Reform is the theme of great governments
Matt Ridley
Challenging entrenched bureaucracies is what politicians should do My Times column on reform as a political theme: If there is political paralysis on Friday, as seems likely, and given how many of their powers national politicians have anyway passed to bodies like the Bank of England and the European Commission, perhaps we can look forward […]
Cameron faces guerrilla warfare in the House of Lords
Matt Ridley
Without coalition, the Conservatives will be greatly outnumbered in the Upper House My Times column on a perverse outcome of the election: In one respect last week’s election result has made David Cameron’s life more difficult. While gaining seats in the Commons from the Liberal Democrats, he has effectively lost them in the Lords. […]
Matt Ridley
There really is a trade-off: denying aid for fossil fuels hurts the poor My column in The Times is on the undeniable truth that western countries are preventing Africans getting access to the cheapest power, which is fossil-fuelled. In what is probably the silliest comment on climate since a Ukip councillor blamed floods on gay […]
Matt Ridley
Election campaigns ignore what matters most – technological change My Times column argues that only high-tech innovation will give us the cash to fund our future, so why won’t Cameron or Miliband talk about it? Fifty years ago yesterday, a young computer expert called Gordon Moore pointed out that the number of transistors on […]
Matt Ridley
Nick Lane’s new book understands how life started as an energy system My review of Nick Lane’s book The Vital Question in The Times: Nick Lane is not just a writer of words about science, he is also a doer of experiments and a thinker of thoughts. And these days he is hot on the […]
Welfare reform and unemployment
Matt Ridley
It’s kinder to push people into work than to park them on benefits My Times column on Britain’s remarkable and unexpected plunge in unemployment and what lies behind it: Five years ago, almost nobody expected that inflation would vanish, as tomorrow’s figures are expected to show, or that unemployment would plummet, as Friday’s numbers will […]
Matt Ridley
How the general election could produce a constitutional crisis My Times column on what might happen if the British election prouces a messy result: had a bad dream. It was April 2016. The country was tumbling into a constitutional crisis, dragging the Queen into a gathering storm in the week of her 90th birthday. The […]
High-speed rail versus driverless cars
Matt Ridley
By 2030 working while driving may be as easy as working while on the train My column in The Times on British transport priorities: By the time HS2 is fully operational in 2033, more than a quarter of all cars on our roads will be fully autonomous, according to a forecast by the consultants KPMG. […]
Matt Ridley
No-take zones and marine reserves are needed, because over-fishing is key My Times column on fish and oceans: The decision to create the world’s largest marine reserve around Pitcairn Islands seems to have taken campaigners by surprise. Environmentalists and celebrities had been pushing for this reserve and others in British overseas territories (around Ascension Island […]
Carbon capture and storage is not coming to the rescue
Matt Ridley
Getting emissions down is not going to be easy My Times column on carbon capture: Carbon dioxide is not the most urgent problem facing humanity, compared with war, extremism, poverty and disease. But most presidents, popes and film stars think it is, so I must be wrong. For the purposes of this article let’s assume […]
