How much does the EU cost the UK? Plus, dog years

Summary

Podcast Summary: More or Less – How much does the EU cost the UK? Plus, dog years

BBC Radio 4 | May 10, 2013 | Hosted by Tim Harford

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Overview

This episode of More or Less tackles popular numbers and statistics circulating in political debate, media, and everyday conversation. The program scrutinizes claims about the cost of the UK's membership in the European Union, dissects figures around military suicides, investigates how many people are related to Richard III, demystifies the true cost of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, and launches the "More or Less Dogulator" to calculate “dog years.” Expect rigorous statistical analysis, myth-busting, and mischievous wit.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Cost of EU Membership to the UK

(00:10–08:29)

a. Competing figures and political claims

• UKIP claims the EU costs the UK £150 billion every year, while government figures estimate about £7 billion.
• Other political claims include Lord Lawson’s assertion of economic gain upon leaving the EU and Nick Clegg's warning of 3 million jobs at risk.

b. The real "membership fee"

• Ian Begg (01:51): Net budgetary cost is about £6–7 billion per year, or roughly £100 per person annually.
• Net cost considers both contributions to the EU and receipts from it.
• [Quote – Ian Begg, 01:51]: "It's an average of about 6 or 7 billion pounds per year in net terms. And net terms in this context means that we pay in more, but we receive from it."

c. The problem with holistic 'cost/benefit' claims

• Attempts to sum up all indirect costs and benefits are methodologically fraught: "You have to make a huge range of assumptions and each of your assumptions will tilt the final calculation one way or another." (Ian Begg, 02:38)
• Assumptions about what would happen outside the EU vary widely, impacting trade, industrial jobs, regulations, etc.

d. The "3 million jobs at risk" debate

• Origin (04:39): The figure comes from calculations on export dependency, not a prediction that all jobs would be lost if the UK left.
• Ian Begg: "It's a very different matter to say that if we left the European Union, all these jobs would go. Plainly wouldn't."
• It’s a reasonable estimate of the number of jobs connected with EU exports, not at direct risk.

e. How many UK laws come from Brussels?

• Nigel Farage claimed 75% of UK legislation comes from Brussels.
• Debunked (06:11): Originates from a misquoted statement about the EU parliament's co-legislative role in Brussels-made laws, not UK-wide laws.
• Counting laws is misleading: Some are trivial; others significant; some are merely enabling instruments.

f. EU laws post-Brexit

• Even if the UK leaves, EU product standards may remain embedded in UK law due to international trade needs (see China’s example).

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2. Military Suicides: Falklands, Vietnam, and Gulf War

(08:29–14:11)

a. The Falklands suicide claim

• Claim: More Falklands veterans killed themselves than died in the conflict.
• Finding (09:06): There's no official count to substantiate this; the claim is likely a myth proliferated by media and politicians.

b. The reality with Vietnam veterans

• Exaggerated initial reports: 100,000–150,000 suicides (media sources) are incorrect.
• Actual best estimate: ~12,000 suicides vs. 58,000 U.S. war deaths.
• Dr. Simon Wesley, 09:55: "What really matters is the rate. The question isn't what's the absolute number, it's have more taken their own lives than would have died had they not been in the armed forces."
• 25 – 30 extra suicides per year above expected rates.

c. Gulf War comparison

• Claim is actually true for the Gulf War: 189 veteran suicides vs. 48 war deaths, but not statistically significant compared to military peers.
• Wesley, 12:03: "That difference is not statistically significant. And that is the key figure. Has there been an increase in suicide from those who served in the Gulf compared to those who haven't? And the answer is no."

d. Suicide risk in active service

• The suicide rate is lower in the UK armed forces than in the general population due to "the healthy worker effect."
• Wesley, 13:18: "They get selected, so they're fitter, they're healthier, and of course, they have a job… the mere fact of having a job already puts you into… the healthy worker effect."

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3. How Many Relatives Does Richard III Have?

