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Matt Ridley
Politics is increasingly about motives, not results My Times column on how intentions are taken to matter more than what works: The curse of modern politics is an epidemic of good intentions and bad outcomes. Policy after policy is chosen and voted on according to whether it means well, not whether it works. And […]
Montesquieu’s “sweet commerce” and Cobden’s “God’s diplomacy”
Matt Ridley
Empirical evidence that free markets make people nicer My Times column on free markets and free trade: The “ultimatum game” is a fiendish invention of economists to test people’s selfishness. One player is asked to share a windfall of cash with another player, but the entire windfall is cancelled if the second player rejects […]
Matt Ridley
Censorious students, online witch-hunts, religious dogma vs freedom My Times column on threats to the enlightenment itself: Mel Brooks said last week that comedy is becoming impossible in this censorious age and he never could have made his 1974 film Blazing Saddles today. A recent poll found that 38 per cent of Britons and 70 per cent […]
Robot farming will bring great benefits to all
Matt Ridley
The harvesting of a hands-free hectare at Harper Adams is a harbinger My recent column in the Times on robots in agriculture: If you will forgive the outburst of alliteration, the harvesting of a “hands-free hectare” at Harper Adams University has made headlines all around the world, in the technology press as well as […]
The poor are carrying the cost of today’s climate policies
Matt Ridley
Climate policies are doing more harm than good, a moral issue This is the text of a chapter I wrote for a new book entitled Climate Change – The Facts 2017, edited by Jennifer Marohasy. The book is worth buying for Clive James’s chapter alone. Here is a simple fact about the world today: […]
Matt Ridley
Protection against cyclones is necessary whether climate changes or not My recent Times column on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma: As Hurricane Irma batters Florida, with Anguilla, Barbuda and Cuba clearing up and Houston drying out after Harvey, it is reasonable to ask whether such tropical cyclones are getting more frequent or fiercer. The answer […]
Principles versus rules in free trade
Matt Ridley
Britain has a chance to revitalise global free trade to the benefit of all A Times column on free trade: Why does the European Union raise a tariff on coffee? It has no coffee industry to protect so the sole effect is to make coffee more expensive for all Europeans. Even where there is an […]
Why I am more sure than ever that Brexit was the right thing to do
Matt Ridley
A robust economy and the behaviour of the European Commission My recent Times column on the arguments for Brexit: More than a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, I realise we who ended up on the Leave side have probably made a mistake. No, not that we should have voted the […]
Britain’s opportunity to champion gene editing
Matt Ridley
The UK is well placed to exploit this beneficial technology My recent Times column on gene editing: Britain has an opportunity to seize on the latest breakthroughs in gene editing and pioneer new approaches in agriculture, research and medicine. We are well placed to be bold but responsible gene editors. Bolder than continental countries, looking […]
In its energy policy, Britain keeps picking losers
Matt Ridley
Assuming oil and gas would only get more expensive was a big mistake My Times column on Britain’s nuclear power fiasco: Shortly before parliament broke up this month, there was a debate on a Lords select committee report on electricity policy that was remarkable for its hard-hitting conclusions. The speakers, and signatories of the […]
