My Blog

Let’s start the New Year with a very positive point. The speed of scientific innovation seems to be accelerating sharply.

Imagine. No, not the silly childish song by John Lennon. Imagine there were no vaccines available. What would Matt Hancock,

Christmas is a time to be charitable. So let’s spare a thought for those who fought against the referendum result.

The development of the vaccines has changed many things. It has even influenced the opinion of the Prince of Lockdown

Just over 200 years ago, the finances of the British government looked even more parlous than they do today. Since

The vaccines seem to be coming thick and fast. The task now is to ensure that enough people get them

The various new vaccines announced over the past two weeks give real hope of a return to normal life. Of

Justice secretary Robert Buckland last week blamed the public for England’s new lockdown. In particular, the fault was with people

So Boris Johnson has failed to follow his own government’s guidelines on cost-benefit appraisal. Study after study by economists show

Economics is at long last storming the bastions of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). This citadel of epidemiologists

The word “narrative” is usually seen as being a posh way of saying “story”. But the idea of narratives is

Last month, the official group of scientific advisers — SAGE — warned the government that only a quarter of those

Verification and validation. It is hard to imagine a more nerdy phrase. But it is, in essence, how science makes

Scepticism about the advice given by government scientists about Covid-19 is rising sharply. In areas like Bolton infections are high.

A great deal of government policy during the Covid crisis has involved regulation. Given a choice, economists usually prefer to

King Canute has had a bad press. The monarch sat on the beach on his throne with the deliberate intention

Decisions, whether by individuals, companies or governments, are often made with imperfect and incomplete information. This is so obvious as

Office workers continue to display reluctance to return to their workplaces, despite encouragement from the government for them to head

Did Sweden get it right in its response to Covid? There is increasing interest in this question. Contrary to widespread

There seems to be a fundamental problem with quangos. Hardly a day seems to go by without some new story