(14:11–18:23)

a. Legal dispute over Richard III's remains

• Fifteen distant “relatives” have instigated legal proceedings to affect his burial site.

b. Back-of-the-envelope genealogy with Rob Eastway

• Richard III had no direct descendants, but his siblings did. Using a simple model:
  • Assuming each relative had two children per generation for 20 generations, that equals about 1 million potential relatives (2^20).
  • Raising the offspring number to 2.3 yields about 17 million English descendants.
• Rob Eastway, 16:38: "If you take the number just up to 2.3, which was the medieval average, then the number whacks up to 17 million."
• Almost anyone of English descent could claim relation to Richard III—so the “famous 15” are hardly unique.

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4. Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral Cost

(18:23–20:29)

• Media reported the cost as £8–10 million, but the official estimate became £3.6 million.
  • £500,000: ceremonies and receptions
  • £1.1 million: policing and security
  • £2 million: "opportunity cost" of police being assigned to the funeral over other duties
• Initial higher estimates are untraceable; actual direct cost considerably lower.

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5. The Truth Behind 'Dog Years' and the More or Less 'Dogulator'

(20:29–27:01)

a. The “7 dog years = 1 human year” myth

• Daniel Promislow, 21:07: "As a rule of thumb? It's not bad. But there's a lot of variation in how long different breeds live. The larger ones tend to live a shorter lifetime than the smaller ones."
• Larger breeds age and die faster than small breeds—reverse of other mammal trends.

b. Why do big dogs age faster?

• Large dogs “fall apart at a faster rate” than small breeds (Promislow, 21:36).

c. Non-linear aging

• Dogs don’t age at a constant rate; they mature more quickly in early life, then aging slows slightly.
• Kate Creevey, 22:45: "Within any given dog breed, it ‘falls apart’ a little bit... in the earlier periods of life, dogs age faster..."

d. Dog vs. Cat diversity

• Despite the domestic cat's relatives (e.g. tigers), dogs remain one species; cats are divided into different species (no housecat-tiger hybrids!).

e. Reproduction and longevity

• Spayed/neutered dogs live longer: "Sterilized dogs did tend to live longer than intact dogs." (Creevey, 25:18)
• Caveat: Don't extrapolate this too liberally to humans (Creevey, 25:29).

f. The 'Dogulator' debuts!

• Calculates more nuanced dog age equivalents based on breed size and lifespan:
  • At age 2:
    • Small breeds ≈ 25 human years
    • Medium breeds ≈ 21 human years
    • Large breeds ≈ 18 human years
  • For West Highland Terriers ("Westies"):
    • Average life expectancy: 12.8 years (human: 78.5)
    • Remaining years after age 2 equate to 4.96 human years per dog year.
  • Example conversion: A 19-year-old Westie = 109 human years
  • Bulldogs: With a life expectancy of 6.29 years, every dog year after two equals 13.5 human years!
  • Quote – Ben Carter, 26:49: "I feel sorry for bulldog owners. With a life expectancy of 6.29 years, every dog year after the age of two accounts for a whopping 13 and a half human years."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ian Begg, on cost/benefit analysis (02:38):
  "It's a methodologically almost impossible task because you have to make a huge range of assumptions and each of your assumptions will tilt the final calculation one way or another."
• Debunking “75% of laws from Brussels” (06:11):
  "The EU parliament is co legislator in 75% of the laws which are made in Brussels. Quite a different matter and far less interesting."
• Rob Eastway, on Richard III’s relatives (16:38):
  "If you take the number just up to 2.3, which was the medieval average, then the number whacks up to 17 million."
• Daniel Promislow, on dog aging (21:36):
  "The large dogs aren't living as long because they actually age faster. It's as though they're falling apart at a faster rate than the smaller dogs."
• Kate Creevey, on spaying and lifespan (25:18):
  "We learned that sterilized dogs did tend to live longer than intact dogs."

