This week the IEA published a new study I wrote, looking at the extraordinary social experiment of lockdown and what … Continue reading “Lessons from lockdown for (anti-)alcohol policy”

If, like me, you celebrated the downfall of the useless, bossy quango Public Health England, you may be unable to … Continue reading “Public health organisations fail, because they spread themselves too thinly over too many activities”

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic reached our shores, there were calls for spending on public health to be increased. Health … Continue reading “The pseudo-economics of preventive care”

F. A. Hayek’s motivation for writing The Road to Serfdom (1944) was his fear that measures needed to conduct World … Continue reading “Beware the normalisation of illiberalism”

This past week, testing for Covid-19, or the lack of it, has been the main focus of criticism of the … Continue reading “Corona trade-offs: some issues with “test, test, test” and “track and trace””

It seems unfair to call it a sweet shop. In the shopping centre north of Charlottenberg in south-western Sweden, barely … Continue reading “Norwegian sugar tax sends sweet-lovers over border to Sweden”

In December 2003 the Secretary of State for Health asked Ofcom to look into the regulation of television advertising of … Continue reading “Did industry unduly influence Ofcom’s decision on restricting TV advertising of unhealthy kids’ foods?”

When the BBC reported last month that Arron Banks had given £450,000 to Nigel Farage, I tweeted ironically: “So now … Continue reading “A reply to the British Medical Journal”

Last week I blogged about the way in which regulation may exacerbate pay gaps between different ethnic groups, using the … Continue reading “How government regulation exacerbates ethnic pay gaps”