Flying Blind
Analysis15 Feb 2021

Flying Blind

What do we really know about the policy choices confronting us? Covid-19 has been a brutal lesson in the extent of our ignorance. We face hard decisions, and argue about them ferociously, when in truth we’re often in the dark about their full consequences. But Covid is not unusual in this respect - and we could learn from it. Other areas of life and policy are similarly obscured. Not that we like to admit it. How well, for example, do we know what the economy is up to? Quite possibly not nearly as well as you might think - even to the extent that it’s recently been suggested the first estimates of GDP can’t be sure of telling the difference between boom and bust - the problem really can be that extreme. Some recessions have turned out to be illusions. In this programme Michael Blastland examines our collective ignorance and how it affects policy and debate, asking if public argument needs a lot more humility.

Producer Caroline Bayley Editor Jasper Corbett

Episoder(389)

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The Orange Book: Clegg's Political Lemon?

The Orange Book: Clegg's Political Lemon?

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The Big Society

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Radical Economics: Escaping Credit Serfdom

Radical Economics: Escaping Credit Serfdom

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Radical Economics: Yo Hayek!

Radical Economics: Yo Hayek!

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Trust

Trust

Trust was the subject of moral philosopher Professor Onora O'Neill's acclaimed Reith Lectures in 2002. Enron, political sleaze, the foot and mouth crisis, the Bristol heart babies scandal and the coll...

24 Jan 201128min

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