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Timestamps – Key Segments

• 00:10 – Introduction and setup for EU cost analysis
• 01:51–03:50 – Professor Ian Begg on quantifying the EU’s budgetary cost
• 04:24–06:11 – Dissecting the “3 million jobs at risk” and “75% of laws” claims
• 08:29–14:11 – Military suicide statistics: Falklands, Vietnam, and Gulf War
• 14:11–18:23 – Richard III’s modern relatives: robust genealogy math
• 18:23–20:29 – The evolving story of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral costs
• 20:29–27:01 – The “Dog Years” myth, dog aging science, and the More or Less Dogulator

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Conclusion

In classic More or Less style, this episode brings quantitative clarity to public debates, slashes through overblown rhetoric with humor and evidence, and proves that, for statistics, context and nuance matter just as much as numbers. Whether exploring economics, genealogy, military statistics, or the science of aging dogs, the team tests familiar claims, uncovers the real data, and makes stats—and skepticism—fun for all.

Transcript

[Tim Harford]

Thank you for downloading More or Less from the BBC. This is the half hour edition of the programme, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 10 May 2013.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Hello and welcome to More or Less the programme, which smites the dragon of dodgy data with a shining sword of statistical straight talking. This week we run our slide rule over military suicide statistics. Richard III's relatives and. And we unveil. The More or Less dogulator. But first, the UK Independence Party. UKIP wants the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union. That's not the official policy of any of the established political parties, but perhaps the voters have other ideas. UKIP made substantial gains in recent local elections, winning more than 140 seats and averaging a quarter of the vote in the wards where it was standing. As with any political battleground, numbers have been pressed into service as weapons. A key objection to staying in the EU is the cost. It's about 7 billion pounds according to the government's figures, or 150 billion pounds according to UKIP, who tot up the price of things such as extra paperwork for businesses, lost jobs and what they call benefits tourism. Lord Lawson, most famous as the father of one of the country's most loved celebrity chefs, but who also apparently has some relevant employment experience, says the economic gains from leaving the EU would substantially outweigh the costs. Deputy Prime Minister nick Clegg says 3 million jobs would be at risk if the UK left. So what are we to make of all of this? I've been speaking to Ian Begg, professorial research fellow at the London School of Economics.

[Ian Begg]

Well, the budgetary cost is in principle the simplest. And yet even if you look at the budgetary cost, how much it costs the Chancellor of the Exchequer every year for us to be part of the European Union, even there, there are different ways of interpreting it as an order of magnitude. It's an average of about 6 or 7 billion pounds per year in net terms. And net terms in this context means that we pay in more, but we receive from it. So you look at the balance between the two and that's the figure that comes out off the top of my

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

head, that that is about 100 pounds a person per year, roughly. So that's one way of thinking about the cost of being part of the eu, which is effectively our membership fees, I suppose. But there must be many, many other potential costs and benefits. Has anybody tried to add them up?

[Ian Begg]

Well, various people over the years have made attempts to measure the net cost to the UK or net benefit to the UK of being Part of the European Union. My view on this is that it's a methodologically almost impossible task because you have to make a huge range of assumptions and each of your assumptions will tilt the final calculation one way or another. So it's no surprise that if you look at people who are pro Europe, they tend to find a positive figure. Look at those who are anti Europe, they will tend to find a negative figure. The reason for this is that you have to make assumptions about what would happen in the absence of being part of the European Union. So to take one example, we trade heavily with the European Union. Roughly half of British exports go to other EU countries. If these other countries were to impose some kind of barrier, then we would presumably export a bit less to them and that would be bad news for the workers of Sunderland who make Nissan cars, or the workers of Derby who make Toyota cars. What we don't know is, in the absence of the eu, exactly what the trade regime would be. So you're making an assumption about what the alternative position is. And I could go on with example after example of this sort, which demonstrates just how difficult it is to arrive at a correct cost benefit analysis.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Does this actually matter? Are there costs, but we just don't know what they are?

