Hello and welcome to this next episode of the Brexit and Beyond podcast brought to you by the UK in a changing Europe.

And my guest today is none other than Tim Harford, journalist, broadcaster, author, slightly irritating

polymath, truth be told, but someone who is always worth reading and listening to, Tim,

thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

It's my pleasure and thank you for calling me irritating before I've even had a chance to

utter a single word. I appreciate it. It's jealousy,

pure and simple. There, it's on the table now. So I'm going to start, and we avoid this quite a lot,

actually, in some of our podcasts, but I'm going to start front and center with Brexit, because

it seems to me that Brexit encapsulates a lot of the things that you write and think about.

Thinking back to the referendum.

Sorry, if you, Anand, if you're avoiding Brexit, that's like the Pope not wanted to talk

about God. I mean, what's the point of view if you can't talk about Brexit even a little

bit? I'm reluctant to be typecast in. What can I understand? Okay.

All right.

Was the referendum a failure of communication by economists or a failure to understand

the fact that the world isn't all about economics?

Well, I think most economists understand that the world isn't about economics, but we certainly did some self-examination afterwards.

The economics profession did some self-examination afterwards.

So there are some economists who were involved in the business of fact-checking, as I was.

I was working for more or less fact-checking the referendum,

so not on any particular side. We're just trying to establish what's true and what isn't.

There were some economists who saw themselves, I think, in a role of campaigners. Most of them

...