions of birds?
US president Donald Trump is no fan of wind turbines, or windmills as he calls them.Not only does he think they ruin the view from a golf course he owns in Scotland, but they are also deadly to birds.“If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill,” he said in 2019. “It’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little statue for the poor birds.”Earlier this year he pos
Dr Spock’s dangerous advice on baby sleep
Sometimes it is obvious to everyone when an idea is harmful, or a piece of advice is damaging. But not always. Occasionally bad ideas and terrible advice end up being accepted in society and supported by people in authority.In such circumstances, one of the most powerful tools for changing people's minds is evidence – scientific studies that show beyond doubt that the bad idea is, indeed, a bad id
How likely is ‘likely’?
When you’re listening to the news, you will often hear words that are meant to communicate the probability of something happening.
A terrorist attack is “a realistic possibility”, the spread of a certain strain of virus is “highly likely", the relegation of your favourite football team is “possible”.But when you hear these terms, do you really know what kind of probabilities they’re trying to co
How much water does AI consume?
As Artificial Intelligence continues to expand rapidly, some people have raised concerns about its potential environmental impact - in particular its use of water, which is used to cool both data centres and the power generators that supply them with electricity.One recent book on AI contained the alarming prediction that AI could consume between 4 and 6 trillion litres a year by 2027. Could this
Paul Ehrlich: The man who bet England wouldn’t exist by the year 2000
Paul Ehrlich’s bestselling book The Population Bomb opens with an apocalyptic paragraph. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” it states. “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”Professor Ehrlich, who died last week, mad
Transgender women in sport: Does ‘comparable’ mean ‘equal’?
In most sports, men compete against men and women compete against women. That is generally considered fair, because men are faster, more powerful and have greater endurance.But there is an ongoing controversy about transgender women - people who were born male and now identify as women. Is it fair for them to compete in the women’s sport category or do they have an advantage?A study in the British
US-Israel war with Iran: Do the gulf states have enough interceptor missiles?
On Saturday 28th February, the US and Israel launched a military attack on Iran, targeting the country's missile infrastructure, military sites and leadership.In response, Iran launched a wave of strikes across the region, including on Israel and the Gulf states.Iran has a stockpile of ballistic missiles, which it’s firing at neighbouring countries. These countries in turn are using interceptor mi
Has a company really discovered a million new species?
Have a million new species just been discovered?That’s the claim made by Dr Oliver Vince, co-founder of a company called Basecamp Research, who are collecting genetic data to train AI systems. The hope is that they’ll be able to use this to discover new medicines.But is this number a good one? Rob Finn, from the European Bioinformatics Institute, explains what is being counted and how you go about
Did AI researchers let AI hallucinations into scientific papers?
AI can make mistakes – and AI chatbots like ChatGPT warn you about that whenever you ask them anything.These mistakes sometimes involve making up entirely fictitious, factually false statements known as “hallucinations”.Whether these hallucinations matter depends on what you’re using AI for, and whether they are spotted and corrected.The team on More or Less were slightly surprised to read a headl
Is an ancient charioteer the best paid sportsperson of all time?
Modern sport can seem awash with money, but it’s been claimed that the richest sportsperson of all is an ancient Roman Charioteer from the second century AD called Gaius Appuleius Diocles, with career winnings that stood at 35 million sesterces. One calculation has translated that into an astonishing $15 billion dollars today, and it’s a figure that’s stuck. But should we believe it?
Duncan Weld
Is this Premier League striker a secret maths genius?
Chelsea striker Liam Delap has recently stunned fans on Instagram by apparently doing incredibly complicated calculations in his head, finding what’s known as the cube root of some very large numbers.But is he really a human calculator? Or is there something else going on? Tim Harford speaks to Rob Eastaway, mathematician and author of ‘Maths on the Back of an Envelope’ to learn about the trick yo
Could Europe use its financial muscle to strong-arm the US?
Could European Nato members use their large holdings of US shares and bonds to put pressure on America? It’s a question that some in Europe found themselves asking as the geopolitical crisis over Greenland escalated and leaders desperately tried to think of ways to dissuade Donald Trump.
It is true that trillions of dollars of American financial assets are held in Europe. But the devil, as eve
Can you get £71,000 on benefits?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Is it true that someone needs to earn £71,000 before they receive more money than a family on benefits?Did Canadian prime minister Mark Carney get the GDP of Canada and the Nordic countries wrong?Are 1990s pop icons Right Said Fred right about what they said about church attacks?Is a sauna really ten times as hot as Wales in the w
Is Greenland as big as Africa?
