Thank you for downloading this week's More or Less podcast.

Here's Tim Harford.

Hello and welcome to More or Less, your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in

life.

This week it's more of a guide to the numbers that defined the UK in 2010.

We've asked our favourite number watches to tell us the figures from minus 12,000 to

200 million that really caught their attention and why.

And we've also asked Swedish statistical guru Hans Rosling to give us his favourite numbers

from around the world.

The young couples in Iran, in Vietnam, in Brazil are grabbing the condom or the pill in the

midst of the night when they make love.

Since 2010 saw a general election, our numbers of the year begin in the world of politics.

The meat and drink of More or Less are the errors and canivances embedded in the statistics

which fill each news bulletin.

That means the programme probably couldn't exist without politicians.

And it's here we start our journey into the numbers of 2010.

Daniel Franklin of the Economist, editor of the world in 2010 and the world in 2011.

My number for 2010 was the revelation that the murder rate was the lowest that it had

been in 19 years and that came out just at the time when David Cameron was launching

his remarks about broken Britain.

We have had cases like Jamie Bulger, like Baby Peter, like Damolola Taylor, like Gary

Newlove, like Ben Kinsella.

...