Graeme Archer

It's as clear a problem in medical ethics as you could define. The best available evidence suggests that the anti-cancer protective effect of aspirin outweigh its (bleed) risk, such that – were health policy decisions to impact only the "average" patient – then the "decision" would not merit the name. Everyone over 50 should take aspirin.

Welcome to the world of evidence-based dilemmas. Let me be very clear: I trust in the power of statistical reasoning (I work as a statistician in drug research), and myself will probably take the aspirin, adding it to my prophylactic pharmacological armoury of cholesterol lowering statin and blood-pressure-regulating ACE inhibitor.

But none of us is an average, and no medicine is risk-free. As The Times reports, "for every 17 lives saved [from cancer] aspirin will kill two people from internal bleeding or strokes."

So, on the individual level, does the benefit outweigh the risk?… Read More

Photo: JOE GIDDENS/PA

Trojan values and localism. I don't know why people pretend that this is so hard. It really isn't.

Localism means giving parents, teachers and governors the maximum freedom of choice, consistent with those freedoms being exercised within the set of permitted policies. As per Free Schools, as per Academies.

Pace Fiona Millar, it does not follow that, because some people have abused such freedom of choice, that choice must therefore be removed from everybody, or that LEAs must be reformed as the iron rod of the single-size-fits-all comprehensive "ideal."

Pace the twittersphere, that some religious extremists have sought to teach according to unacceptable norms, it doesn't follow that all faith schools are unacceptable. Since some people are religious, they'll likely want to teach their children in that culture. As some bus adverts put it, we really… Read More

Fascinating news coverage from Brazil this morning. The country's papers were reviewed on the Today programme, by one of the team (Evan?) who's been sent there. I can't remember a single item, because I'm too parochial to care, and the paper review is on while I'm bent double, scooping up cat excrement from their litter tray, but still. Fascinating.

There was a fascinating vox pop conducted among some Brazilian citizens too. Again, sorry. With a mind so narrow it fits comfortably through most keyholes, I didn't pay much attention. Some people were happy about football – some dreary tournament organised by the World's Least Corrupt Organisation ((c) lawyers) starts this week – while others were less happy. Fascinating. I'd never have guessed that the Brazilian public would split into pro- and anti-Football camps. So glad the BBC sent a team out… Read More

Fat Graeme is in the back row

Did you see the story about the boy whose parents have been threatened with some form of child protection action, because they have allowed him to become fat? He has a BMI of 41.8. His parents came to the attention of the socio-medical abuse police when they made a request that their council install a wet room, to meet more easily the boy's hygiene requirements. Cristina wrote about him a few days ago.

The boy does exercise, his parents claim: he uses a Wii, a video game device that requires the user to jerk about. "You can be genetically fat," wailed the boy's mother.

That the dietary status of your children is no concern of the state is… obvious? This is an outrage… isn't it?… Read More

Photo: AP

You do sometimes wonder if institutions like the European Commission are staffed by Eurosceptic fifth columnists. Hot on the heels of being told to "get a life" by the UK's Eurosceptic majority, the EC has issued advice to the British government about housing policy, which might best be described as the blindingly obvious mixed up with matters of no possible Euro-relevance. Some points:

1. "Don't let house prices get too high!" I'm sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are both delighted to have been alerted to this danger, which, I'm sure, would never otherwise have occurred to them. Coming next from the expensive Commission: "Don't run fast with those scissors!"

2. "Increase council tax on expensive properties." I struggle with impatience when Westminster interferes with local government, let… Read More

Harlow, in Essex, one of the first towns built after the Second World War to ease overcrowding in London. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

"Write more about Harlow," he said to me, as I left. "He" being Robert Halfon, MP for the New Town. "You used to write about us." As our fingers touched in farewell I felt a spike of melancholy: I am more fond of this man than it makes sense to disclose, though our overlap time in the town wasn’t so lengthy.

"OK," I thought. "I will. Not Harlow in and of itself, though." Write about… Read More

Not in fact Vince Cable

I thought liberals were in favour of "evidence-based politics", where data, rather than anything as grubby as an ideology, are relied upon to answer political questions,

Not Vince Cable or the rest of the Lib Dems, aghast at data – opinion polls – showing they're in electoral trouble. I mean, who knew?

Asked about Lord Oakeshott's rogue polling, the holiest of Lib Dem cabinet ministers (on a trip to China) refused to answer "ad hoc" questions. So here's a "post hoc" answer, to which he may like to supply the obvious  "propter hoc" question: "It wouldn't make any difference. The party is finished."

Either a realisation that the party's over, and that it will make no difference whoever leads it to next year's defeat, or, who knows, a shade of guilt about his role… Read More

Mark Carney. (Photo: EPA)

Perhaps there is light at the end of the anti-capitalist tunnel. Mark Carney is using language sharp enough to penetrate the ears of even the most ostrich-like banker: "Bankers made enormous sums in the run-up to the crisis and were often well compensated after it hit. In turn, taxpayers picked up the tab for their failures."

I don't think you can over-estimate the impact that the failure by bankers to exhibit the slightest atom of contrition, in the aftermath of the great crunch, has done to the good name of capitalism. I can't recall a single conversation about the economy, or a single interview with a Labour politician about their unashamed spending plans – even now! – that hasn't been met with a belligerent response of "So?… Read More

Photo: EPA

The Prime Minister has said that the Ukip leader isn’t a “normal bloke down the pub” – a slight spark of irritation visible, there – but is, rather, a “consummate politician.” I don’t disagree with either assertion. Normal blokes down the pub don’t become millionaire MEPs who top the poll in a nationwide election. In any case, whether or not Mr Farage is “like” his image or not doesn’t interest me.

But enough of my own spark of irritation. There is no doubt that part of Mr Farage’s electoral success is down to his portrayal as a blokey man-of-the-people. What I’m wondering is: how “normal” do we want our politicians to be? I suspect we’re using the wrong adjective here – or at least, a necessary but not sufficient one – to describe what… Read More

Thomas Piketty, rock-star economist (Photo: Reuters)

What are we learning from the row over the statistical methods used by rock-star Leftish economist Thomas Piketty in his new "Tax everyone, everywhere" book? Well: nothing we've not learned before.

The first and important point to make is that the FT has done us a service, by subjecting the book to the sort of statistical quality review that its hagiographers, publishers and author appear to have overlooked. I say "appear" because I've not read his book, and never would. My life is too short (yours may not be) to read books by economists which are aimed at political audiences; the primary function of such objects appears to be the provision of topic matter for columnists who don't like novels. The book is important not for its content, as such, but… Read More