The vast island of Greenland has found itself at the centre of a geopolitical crisis. But a little bit of geography can help us see the situation in a new light.YouTuber and map expert Jay Foreman explains how Mercator maps - the maps that the vast majority of us use to understand the world - contain necessary but massive distortions and hugely exaggerate the size of the Arctic island. So, why is
How close is Greenland to the United States?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week: How far away is Greenland from the United States? We check a number From Our Own Correspondent. Does converting our entire energy system to be carbon neutral come with a £7.6 trillion price tag?Is the inevitable rise of house prices in the UK not so inevitable after all? Can the great mathematicians of history answer the question
No, a study has not shown that the covid jab causes cancer
In Autumn 2025 a paper in South Korea was published that excited many a vaccine sceptic online. The paper claimed that receiving a vaccination against Covid19 was linked to a 27% increase in cancer risk. However, when you dig into the data there is no evidence that the vaccine caused the cancer. We spoke to Professor Justin Fendos to explain why we cannot take this type of statistical analysis at
Have more than 100 private schools been forced to close because of VAT?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week: A headline in the Mail says more than 100 private schools have closed since Labour came to power and ended the VAT exemption for private schools. Is that number right? Is it true that when Covid hit the UK, a one-week delay in imposing lockdown led to 23,000 deaths? Do 10 million families rely on X as their main source of news? T
Does Venezuela really have the biggest oil reserves in the world?
When people think of oil rich nations their mind generally goes to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the US. But according to international statistics, the country with the largest oil reserves is Venezuela, with 300 billion barrels worth. At their peak they produced over 3.5 million barrels of the stuff per day. However, due to lack of investment, sanctions and mismanagement that peak is long gone. Followin
The Stats of the Nation: Immigration, benefits and inequality
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.In the final episode, we’re looking at the numbers behind some of the UK’s most potent political debates:Has 98% of the UK’s population growth come from immigration?Do we spend more on benefits in the UK than in other h
The Stats of the Nation: Older people, education, prisons and the weather
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.In the fourth episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:Are one in four pensioners millionaires?Is England’s education system performing better than Finland’s? And how does it compare to Scotland, Wales an
The Stats of the Nation: Sex, drugs and empty homes
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.In the third episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:Are there really 700,000 empty homes that could be used to solve the housing crisis?Does the NHS pay less for drugs than health services in other coun
The Stats of the Nation: Health
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.In the second episode, we’re asking some interesting questions about health and the NHS:Has life expectancy in the UK starting to go up again at last?What statistics tell you about the health of the NHS?After years of p
The Stats of the Nation: The Economy
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.In the first episode, we’re starting the week by asking some interesting questions about the economy:Is the cost-of-living crisis over?The economy is expected to have grown by 1.5% in 2025. Is that a big number?When tax
Numbers of the year 2026
From record-breaking passenger numbers, to some more record-breaking numbers - courtesy of the Men’s football World Cup. We look forward to what 2026 might have in store for us - numerically of course.Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Charlotte McDonald and Katie Solleveld
Production Co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound Mix: Rod Farquhar
Editor: Richard Vadon
Numbers of the year 2025
From the number of women in space and transistors on a chip to social media usage -we’re taking a look back the key numerical moments of 2025. We explore the woes of a big infrastructure projects. Plus, just how can you make sure your New Year’s Resolutions are successful? We’ve got statistics to help. Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporter: Lizzy McNeil
Producers: Charlotte McDonald and Katie Solleveld
Numbers of the year 2025
We look back at some stand out numbers of 2025. How significant were Trump’s import tariffs? China sets the pace for solar power installation across the globe. We also look upwards to a particularly speedy comet - 3i Atlas.Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Charlotte McDonald and Katie Solleveld
Production Co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound Mix: Rod Farquhar
Editor: Richard Vadon
Were there really Three Wise Men?
