The former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says that the cost of maternity litigation claims in England is now more than the cost of salaries for maternity nurses and doctors. We crunch the numbers and ask how worried parents and taxpayers should be. Also are there more bees in the world than stars in the galaxy? And would planes be much lighter if they didn?t bother with windows? Maths Professor Hannah Fry talks to us about her experience of cancer and the choices she and others have faced after a diagnosis. And we hear from author Simon Singh, who wants to bring fun maths conversations into homes everywhere.
The failure of British politics and public institutions to tackle social inequality is down to proximity, so says the writer, performer and activist Darren McGarvey. In The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain he looks at the huge gulf – geographic, economic and cultural – between those who make decisions and the people on the receiving end of them. He tells Adam Rutherford it’s time for a meaningful discussion in which the voiceless and powerless get heard. The Social Distance Between Us is BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.
The poet Jo Clement gives voice to the stories and people of her family’s Romany past. In her collection Outlandish she has no time for Romantic impressions of British Gypsy ethnicity as she moves from ancient stopping-places to decaying council estates. Her poems are imaginative protests that cast light on a hidden and threatened culture.
It’s a far cry from the world of former broker Brett Scott. But in his latest book, Cloudmoney: Cash Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets he argues that social inequality will only increase if cash is allowed to disappear. A cashless society is the vision of big finance and tech, and he warns that it will end up only benefitting the few, while infringing the privacy of the many.
British mathematics professor and broadcaster Hannah Fry has spent many years trying to explain the world through numbers. But when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer she embarked on a new mission ? to discover whether the medical world, and we as individuals, make the right choices around treatment. Are patients always given the facts ? and the time - they need to make rational decisions? And could we be at risk of unnecessary overtreatment?
The UK has a low unemployment rate, and a large number of people who are not working right now ? we look at how both of these are true with the help of Chris Giles from the FT and Louise Murphy from the Resolution Foundation.
Have pyramids really moved 4km south since they were built?
For years, the media has been claiming that the odds of having identical triplets are one in 200 million ? we are very suspicious. And we look at apparently concerning reports about women's life expectancy in the poorest parts of England.
Plus, we have received a lot of emails from listeners about last week?s episode. Some questioning the definition of a billion, others questioning our explanation of the nautical mile. We do some reflecting.
The environmentalist George Monbiot argues that farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction, but few people want to talk about it. In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet he presents a vision for the future of food production. He tells Tom Sutcliffe that new ideas and technologies from soil ecology to laboratory-grown food could change the way people eat while regenerating the landscape.
But many farmers believe that they have been unfairly accused of ecological mismanagement, and that they are uniquely placed to restore the earth and provide a sustainable future. Sarah Langford has returned to her country roots after working for many years as a criminal barrister in the city. In her book, Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution she shows how a new generation of farmers are set on a path of regenerative change.
While Sarah Langford comes from a family of farmers, for many city dwellers it can be difficult to cultivate a connection with the earth. In her memoir, Unearthed: On Race and Roots and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong, Claire Ratinon, explores how she grew up feeling disconnected with the natural world and with family stories of slave ancestors forced to work the land. Through learning to grow her own vegetables and especially the food of Mauritius, she has finally felt able to put down roots.
In the 1980s, Dr Marcia Herman-Giddens was one of the first people to notice that girls were starting puberty earlier than expected. We talk to Dr Marcia Herman-Giddens and Dr Louise Greenspan about what we know now about whether the age of girls? puberty is falling.
(Mother and daughter in the supermarket choosing sanitary items. Getty Images)
Is the government really spending a billion pounds on the Jubilee, as some have claimed? We investigate some of the facts and figures around this week?s commemorations. We also ask why energy bills are becoming so high in the UK when we actually have plenty of gas, and we unpack the mystery of measuring fuel poverty. Plus after the Texas school shooting we investigate the statistics around gun deaths in the US.
And finally we hear about the joys and perplexities of imperial measures with Hannah Fry and Matt Parker.
In front of an audience at this year’s Hay Festival Helen Lewis talks to three prize winning authors about their work.
Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning The Promise tells the story of a family and a country – South Africa – and the failed promises that destroy them both. The exciting promise of a super-connected world where memories are currency is set against the quest for privacy in Jennifer Egan’s new novel The Candy House. And Margo Jefferson examines every passion, memory and influence – from family to jazz to art – in her new memoir, Constructing a Nervous System.
Nobel memorial prize winner Daniel Kahneman is one of the world?s most famous psychologists, known particularly for his work identifying the role of cognitive bias in everyday decision making. In this edition of More or Less he talks to Tim Harford about his latest book, Noise - A Flaw in Human Judgement, in which he outlines how a multitude of often irrelevant factors influence important decisions, whether in job interviews, the courtroom or workplaces generally - and what we can do about it.
Some recent, and surprising, estimates from the World Health Organisation suggested that the UK fared better than Germany in the pandemic. But did they get it right?
At Eurovision this year an algorithm was apparently used to replace whole countries? votes - was it responsible for the UK?s second-place finish?
The global economy has been putting the squeeze on many of us this year. Various factors have caused food, fuel and energy prices to rocket and many households are starting to feel the pinch. We speak to economist Duncan Weldon about whether this year is the worst hit to the cost of living since records began.
An unusually large contingent of children are set to hit English secondary schools just as the number of 21 year olds dips ? so are we heading for a teaching crunch in England?
