Jonathan Portes

Two weeks ago I was too 'obscure to bother with' for Professor Niall Ferguson. He's changed his mind, dedicating an entire article in The Spectator to me. In particular, he is very upset that, after I complained, the FT was obliged to correct his recent article about the UK economy. Professor Ferguson's article contained one undisputed factual error (about UK business confidence) and one statement which the FT's independent complaints commissioner found to be misleading, but which Professor Ferguson argues is composed of two 'true statements'. This was: 'Weekly earnings are up by more than 8 per cent; in the private sector, the figure is above 10 per cent. Inflation is below 2 per cent and falling.

In his blog earlier today, Fraser Nelson argues: 'The UK jobs miracle is happening mainly due to radical welfare reform – the type Labour ducked in office..Under Labour, record numbers of people in work were celebrate as an end in itself – but most of the increase was accounted for by immigration. So more jobs did not mean less poverty – not if a quarter of Glasgow and Liverpool were still languishing on the dole at the peak of a boom. This time, it’s different. The welfare reforms are restoring the see saw link between jobs and dole queues.' I suppose I should by now get over the fact that intelligent, articulate journalists feel able to write with such certainty about data they simply don't understand.

When the dust settles on the Keogh report published last week  one figure is likely to linger: the "13,000 excess deaths" in the 14 NHS hospitals. It deserves careful scrutiny – and some has been applied by Isabel Hardman here with more details about this curious notion of "Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates" in the Health Service Journal here.  But these still leave the question unanswered as to why these "extra" people are dying, and what, if anything, we can and should do about it.  Here’s my attempt. It’s fairly detailed, and it's still a lovely day so those who don’t have an appetite for such things may not want to click on the link. But those who do want to get their heads around this may find it interesting.