More or Less: Behind the Stats

Episode: DOGE, apples and irregular migrants
Host: Tim Harford, BBC Radio 4
Original Air Date: March 12, 2025

Episode Overview

In this wide-ranging episode, Tim Harford and the More or Less team dissect several topical numerical claims:

• The credibility of cost-saving claims from the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by a fictional President Trump and advisor Elon Musk
• Whether VAT on private school fees meaningfully affects UK inflation figures
• Are New Zealand apples really greener than UK-grown ones?
• Does one in 12 Londoners truly count as an "illegal" or irregular migrant?

Each topic is examined with More or Less’s trademark wit, skepticism, and rigorous fact-checking, featuring interviews with experts and careful breakdown of the relevant statistics.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency Cost-Saving Claims

(01:45–10:27)

• Background:
  President Trump claims DOGE, led by special advisor Elon Musk, could save the US $2 trillion a year.

  • Linda Bilmez, budget-balancing economist under Clinton, called that “implausible”:

    “The only way you could cut $2 trillion out of the budget in a year is... in the shooting yourself in the head kind of mechanism.” (03:01)

• Fact-checked “savings” included:

  • Alleged $50 million to Gaza for condoms for Hamas. Tim Harford reveals that:

    “There is no money, as far as I can tell, going to Gaza for condom procurement.” (04:20)

  • Error stemmed from confusion between Gaza field hospitals and Gaza province in Mozambique.

• Social Security “fraud” claims:

  • Musk suggested Social Security might be the “biggest source of fraud in the whole of human history.” (05:01)
  • The cited figure—that there are 18.9 million Americans over 100—is a data quirk, not reality; defaults in birth dates, not fraud.
  • This does open the door to some fraud, especially immigrants using dead people’s numbers to pay taxes; but “billions have not been saved.” (06:17)

• The “transgender mice” grant controversy:

  • $8 million supposedly spent on “making mice transgender” is mostly misrepresented research on hormones and unrelated “transgenic” (genetically engineered) mice, not “transgender.”

    “The mice are also not transmorphic, translucent or transformers.” (07:20)

• DOGE’s Wall of Receipts:

  • Many contracts were misrepresented as savings, including overstating an $8 million contract as $8 billion. More than 1,000 contracts altered or erased on their public list.
  • Claiming $15 billion in savings (less than 1% of target), but much of this is questionable; many staff are on “paid administrative leave”—no savings, no productivity.

• Elon Musk’s admission:

  “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected.” (10:23)

Memorable moment:
Tim's sardonic take on government “efficiency” statistics, the absurdity of the “condoms for Hamas” example, and deadpan fact-checking throughout.

2. VAT on Private School Fees and Inflation

(10:27–14:26)

• Public concern: VAT on private school fees reportedly increased UK inflation—how much did it really contribute?

• Stephen Burgess from the Office for National Statistics explains:

  “Inflation... rose from 3.5% in December to 3.9% in January... of that we think 0.06 was due to private school fees, with bigger contributions coming from food and airfares.” (11:36)

• Private school fees are included in inflation metrics because they account for significant total spending, despite only 6% of children attending independent schools.

  • Example: “We have a threshold of about £400m of expenditure... private school fees are well above that.” (12:38)
  • The so-called “basket” of goods includes items based on aggregate spending, not household prevalence.

3. Are New Zealand Apples More Environmentally Friendly than UK Apples?

(16:05–22:16)

• Claim: “Carbon emissions from New Zealand grown apples are 32% lower than apples grown domestically, including emissions from shipping.” (16:17)

• Based on a 2006 New Zealand study—a time when “food miles” were a hot topic.

• Imported apples from NZ: 185kg CO2/tonne vs. UK apples: 272kg CO2/tonne—mainly thanks to higher orchard yields and sunshine.

• Dr. Hannah Ritchie (Our World in Data, Oxford):

  “Transport only contributes around 5 to 6% globally [to food-related emissions]... for apples, it's around 20%... apples are a relatively low carbon food.” (17:57, 18:43)

• Caveats: The comparison depends on season and storage:

  • The 2006 study assumes apples are consumed immediately, but most are refrigerated. The UK’s electricity now is much greener, closing the emissions gap.
  • Dr. Ritchie:

    “Emissions per unit of electricity in the UK have more than halved... because we basically got rid of coal.” (21:39)

• Conclusion:

  • The claim was “questionable back in 2006 and is definitely not true today.” (22:16)
  • Best practice: Eat British apples in winter, NZ apples in spring.

4. Is 1 in 12 Londoners an Irregular Migrant?

(23:18–29:54)

• Headline: Daily Telegraph claimed “up to one in 12 in London is an illegal migrant."

  • Number came from a Thames Water internal report—not from the ONS.

• Charlotte MacDonald breaks down the faults:

  • Thames Water's consultants used a 2017 Pew Research Center estimate, applying the “residual method” (subtracting known legal residents from total foreign-born population).
  • Problems:
    • Calculation errors: Telegraph had to revise to 1 in 13; midrange is 1 in 15.
    • Pew likely undercounted people with “leave to remain.”

      “Since 2004, over 860,000 people have been granted leave to remain... at least 280,000 haven’t claimed citizenship.” (26:39)

    • Inadequate subtraction leads to overcounting.
    • “Educated guesses built on educated guesses”; data is now eight years old; much of the ‘irregular’ population is miscategorized.

• Other data points:

  • Police administrative data: “Proportion of irregular migrants was absolutely tiny, down at the sort of 1% level." (Jonathan Portes, 29:07)
  • Increases in legal migration since 2017 render the old estimate less reliable.

• Expert quote:

  • Meekna Kwibis, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford:

    “The simple answer is that we simply don’t know how many unauthorized migrants there are... there is no data ... to say with any degree of precision what the actual number is.” (27:53)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On budget cuts:

  “The only way you could cut $2 trillion out of the budget in a year is... in the shooting yourself in the head kind of mechanism.”
  — Linda Bilmez (03:01)

• On fraud and dead Americans’ social security payments:

  “If the date of birth is not known, the computer system defaults to a date of birth of 20th May, 1875, under the star sign, appropriately enough, of Taurus the Bull.”
  — Tim Harford (05:28)

• Government press release tone:

  “What interesting language for an official governmental statement.”
  — Tim Harford, after reading Trump’s mouse research statement (07:20)

• On statistical methods:

  “Educated guesses built on educated guesses”
  — Tim Harford, on ‘irregular migrant’ estimates (28:19)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• DOGE cost-saving claims: 01:45–10:27
• VAT on private schools & inflation: 10:27–14:26
• New Zealand apples' carbon footprint: 16:05–22:16
• London “illegal” migrants claim: 23:18–29:54

Episode Takeaways

• Major government and media statistical claims are often exaggerated, miscalculated, or based on outdated/inadequate data.
• Even credible sources can have systemic flaws—such as not subtracting all those legally present from irregular migrant estimates.
• Old environmental statistics (like “food miles” from 2006) are less meaningful now, especially with energy grid decarbonization.
• Inflation metrics reflect total expenditure, not just widespread usage—hence private school fees matter more than you’d guess from household usage alone.

The episode’s tone is dry, lightly sardonic, but rigorously factual. Perfect for listeners who want to get past headlines to the real numbers—and some polite statistical debunking.