[Ian Begg]

Well, there will be costs, because there are some things that grate in Britain. The famous Working Time Directive tells the workers of Britain that they should not normally work more than a 48 hour week. But then who is Britain in this context? The trade unions actually welcome that particular provision. The employers deplore it, the government rails against it. UKIP is on its high horse every time they hear about the Working Time Directive. So different bits of Britain will interpret the same phenomenon in different ways about whether it's a good or a bad thing.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, staunch pro European, is fond of saying that 3 million jobs are at risk. If we left the European Union. Where does that number come from and should we take that number seriously?

[Ian Begg]

Well, I have to confess some responsibility for this number from having done some work as long ago as the year 2000 on this. And what I did as an attempted empirical exercise was to say, where do British exports go? And if you take the car industry as one example, perhaps 80% of the car industry's production is exported to other parts of the world. If within that 80 half goes to the European Union, that means that 40% of the car industry's output goes to the European Union. 40% of the car industry workers depend in some way on the European Union's. Demand. You might think that's a very simplistic way of doing it, but it's not that bad as a back of the envelope formal calculation. It's a very different matter to say that if we left the European Union, all these jobs would go. Plainly wouldn't. There's no reason for a German consumer were we to leave the European Union no longer to buy a British car, they may over time face obstacles to buying that car because, let's say the Germans impose a small tariff against Britain or make it more difficult to conform to the standards that are expected. In that case, you might see a gradual erosion of Britain's market share in Germany, and that gradual erosion would in a limited way jeopardize British jobs. But once again, you're in the world of assumptions. I think as an order of magnitude the three to three and a half million jobs is reasonable. I'm sure somebody could dispute a particular element of my calculation, but it's not an unreasonable assumption. But the idea that these jobs will be lost is far fetched.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Professor Ian begg of the LSE's European Institute. But of course there's more to this than adding up costs and benefits. What about freedom and sovereignty? Listener Titus emailed more or lessbc.co.uk to ask Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip, has said that 75% of our legislation comes from Brussels. Is this true? It's a claim we've looked at before on More or less. It turns out that the source for this figure is Hans Gert Pottering, who talked about this issue as President of the European Parliament. The thing is, he didn't say what Ukip said. He said he was speaking in German, you see. But luckily the More or Less team has the German language in our arsenal of statistical weaponry. So a quick flap of our ears told us that Pertering wasn't saying that 75% of member states laws are made in Brussels, but rather that the EU parliament is co legislator in 75% of the laws which are made in Brussels. Quite a different matter and far less interesting. But you've also got to question whether there's any point in doing a simple tally of EU laws, because some laws are hugely important and others are trivial. Some Brussels laws take effect automatically in the uk. Others, such as one on vehicle emissions, took nine statutory instruments to introduce. So you could count up all the laws and get a spuriously precise number. But it's more helpful to consider what the laws are and what effect they have on life and business in the uk and Here's a big footnote for Even if we left the eu, we'd still have EU regulations on our statute books. If you don't believe me, take a look at China. It's an independent global trading nation, a phrase UKIP uses to describe what it wants the UK to become. But nevertheless, China has EU regulations on its statute books covering things such as product standards. It's not because they have to, it's because they're kind of handy if you want to do business with Europe. You're listening to More or Less. Next week, the Department of Defence will publish a long awaited report into the number of Falklands veterans who've killed themselves since the conflict in the 1980s. They're producing it in response to headlines such as More Falklands veterans have killed themselves than died in war.

[Tim Harford]

Falkland veteran suicides outstrip war casualties.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

This claim that more servicemen killed themselves than were killed in the conflict is a fact which has surfaced time and again over the last 10 years. But where did this fact come from? The first mention appears to be from 2002 in an article in the Mail on Sunday on the 20th anniversary of the conflict. It says the number comes from the South Atlantic Medal Association, a Falklands veterans group. Since then, the number has spread even into the mouths of politicians. Yes, Liam Fox, we're talking about you. But is it true Charlotte MacDonald's been looking into this?

