WELCOME TO MATT RIDLEY'S BLOG

“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 […]

Excessive regulation means the health and environmental benefits of new technology are suppressed My article from The Times: With tariffs announced against Brazil and Argentina, and a threat against France, Donald Trump is dragging the world deeper into a damaging trade war. Largely unnoticed, the European Union is also in trouble at the World Trade […]

My recent article in Quillette: Any day now, the government of Bangladesh may become the first country to approve the growing of a variety of yellow rice by farmers known as Golden Rice. If so, this would be a momentous victory in a long and exhausting battle fought by scientists and humanitarians to tackle a huge […]