WELCOME TO MATT RIDLEY'S BLOG

Coronavirus is far from the first disease they’ve passed on to us My article from The Spectator: I’m no Nostradamus, but 20 years ago when I was commissioned to write a short book about disease in the new millennium, I predicted that if a new pandemic did happen it would be a virus, not a […]

I visited reddit’s r/IAmA community Wednesday to answer your questions. Here are some highlights. Can you briefly summarise your position on climate change? Yes, though it’s not an issue I am focusing on much at the moment. My view is summarised in a lecture I gave in 2016 called Global Warming versus Global Greening. I’ve covered […]

“An enthusiastic history of human technical innovation” From the Kirkus review of How Innovation Works: Throughout the book, the author delivers fascinating histories of technology that we take for granted. Many hands contributed to the developments of the steam engine, automobile, and computer. Ridley makes a convincing case that obsessive trial and error works better […]

Britain needs to rediscover trial and error, serendipity, speed, and innovation My article from The Spectator: What was Brexit for? After finally taking Britain out of the European Union, the Prime Minister can now start to give us his answer — and the opportunity in front of him is pretty clear. He could speed up, […]

My Speech in the House of Lords I believe it is absolutely vital that the UK government signals its encouragement of genome editing in agriculture. My speech in the House of Lords today: View the full meeting and transcript To stay updated, follow me on Twitter @mattwridley and Facebook. My new book How Innovation Works is coming May 2020, and […]

I appeared on the Institute of Economic Affairs podcast with Darren Grimes to discuss why we’ve just had the best decade in human history: You can also listen on Apple Podcasts.   Chopper’s Brexit Podcast I also appeared on Christopher Hope’s podcast to take questions on that and more. My segment starts at 34:48:   […]

My Speech in the House of Lords It’s worth reflecting on why the British people distrust our motives. My speech in the House of Lords today, on Brexit (and WD-40): I also had an interview with BrexitCentral this weekend reflecting on the referendum, my “vision for Brexit Britain”, and more. To stay updated, follow me […]

Britain’s strategy after losing the War of Independence was generous and helped trade thrive My article from The Times: Frans Timmermans, the vice-president of the European Commission, is singing a more friendly tune to Britain than his fellow commissioners: “We’re not going away and you will always be welcome to come back”. In a similar […]

My article from Reaction: I was asked to appear on the Today programme on Saturday 28 December by the guest editor, Charles Moore, and made the case that the BBC’s coverage of climate change is unbalanced. Despite a lot of interruption by Nick Robinson I just about got across the point that the BBC uncritically […]

Little of this made the news, because good news is no news My article from The Spectator: Let nobody tell you that the second decade of the 21st century has been a bad time. We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 per cent […]