[Tim Harford]

Well, we just don't know whether it's true because no one's been counting officially. This is why the Ministry of Defence has embarked on a lengthy protest to track down every person who was listed as having served in the Falklands. They're working with the NHS to cross reference all the names to see who was registered as having died. But what we do know is that the same claim has been made about military personnel who served in Vietnam. And for those people, some statistics do exist, albeit estimations. The death toll was high among US military personnel, and many of those that returned were soon thought to have mental health problems or to be struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. Now, we know that 58,000 died in the war, but soon figures started to fly around about the large numbers of suicides among veterans. Here's Simon Wesley, director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London.

[Simon Wesley]

So by 1987, CBS announced it's 100,000. The New York Times then put it up to 150,000. And the estimates vary up and down ever since. Always it's more than and 58,000. Now, the good thing about the US is they keep good statistics. And the last best estimate that we have a couple of years ago, the figures are now around 12,000. So 12,000 Vietnam vets have actually taken their own lives compared to the 58,000 who died in the war. So you might say, well, there's no problem, then we shouldn't be worrying about it. But hopefully people listening to this program will know these absolute numbers are really a bit of a trap because what really matters is the rate. The question isn't what's the absolute number, it's have more taken their own lives than would have died had they not been in the armed forces. And actually that figure of 12,000 is more than you would expect if the standard population rates had been applying. Every year, around 25 to 30 Vietnam veterans will take their own lives who would not have done had they not served in the war.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So we have these additional suicides in the population of Vietnam veterans and they seem to be related to the war. But isn't that just a reflection of the fact that the Army's full of young men and young men are at risk of suicide?

[Tim Harford]

Well, for that reason, Tim, the usual comparison, and it's the comparison that Simon Wesley was making, is between former military personnel who served in the war and former military personnel who didn't. So there's an effort to compare like with like here.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Well, that's clear enough. Now we could make the same claim about British military personnel who served served in the first Gulf War, that more killed themselves after the war than the number who died in the conflict. Now that would make an eye catching comparison, but it's not really what we need to know to figure out if there's a problem.

[Tim Harford]

That's right. Although for what it's worth, the claim is true. More British Gulf War veterans have killed themselves than were killed on operations. 48 people died on active duty and 10 years after the war ended, 189 veterans had killed themselves. Simon Wesley, again.

[Simon Wesley]

So four times as many Gulf veterans have taken their own lives than died in the war. That sounds like a major public health problem, but it isn't. We've compared the total number of those who served in golf and those who are in the military but didn't. And there 170 of them have taken their own lives. And that difference is not statistically significant. And that is the key figure. Has there been an increase in suicide from those who served in the Gulf compared to those who haven't? And the answer is no.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So to focus on the comparison, which actually means something, serving in the first Gulf War raised your risk of suicide by about 10%, but that's not a statistically significant figure. We can't be sure. That's not a coincidence. And is that a similar scale to the effect for Vietnam veterans?

[Tim Harford]

It does seem to be in the same ballpark. We just have better statistics for Vietnam because the absolute figures are higher.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Now, I'm curious, is the suicide rate in the armed forces higher than in the general population?

[Tim Harford]

Well, you've changed the subject there, because we're now talking about people actively serving rather than veterans. But the answer is quite the reverse. In the uk, the suicide rate is lower, not higher. Simon Wesley explains why, where you have

[Simon Wesley]

a military that is all volunteer, you find overall generally lower rates. So let's look at the British armed forces, where we know the rates quite well. We find that overall, they have really quite a substantially lower risk of suicide than people who are not in the armed forces. And that's probably because they get selected, so they're fitter, they're healthier, and of course, they have a job. And given that unemployment is a massive risk factor for suicide anyway, the mere fact of having a job already puts you into. It's called the healthy worker effect. You are more healthy than those not at work.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

We await the Falklands figures next week.

