Has Donald Trump ended seven 'unendable' wars?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week:
US President Donald Trump claims he has ended seven “unendable” wars. Is that true?
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7 for the first six months of 2025. What do you need to know about that stat?
The Daily Mail has described a recent scientific paper as describing a global cancer “explosion”. Is that the whole story?
And why have Oxford and Cambridge dropped down a university league table?
If you’ve seen a number you think we should take a look at, email the team: [email protected]
Presenter: Tim Harford Producers: Nathan Gower and Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:41.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less, the show that takes the A out of data, leaving |
| 0:47.0 | d. |
| 0:49.0 | Thanks to loyal listener Paula Craven for that one. |
| 0:52.0 | Email us on More or Less at BBC.com.uk if you can do better. |
| 0:56.6 | I'm Tim Harford. This week, President Donald Trump is proud that he personally has stopped |
| 1:03.0 | seven unendable wars. We travel from Cambodia to Aberbejan to figure out if that's right. |
| 1:10.2 | The Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the UK has the highest growth rate of any G7 country |
| 1:15.7 | in the first half of this year. |
| 1:17.7 | That one might be more accurate, but we have questions. |
| 1:21.1 | The Daily Mail has reported a global cancer explosion, |
| 1:25.8 | but might your risk of cancer actually be falling? And Oxford and Cambridge |
| 1:30.0 | are officially no longer the UK's top universities? Some people might say that Cambridge never was, |
| 1:36.5 | but what's going on with those rankings? And do students agree? But first, Donald Trump has done |
| 1:42.8 | many things in his second term as president. |
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