Geoff Norcott hates being told what to do (and so do I)

In what seems like another era but was actually three weeks ago, Geoff Norcott recorded a comedy special about the nanny state, with me acting as the straight man. It was broadcast last night and features several themes that will be familiar to regular readers of this blog.

You can listen here.

I was there to provide facts and statistics. I wasn't able to provide references (that would have been far too boring), but here are the sources for some of the things I mentioned that some people might find surprising:

We don't measure child obesity properly. See also here.

Child obesity hasn't risen in twenty years.

Rates of adult obesity have risen more slowly than predicted.

E-cigarette taxes lead to higher cigarette sales. See also here.

Problem gambling rates in Britain have not risen since we started measuring it in 1999.