[Tim Harford]

Yes, but don't expect to learn too much. Like Vietnam, the Falklands conflict was a long time ago, but it was much smaller, and so statistical tools will be less effective. It will be hard to be confident about attributing suicide among veterans to their combat experience.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Thank you. You're listening to More or less on BBC Radio 4 and I'm Tim Harford. Now, let's think about a veteran of another conflict, the wars of the Roses. You may remember that the remains of King Richard III were dug up in a car park in Leicester. Now, an argument has broken out over where those remains should be buried. At the moment, the plan is to inter them in Leicester Cathedral. But 15 distant relatives of Richard III have started legal proceedings in the High Court, saying he should be buried in York Minster. And that by not taking their wishes into account, the Government is ignoring their right to respect for family life, a breach of Article 8 of the European Convent Human rights. Which got us thinking. How many other distant relatives of Richard III are there in the country busily having their human rights violated? Some BBC coverage implies that the famous 15 are almost the only ones left. But Rob Eastway, the author of Maths For Mums and Dads, has been making some back of the envelope genealogical calculations. He reckons there may be a few more of us who should have a say.

[Rob Eastway]

Well, you've got to make a few assumptions.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

And one assumption I noticed, by the way, you have a genuine back of an envelope.

[Rob Eastway]

I'm never without a back of an envelope for this kind of calculation.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

What's on the back of the envelope, then?

[Rob Eastway]

So let's start off with Richard himself, who actually didn't have any known descendants. He had two illegitimate children. We don't know if they had any children, but he did have nephews and nieces, quite a few of them, through his own siblings, and in fact, they themselves produced quite a few children. So there's a good stock of relatives alive in the late 1400s. Now, let's assume each of those goes on to have two children who survive to adulthood. And let's say a generation is about 25 years. It's 500 years ago or so, so that's about 20 generations. So we're looking at two to the power, 20 descendants of those nephews and nieces.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Two times. Two times. Two times.

[Rob Eastway]

2 times, which is about a million. That's a lot. Now, the thing is, of course, that assumes they haven't intermarried in any way,

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

but, well, royalty, never.

[Rob Eastway]

But on the other hand, two is probably a low estimate because in those days, two children per couple. Two children per couple. So it was probably more like two, two and a half even. And the wealthier you were, the more children were likely to make it through to adulthood because they'd have been healthier, eaten better. So actually, does it make a big difference?

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Two or two and a half?

[Rob Eastway]

Yeah. I mean, if you take the number just up to 2.3, which was the medieval average, then the number whacks up to 17 million. So it's a huge difference from 1

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

million to 17 million. If you move from assuming two children per couple who survive and breed to 2.3 children per couple, you've got a

[Rob Eastway]

large stock of people likely now to be around who are descendants of those nephews and nieces.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

This is very back of the envelope. What's your best guess at how many people fall into that category? Because it sounds as though it could actually be everybody in the country, or

[Rob Eastway]

almost everybody in the country. If you have English ancestry, you can trace back. Obviously, if you're first generation British and you go back to other countries with no connection, then there'll be no link. But I think it will be a very high number, and I did see calculations done, very credible ones based on academic research in the 1970s and beyond which said that actually almost everyone with English ancestry is related to or descended from Edward iii, who I think was Richard's great, great, great, maybe four great grandfathers. So it's sort of plausible that if we're all related to Edward iii, then many of us will be related to Richard III too.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

We should all get a vote then.

[Rob Eastway]

Well, certainly let's be Conservative and say there's maybe a million of us are related to Richard III. That's, you know, a 50th of the population or so. So I certainly think to be on the safe side, we might all be related and we should all at least have a chance to vote on Leicester vs Yorke.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So that could be 20,000 loyal more or less listeners out there are related to Richard iii at a Conservative estimate. You know who you are, so please don't write to us about where Richard III should be buried, but band together and make your feelings known, by all means. Thank you very much, Rob Eastaway.

[Ian Begg]

Thank you.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Last week on More or Less, we looked at some of the key numbers mentioned during Margaret Thatcher's time in power, which inspired loyal listener Zanner to email more or lessbc.co.uk, to.