The surprising things we learn when we count everyone - a tour of the UK census through time. We also figure out just how many parking officers there are versus soldiers in the British army. Who really does all the housework? Plus - 20 years of ‘Freakonomics’ with Stephen Dubner. And finally - were there really three wise men who visited baby Jesus? And were they kings as the Christmas hymn would
The shocking world of US health costs
A loyal listener wrote in to question this claim made by neuroscientist Dr Daniel Levitin: "Here in the US valium in a pharmacy might be $3 that same pill in a hospital setting might be $750."Our listener was shocked at how one pill can cost 250 x more in a hospital setting than in a pharmacy. But can it? Sort of. We turned to Elisabeth Rosenthal to take us on a dive into the frankly shocking worl
Do we really have ‘superflu’?
The NHS is warning of an unprecedented flu season - we check what the numbers say.Is there really a mass exodus of Brits leaving the UK due to Labour tax policies? We look at the latest emigration figures.We take a look at the prison service’s curious habit of letting prisoners out early – or keeping them in for too long - is there a trend?Plus - why the US economy can’t grow at 25 percent a year.
RCP 8.5: Why did the climate change model get it wrong?
Whether we like it or not, global warming is happening. The global temperature has already gone up, and it’s going to go up more, because the atmosphere is already full of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and we’re continuing to add to that stock. Quite how much it will increase by is a very important question for all of us.
Until relatively recently, during much of the 2010s and int
Is RFK right about US sperm counts?
Around the world, many countries are concerned about tackling the decline in birth rates and total fertility rates.
The US is no exception.
To tackle this issue the US government announced that it would provide subsidies for Americans seeking IVF treatment. The announcement was accompanied by one suspect sounding stat from US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"Today the average teenag
Richard Thaler and The Winner’s Curse
In the later part of the 20th century, a pioneering group of economists started shaking up their academic field.These “behavioural economists” used findings from experimental psychology and everyday life to challenge the prevailing view that human beings were rational decision makers – acting in predictable ways to maximize their wealth.One of those pioneers was Richard Thaler, who noted down some
Is there a stock market crash coming?
For months, the share prices of tech companies have marched seemingly-ever upward, driven by fevered excitement about the potential of Artificial Intelligence. But many are now voicing fears that this surge might turn out to be a bubble, which could burst with damaging effects.So do we have to rely on vibes? Or can we use data to tell us about the risk that AI might go pop?Nathan Gower discovers w
Has there been a $50 trillion wealth transfer to the richest Americans?
Bernie Sanders says a vast amount of wealth - $50 trillion - has moved from 90% of the population to the wealthiest Americans since the 1970s.
The figure comes from a study by Carter Price, a senior mathematician at nonprofit research institute the RAND Corporation.Tim Harford speaks to Carter to understand how he calculated his figures and what they really mean.If you’ve seen a number in the new
Is RFK Jr right about China's diabetes rate?
The US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is on a mission to make America healthy again.
One of his health-promotion ideas is to reduce chronic illness, specifically diabetes. And has part of his campaign he said that:
"a typical pediatrician would see one case of diabetes in his lifetime, over a 40 or 50 year career. Today, 1 out of every 3 kids who walks through his office door is predia
Halloween special: How many people did the real Dracula impale?
Vlad III Dracula, the Wallachian Prince who became Bram Stokers inspiration behind his famous vampire 'Count Dracula,' was a brutal ruler. So brutal that history dubbed him 'Vlad the Impaler' due to his penchant for that particularly gruesome form of execution. Which, without going into too much detail, involved driving a large stake or pole through someone's body - often vertically. Chroniclers a
Is your housework split sexist?
Do you ever have fights with your partner about who does more of the housework and whether it’s fair? Well data might have the answer. Corinne Low is an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She analyses surveys of how people spend their time, particularly in terms of “home production” - that is things like cooking and cleaning, and “market work”, that is, p
Nobel economics prize 2025: What's the big idea?
Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have been awarded this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.The three are sharing 11 million Swedish kronor, over a million dollars, after being recognised for their work in the area of “innovation-driven economic growth”. But why does this area matter and what did the three economists actually do?
We turn the tables on our presenter Tim Ha
Are millions of people getting Motability cars for anxiety and ADHD?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:The Conservative party conference has been told that millions of people are getting free cars from the government because they have ADHD and anxiety. Is that right?The chair of the Labour party says that only 3% of farmers will be affected by proposed changes to inheritance tax. Is that true?The charity Movember claim that two in
Are 72% of prison inmates in Switzerland foreign?
In a recent speech to the UN, US president Donald Trump set out some remarkable figures on the proportion of inmates in European prisons who were foreign nationals.Citing statistics from the Council of Europe, he references Greece, Germany and Austria, as having rates around 50%.“In Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland,” he said “72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland.”
