Why targeted political advertising is not to be trusted
When you get into a taxi, there’s usually a framed sheet of paper describing what you pay for your trip:…
Even the most successful companies can be wrecked by idiots with MBAs
I rang a company’s call centre the other day, and the experience was exemplary: helpful, knowledgeable, charming. The firm was…
Fund a fisherman, finance a film or give a fillip to forensics
Crowdfunding is a promising idea, and has created useful products. The Canary home-security system I wrote about recently was funded…
All hail the taxi-card revolution
From October last year, it was compulsory for all London black cabs to accept payment by card. London cabbies aren’t…
On landing, the pilot made an announcement so psychologically astute that I wanted to offer him a job
After landing at Gatwick, the plane taxied for five minutes or so and then came to a halt in the…
How technology exacerbates the winner-takes-all effect
I was exchanging emails with someone the other day and signed off with the sentence ‘let me know when you…
Thank God for expensive lawyers!
When you buy a house in Britain, there is an extensive and well-established series of checks you must perform to…
Calling all GPs: these 8am booking systems just drive up your workload
A few months ago I was stuck in traffic on my way to give a talk at the Royal College…
Why does my teenage daughter want a £22 vinyl record?
I was at home enjoying an online episode of Tales of the Texas Rangers when my daughter interrupted me, wanting…
If economists want to be trusted again, they should learn to tell jokes
It helps to find the comedy in economics
How time-saving technology destroys our productivity
In 1929 John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2029 people in the developed nations could enjoy a perfectly civilised standard…
Keep death off the roads with an app
Controversial I know, but I feel a little sympathy for Tomasz Kroker, the lorry driver jailed for ten years for…
The rich aren’t so different any more
The traditional orange at the bottom of a Christmas stocking dates to a time when this was the only orange…
The secret of a perfect crime: be boring
Do any of us honestly have any idea how serious the Hillary Clinton email scandal was? I haven’t got a…
How to carry less baggage
One fairly reliable rule of thumb is ‘never buy anything at an airport if you can help it’. Something about…
Sadist? The tech world has plenty of jobs for you
Perhaps you are slightly concerned about your son. At present he is sitting in the crawlspace beneath your home wearing…
If we have to put the clocks back, here’s how we should do it
We already drive on the left, give road distances in miles and drink pints. So one good feature of Brexit…
The stupidest target in British transport
Two books to recommend to my fellow transportation nerds: Travel Fast or Smart? A Manifesto for an Intelligent Transport Policy…
Chesterton’s fence – and the idiots who rip it out
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a…
The internet of stupid things is crowding out real innovation
Back in the 1980s a colleague of mine was paranoid about being burgled. Before he went away on a two-week…
How more data can make you more wrong
In a one-day international against Australia last year, Ben Stokes was dismissed for ‘obstructing the field’, a rule rarely invoked…
Why aspirin should be reassuringly expensive
Last year, those rationalist killjoys at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission prosecuted Reckitt Benckiser over four products: Nurofen Migraine…
Why today’s middle classes buy such stupid stuff
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but middle-class rules now require that every dinner party cheeseboard must contain at least two…
The referendum was a game of chicken with the voters
I have worked in advertising for 28 years. In that time I have seen many briefs for communication campaigns, but…
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How Donald Trump found the thermal exhaust port on the liberal Death Star
Rory Sutherland 19 November 2016 9:00 am
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.