[Tim Harford]

I've been wondering about the reality of the cost of Margaret Thatcher's funeral, reported to be in the region of £8 million. Does this cover the cost of policing, army presence, staffing the cathedral, etc. I'm thinking that all this cost would be paid with or without a funeral.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Eight million? Well, actually we heard higher than that.

[Tim Harford]

Margaret Thatcher's funeral will cost around 10 million pounds. What else can 10 million pounds pay for?

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

10 million pound funeral will be paid for by hard pressed taxpayers. Those headlines came out on 10 April, but two weeks later the sums had changed.

[Tim Harford]

Lady Thatcher's ceremonial funeral with full military honours cost the taxpayer an estimated 3.6 million pounds.

[Ben Carter]

Her family will pay for flowers and undertaker.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So the figure shrank and it was the Prime Minister's official spokesman who shranked it. The official story is that £500,000 went on invitations, the Mansion House reception and other ceremonial bits and Bobs, while £1.1 million was racked, backed up by the additional policing and security costs. But then there was an additional cost of £2 million and this was called an opportunity cost. Now, forgive me for opening a big can of economics at this point, but an opportunity cost is the cost of a foregone option. What we're talking about here is £2 million worth of police Officers who could have been on duty at some other time or in some other place, but weren't because they had to be on duty at the funeral. As for the origins of the initial £8 million or £10 million estimates, who knows? During the time that we were off air, we received the sad news that a member of the extended more or less team had passed away. Meg reporter Ben Carter's beloved West Highland Terrier has had to be put down. Ben, I'm sorry to hear the news. How are you?

[Ben Carter]

I'm fine, thanks, Tim. She had a very good innings, so I'm thankful for that.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Well, remind me, how old was she?

[Ben Carter]

19 years and 4 months.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Crikey, that actually is a good innings. If we convert that to dog years. So one dog year is seven human years.

[Ben Carter]

Meg would have been 135 years old. Exactly. Which got us thinking about the whole dog year. Rule of thumb.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Yes. And you were kind enough to put me in touch with Daniel Promislow, professor of genetics at the University of Georgia in the United States and one of the world's leading experts on dog aging. So what does he reckon to the conversion rate of one dog year to seven human years?

[Daniel Promislow]

As a rule of thumb? It's not bad. But the important thing to bear in mind is that there's a lot of variation in how long different breeds live. The larger ones tend to live a shorter lifetime than the smaller ones.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

That seems strange because I know that mice, for instance, don't have long lifespans, and elephants and hippos and so on live a long time. So is the other way around for dogs. Why would that be that the large ones die earlier?

[Daniel Promislow]

One of the things that drew us to study dogs, and in this paper that I wrote, we looked at why it is that the large dogs don't live as long as the small dogs in terms of the mortality patterns. And one of the surprising things that we found was that the large dogs aren't living as long because they actually age faster. It's as though they're falling apart at a faster rate than the smaller dogs.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So Meg, who was a West Highland Terrier, was a small breed of dog, and therefore she would be expected to live longer than something like a Great Dane.

[Ben Carter]

Yes. And as Daniel Pomeslow said, the normal pattern in mammals is that larger animals tend to live longer. And in dogs it's the opposite, which is very unusual.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

And there's also this incredible size diversity within the species.

[Ben Carter]

Yes. There's no other species where you get a spread in phenotypes to Use the lingo as big as that between a Chihuahua weighing six pounds and a Great Dane weighing 200 pounds.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So we might conclude that big dogs age more quickly than small dogs. But actually there's a twist in the tale.

[Ben Carter]

Yes, as Dr. Kate Creevey explains. She's another dog expert, also at the University of Georgia, and she points out another reason the seven year rule is only a very rough guide.

[Kate Creevey]

It is accurate over the species of dog, but within any given dog breed, it falls apart a little bit precisely because if you calculate total lifespan, you get one number for comparing dog quote dog years to human years.

[Ben Carter]

But.

[Kate Creevey]

But in the earlier periods of life, dogs age faster. That is to say, they reach sexual or reproductive maturity and then skeletal maturity in a compressed period of time compared to their adulthood and then their geriatric years.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

So dogs don't age at a constant rate relative to humans?

