The Stats of the Nation: Sex, drugs and empty homes
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.
In the third episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:
Are there really 700,000 empty homes that could be used to solve the housing crisis?
Does the NHS pay less for drugs than health services in other countries?
Is violent crime going up or down?
Is the UK in the midst of a fertility crisis?
Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Contributors:
Dr Huseyin Naci, Associate Professor and Director the Pharmaceutical Policy Lab at the London School of Economics Professor Jennifer Dowd, deputy director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford
Credits:
Presenter: Tim Harford Reporters: Lizzy McNeill and Nathan Gower Producers: Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.6 | Police, drop your weapon! |
| 0:09.9 | In 2025, we were here for the investigators, gangster. |
| 0:14.1 | They were stealing money from wealthy institutions. |
| 0:17.5 | Debt was fair game. |
| 0:18.9 | Murder, they wrote. |
| 0:19.9 | He was a preacher, a good guy. |
| 0:21.4 | But now he's dead. |
| 0:23.1 | It has all the marks of a sort of like a proper horror film. |
| 0:26.3 | And fame under fire. |
| 0:27.8 | He is no longer afforded the right of a regular citizen. |
| 0:31.4 | He is guilty until proven innocent. |
| 0:33.3 | Get the best of 2025 with podcasts on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:57.3 | Hello and welcome to the third of our special series of more or less with me, Tim Harford. Every day this week, we're replacing the usual 9am shows on Radio 4 with our stats of the nation. And today we're replacing a fascinating and incredibly well-presented numbers program called, more or less. |
| 1:00.0 | Yes, Radio 4 has gone full inception. |
| 1:03.1 | In this case, we're keeping with the theme, |
| 1:05.5 | and in honour of those super cool guys who are normally in this slot, |
| 1:09.2 | we're going to do sex, drugs and |
| 1:11.2 | council tax empty home exemptions. Well, okay, not quite that. It's fertility rates, |
| 1:17.7 | pharmaceutical economics, and rock and roll. Wait, what, we actually are doing |
| 1:22.4 | council tax exemptions. Fair enough. Oh, and violent crime. Well, stats on violent crime anyway. In any case, I'm sure the folks on more or less will approve. |
| 1:35.5 | One of the things most on people's minds is the state of housing. Yes, I'm partly thinking about whether your neighbour's lawn is as green as yours and why their new conservatory is so tastelessly done, |
... |
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