Tim Harford
@timharford.ft.com
FT columnist, BBC journalist, author, host of Cautionary Tales, professional nerd.
Some brilliant storytelling advice here from @davemorris.bsky.social realdavemorris.substack.com/p/patterns-i...
Patterns in the fire
Writing for a visual medium
realdavemorris.substack.com
"How to end the cycle of mistrust between the Treasury and everybody else" - good piece from @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/e6f0317e-f...
How to end the cycle of mistrust between the Treasury and everybody else
The lesson from Manchester is that it takes time for public investment policies to show up in GDP
as.ft.com
Arsenic and Lace: The Trial of the Yorkshire Witch, with Maddy Pelling timharford.com/2026/07/caut...
Arsenic and Lace: The Trial of the Yorkshire Witch, with Maddy Pelling timharford.com/2026/07/caut...
Fundraising closes tomorrow - thank you so much to everyone who donated. An amazing total, quite unbefitting a few months of training but reflective, perhaps, of what a good cause the Teenage Cancer Trust is. If you intended to donate but haven't managed yet, now's your chance!
Tim Harford@timharford.ft.com · 3mo agoWell, it’s been a long road since I raced the dinosaurs at a New Year’s Day parkrun. I’ve managed various niggles (knee, glute, achilles… yawn).
Fundraising closes tomorrow - thank you so much to everyone who donated. An amazing total, quite unbefitting a few months of training but reflective, perhaps, of what a good cause the Teenage Cancer Trust is. If you intended to donate but haven't managed yet, now's your chance!
Tim Harford@timharford.ft.com · 3mo agoWell, it’s been a long road since I raced the dinosaurs at a New Year’s Day parkrun. I’ve managed various niggles (knee, glute, achilles… yawn).
Should we conduct a randomised trial of the parachute? timharford.com/2026/07/expe...
Experts know less than they like to think
How do we know what works? In an uncertain world, full of untested treatments, disputed policies and untried inventions, it should be a pressing question. For an impoverished young tailor named Fra…
timharford.com
Six foolish mistakes for the UK's chancellor to avoid - @chrisgiles.ft.com is watching and so are the bond markets as.ft.com/r/1f24e446-0...
Six foolish mistakes for the UK’s new chancellor to avoid
John Healey will be under pressure on many fronts, but bear-pits are lurking . . .
as.ft.com
Can you keep a (trade) secret? timharford.com/2026/07/can-...
Can you keep a trade secret?
He didn’t go to sample the Dolcetto d’Alba, I’m fairly sure of that. John Lombe’s mission was industrial espionage. He travelled to Piedmont with the goal of learning the Piedmontese art of spinnin…
timharford.com
Can you keep a (trade) secret? timharford.com/2026/07/can-...
Can you keep a trade secret?
He didn’t go to sample the Dolcetto d’Alba, I’m fairly sure of that. John Lombe’s mission was industrial espionage. He travelled to Piedmont with the goal of learning the Piedmontese art of spinnin…
timharford.com
How did air conditioning become a heated debate? timharford.com/2026/07/how-...
How did air conditioning become a heated debate?
Keeping warm is sometimes expensive, but even a caveman can cope with the technical challenge: pull on an extra bearskin and throw another log on to the fire. Keeping cool is a trickier business. T…
timharford.com
Listen to the pod, then buy the book - not only wise and humane but full of surprising details based on old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting
Sarah O'Connor@sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 4w agoI had a lot of fun recording this podcast about my book We Are Not Machines with @timharford.ft.com live at the Bristol economics festival - watching Tim with an audience in the palm of his hand was truly watching a master at work. timharford.com/2026/07/caut...
This is now coming out in just a couple of months. Please forgive a needy author for asking you all to preorder if possible…
Robin Wigglesworth@robinwigglesworth.ft.com · 4mo agoPlease gird yourself for months of shameless self-promotion, mute me on socials, feel free to avoid me in public etc, because my next book — A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World — is now available for pre-orders. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/750210...
How did air conditioning become a heated debate? timharford.com/2026/07/how-...
How did air conditioning become a heated debate?
Keeping warm is sometimes expensive, but even a caveman can cope with the technical challenge: pull on an extra bearskin and throw another log on to the fire. Keeping cool is a trickier business. T…
timharford.com
UNHCR's archives - an easy-seeming choice for budget cuts, but once destroyed, impossible to rebuild rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2026/06/29/u...
UNHCR’s future is at risk – and so is its past - Refugee Law Initiative Blog
By Jane McAdam and Maja Janmyr Budget cuts are forcing the UN Refugee Agency to cull its archives, threatening the world’s memory of displacement and undermining future protection. When people think o...
rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk
New economics interview podcast - "Icon to Econ" - featuring Stephanie Flanders, me, Steve Webb and more coming I understand sites.libsyn.com/616745
Econ to Icon
Econ to Icon is a podcast about influential people whose careers began in economics and went somewhere remarkable — into politics, journalism, business, markets, even music. Each episode, hosts Paul ...
sites.libsyn.com
Cautionary Tales Live - "We Are Not Machines" with @sarahoconnorft.ft.com timharford.com/2026/07/caut...
Cautionary Tales Live - "We Are Not Machines" with @sarahoconnorft.ft.com timharford.com/2026/07/caut...
The UK is stuck in a rollercoaster queue... timharford.com/2026/07/the-...
The UK is stuck in a rollercoaster queue
For those of us frustrated that the UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has been offering the wrong solution to the right problem, there has recently been progress, of a kind: she is now offering the wrong…
timharford.com