[Ben Carter]

No, they don't. And it's different for different breeds within

[Kate Creevey]

very small dogs, toy breed dogs, and some of your dogs at 15 or 20 pounds, they can reach reproductive maturity at less than one year of age and skeletal maturity at a similar time. With some of your giant breed dogs, they may not reach sexual or reproductive maturity for over a year, up to a year and a half and up to two years for skeletal maturity. So in that first period of life, the large dogs appear to be aging more slowly in that they take longer to achieve these benchmarks. But once they've achieved adulthood, their adult experience is compressed compared to that of small breed dogs, which is actually very, very interesting and a little bit difficult to completely explain.

[Ben Carter]

So small dogs reach adulthood earlier than big dogs and spend a lot of their years in the so called prime

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

of life, which is nice for them. Now, I was also wondering about the comparison between dogs and cats. I had a really naive question. When you think about the phenotypic diversity of dogs, so you compare the Chihuahua to the Great Dane, there's a big size difference. If I think about cats, some domestic cats are pretty small. Tigers are pretty big. Is that the same thing or is that a different situation?

[Kate Creevey]

It's a different situation because they're different species. They're closely related species to be sure, but they are different species. Now the next question that follows from that is define a species. And that's somewhat trickier than you would hope. One classic definition of species is that population of animals which can interbreed. Therefore, you can imagine a scenario where you could breed a Chihuahua to a Great Dane and make puppies. It is not probably true that you could breed a house cat to a lion and make kittens. The problem with that strict definition is

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

that trying to imagine how many scratches you'd get when you try just giving a try back to dogs. Then wider veterinary literature on animals shows that if an individual within a species reproduces, it is more likely to have a shorter lifespan. And Kate Creevey says that's true for dogs too. But could there be some wider lesson for the rest of us?

[Kate Creevey]

We learned that sterilized dogs did tend to live longer than intact dogs.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

This could have therapeutic benefits. If I had the snip, I might live longer. Or is it a little early to make such conclusions?

[Kate Creevey]

It is very early to extrapolate to the human experience.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Moving swiftly on. Then it's time to unveil the brand new More or less Dogulator. And Ben, you have the Dogulator in front of you. What are your findings?

[Ben Carter]

Small breeds of dog are roughly 25 human years when they are 2. Medium dogs are around 21 and large dogs are 18.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

And what about Meg?

[Ben Carter]

Well, West Highland Terriers are classified as small dogs for the purposes of the calculator.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Dogulator.

[Ben Carter]

Dogulator. So when she was 2, she was 25 years old. Now, the life expectancy of a Westie is 12.8 years. Human life expectancy is 78.5 years. So after the age of two, the next 10.8 years of the average Westie's life accounts for 53.58 human years, and that works out at 4.96 human years for every dog year.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Now, I like the superb precision of the Dogulator there. Then Meg lived to way past the average life expectancy. How old does the Dogulator make her when she died?

[Ben Carter]

Not 135 years old, but 109 years old.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Well, that's still a fine age. What about bigger breeds?

[Ben Carter]

You know what? I feel sorry for bulldog owners. With a life expectancy of 6.29 years, every dog year after the age of two accounts for a whopping 13 and a half human years.

[Producer/Presenter (likely Ruth Alexander or Richard Varden)]

Aging even more quickly than me. Well, thank you, Ben. And if you want to calculate how old your dog is, you can find our [e-mail] more or less. Later in the series, we'll be answering the question, who would win in a fight between a Dogulator, a toaster and the more or less 5,000? But that's all we have time for this week. You can download more editions of the programme via our website, BBC.co.uk more or less. The website is also the place to read more or to Send us your comments and your questions until next week. Goodbye.

[Tim Harford]

More Or Less was presented by Tim Harford, the Financial Times undercover economist. The producer was Ruth Alexander, the editor, Richard Varden. You can Download many more BBC Radio 4 programmes for free. Find these at BBC.co.uk radio4.