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Booming cereal yields are good for the planet, but Europe lags behind My Times column on farm yields and land sparing: If something drops out of the news, it usually means it is going well. Mad cow disease killed nobody last year; Mozambique and Angola are growing their economies at a furious lick; the Somerset […]

Public bodies are often immortal in a way that private ones rarely are My latest column in The Times: The latest report into Jimmy Savile’s astonishing freedom to roam the wards of Stoke Mandeville hospital will not lead to the end of the National Health Service. Nor will the forthcoming report that apparently finds a “systemic […]

If it won’t reform, then it should devalue My Times column on Greece: For an expert on game theory, Yanis Varoufakis, the Essex University-trained economics professor turned Greek finance minister, does not seem very good at negotiating. His style reminds me of the old joke about playing chess with a pigeon: it knocks over the […]

Consumers are the ones that benefit from buying what they want My Times column on free trade: An American friend recently sent me a gift as a thank you for a weekend’s hospitality. It arrived in the form of a card from the Post Office telling me to pay a hefty sum of tax before […]

Prices may have fallen, but it’s the cleanest and safest of fossil fuels My Times column on shale gas: I don’t know about you, but I have been especially glad of my gas-fired central heating and hot water in the past few frigid weeks. Gas really is rather special: it provides us in this country […]

If it is safe, then we should not prevent families using it My Times column on Britain’s impending decision to allow mitochondrial donation: Tomorrow’s vote in the House of Commons on whether to allow mitochondrial donation has at least flushed out the churches. Both the Catholic and Anglican churches have decided that it is not […]

A book about bitcoin’s implications My review of the book Cryptocurrency appeared in the Times: When the internet started, few guessed how it would develop. I remember reviewing a string of books in the early 1990s arguing that it would lead to atomised and isolated lives, cut off from social contact. Social media put paid […]

Alien invasives are the biggest conservation problem, not habitat for bats My recent column in The Times is on wildlife conservation: On the day last week that the House of Commons was debating a private member’s bill dealing with bats in churches, conservationists were starting to eliminate rats from the island of South Georgia by dropping […]

The polarisation of the climate debate has gone too far This article appeared in the Times on January 19, 2015: I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow […]

Genetic modification raises yields and cuts pesticide use My Times column on genetic modification of crops: The European Parliament votes tomorrow on whether to let countries decide their own policies on growing genetically modified crops. The vote would allow countries such as Britain to press ahead because of hard evidence that such crops are good […]