These n
Does half the UK get more in benefits than they pay in tax?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:The Daily Mail says that over half of the UK population live in households that get more in benefits than they pay in tax - is it true?Do some billionaires earn more in a night than the population of Bournemouth earns in a year? New Green leader Zack Polanski seems to think so - we scrutinise the figures.Are older generations gett
Is the world getting less miserable?
When you follow the news, particularly in countries like the UK and the US, it sometimes feels like people are less optimistic about their lives than they were in the past.
But a new piece of analysis from polling company Gallup suggests this might just be the local view, not the global one.
Using data from the Gallup World Poll, it suggests that “people in more countries are living better lives a
Has Donald Trump ended seven 'unendable' wars?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:US President Donald Trump claims he has ended seven “unendable” wars. Is that true?Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7 for the first six months of 2025. What do you need to know about that stat?The Daily Mail has described a recent scientific paper as describing a global cancer “explosion
The Case of the Missing US Data
In early February 2025, something strange started happening across US government websites. Decades of data began disappearing from webpages for agencies such as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Census Bureau. In many cases the entire website went dark.
Within a few days some 8,000 government pages and 3,000 datasets had been taken down. Sin
Was it easier to deport migrants to France before Brexit?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey says it was easier to deport illegal migrants to Europe when we were in the EU. Is that true?Did the governor of the Bank of England get his numbers wrong on the UK’s ageing population?Why is the price of beef up by 25% in a year?Is it possible to prove that MPs are using AI to write their speeches?If y
Is JD Vance right about left-wing violence?
On September the 10th 2025, right-wing political activist and media personality Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at an event in Utah. In the aftermath, his friend JD Vance, the US Vice President, hosted a special memorial edition of ‘The Charlie Kirk Show’, live from the White House, during which he called for unity, but said that could only be found by “climbing the mountain of truth”
Is it true that out-of-work benefits have almost doubled?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:Nigel Farage says 6.5 million people are on out-of-work benefits – with some benefits up 80% since 2018. Are those numbers right?Do French pensioners really earn more than their working-age compatriots?How is it possible for one kilogram of fish food to produce one kilogram of salmon?And do we really have five senses?If you’ve see
Will the world really be 50 million workers short by 2030?
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the world faces a severe labour shortage – 50 million workers by the end of the decade.
The boss of the world’s most valuable company thinks humanoid robots will be needed to fill the gap.But is this prediction based on solid evidence?Tim Harford looks at the calculations behind the claim with Rajiv Gupta, a technology expert at Boston Consulting Group, who is the like
Are Afghan nationals more likely to be convicted of sexual offences?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news. This week:Is it true that interest payments on the UK’s national debt are equivalent to £240 per month for everyone in the country?Reform UK claim that Afghan migrants are 22 times more likely to be convicted of sex offences. Is that number correct?We try to make sense of a claim that one in 10 women are being driven to leave work by their meno
Do 11,000 sharks die every hour?
Hollywood has given sharks a terrible reputation. But in reality, the finned fish should be far more scared of us, than we of them.Millions of sharks are killed in fishing nets and lines every year.One statistical claim seems to sum up the scale of this slaughter – that 100 million sharks are killed every year, or roughly 11,000 per hour.But how was this figure calculated, and what exactly does it
Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?
Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel.Loyal Listener Amberish wrote in to More or Less to ask about a couple of safety statistics he’d seen regarding these self-driving cars on social media. These claimed that Waymo self-driving taxis were five times safer than huma
Do women feel the cold more than men?
Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable? This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which describe the summer as a “women’s winter”.But is there evidence behind the claims of a gender bias in air conditioning? To find out, we speak to Gail Brager, Director of the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley, and Boris Kingma, a senio
How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?
In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places.
A social media post at the time claimed that some of these sea temperatures were so different to the normal sea temperature at this time of year, that the sea was experiencing a “1-in-216,000,000,000-year sea temperature anomaly”.
This would suggest that
Why it matters that Trump fired data chief
On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were 258,000 fewer jobs than they had previously estimated.
This news was not received well by the White House. President Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, calling the numbers ‘phony, ri
Are abortion numbers rising in the US?
In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the US.
Since then a number of states have banned abortion completely with many others having highly prohibitive rules. You’d expect the numbers of abortions to go down. They haven’t.
How is it possib
Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?
We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot to do basic research and writing tasks. But what is the environmental impact of these technologies? Many listeners have got in touch with More or Less to ask us to investigate various claims about the energy and water use of AI.One claim in particular h
Are one in six children living through war?
In the midst of the television coverage of Soccer Aid, a celebrity soccer match organised by Unicef, the audience was told that “one in six children around the world are currently living through war”. Listener Isla got in touch with More or Less to ask whether the claim was correct, so we tracked down the source to an organisation called the Peace Research Institute Oslo.Research director Siri Aas
Why Manchester United can afford to play badly
Manchester United are terrible, even according to their own manager. Last season saw their worst ever performance in Premier League history.But at the same time, according to Forbes magazine, they’re still the second most valuable football club in the world. How is that possible?Tim talks to Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert and the author of The Price of Football, to find out the secret o
Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting back on one fizzy drink a day?How many new babies in the City of London have a foreign-born parent? And since fewer than one baby a week is actually born in the City of London, how much should we care?Electricity in the UK is more expensive than alm
The economics of war: Vikings, Conquistadors and Vietnam
How does economics help us understand conflicts through history? That’s the question that economist and journalist Duncan Weldon tries to answer in his new book, Blood and Treasure. Tim talks to Duncan about the economic perspective on Viking raiders, Spanish conquest and the Vietnam war.Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Edit
Is the UK seeing a Christian revival?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is church-going making a comeback in the UK?Is it true that every day, 1000 people begin claiming personal independence payments, or PIP?When the government talks about how it “returns” illegal immigrants, what does it mean?Can a new telescope really see golf balls on the moon?If you’ve seen a number you think looks suspic
Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?
It’s been over three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the human toll is growing on both sides.Recently, politicians and journalists have declared a grim milestone, one million Russian casualties.But is this number accurate? Tim talks to Seth Jones, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Olga Ivshina, from the BBC Russian service, to investigate this st
Why is data on grooming gangs so bad?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. In this episode:Why is the data on the ethnicity of grooming gangs of such poor quality?Iran has apparently enriched uranium to 60%, but what does that number mean?Adam Curtis’s latest series, Shifty, includes claims about Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. We ask Sir John Curtice, polling king of election night, if they’re accurate
How to spot a suspicious statistic
Untruths sneak into our lives in all kinds of ways. Sometimes they’re outright lies. Blatant misinformation. But in this episode, we’re going to talk about something else - those sneaky numbers and claims that bounce around our society and that aren’t exactly false, but are leading you down the wrong path. That’s the subject of a book called May Contain Lies by Alex Edmans, a professor of finance
Are 4% of young women in the UK on OnlyFans?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news, and in life. This week:We debunk a false claim that the hotel bill for immigrants is the size of the tax bill for Manchester.An article in the Spectator claimed that 4% of women aged between 18 and 34 in the UK are OnlyFans creators. We track down the source and discover that it is not very good.Do people in Scotland use much more water tha
Could you be hit by a falling satellite?
The number of satellites orbiting our planet has been rapidly increasing in recent years. But what are the risks when they start falling back down to earth?The European Space agency estimate that by 2030 there will be 100,000 satellites in orbit.
We look at whether that estimate is realistic and what it means for those of us living on the ground below, with the help of Jonathan McDowell and Fiona
How do you make something 10-times more lethal?
What does the government mean when it commits to developing a “10-times more lethal” army? Why was the much-missed Sycamore Gap tree said to be worth a strikingly exact £622,191? Are there really twice as many people teaching Yoga as there are in the fishing industry? Is the number of workers per pensioner really falling from 4 to 3 to 2? And what did Donald Trump mean when he said the price of eg
Is the world’s population being miscounted?
Exactly how many people live on our planet is one of those difficult-to-answer questions. The UN estimates is 8.2 billion, but that’s largely based on census data, which is certainly not a perfect measure. So when a recent study from Finland found that rural populations around the world had been underestimated by 50 to over 80%, the media got quite excited. This would be a big error - a 50% un
Does the average American have fewer than three friends?
Tim Harford is here to sprinkle a refreshing shower of statistical insight over the parched lawns of misinformation.This week, we try to unpick the confusion over a claim made by London Mayor Sadiq Khan about the contribution skilled immigrants make to the nation’s finances.Mark Zuckerberg says that the average American has fewer than 3 friends. Is he right?Two doctors claim that up to 90% of Alzh
