A Passion for Facts


Now available in hardback and paperback:

UK Economic & Social Change – 1700-2019 – Three Centuries of Progress


Paperback (2023) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-6-0

Hardback (2023) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-0-8


Plus supplementary volumes of further detailed presentations in charts as found here on this website:


Supplementary Volume 1 (2023) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-1-5

Supplementary Volume 2 (2023) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-2-2

Supplementary Volume 3 (2023) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-3-9


To follow in early 2024:


Supplementary Volume 4 (2024) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-4-6

Exploring Climate History (2024) ISBN: 978-1-7395094-5-3


Search for “UK Economic & Social Change – 1700-2019”


See also for example at Amazon UK here...

See also for example at Blackwell’s UK here...

See also for example at Waterstones UK here...


Précis extract of Title, Table of Contents, List of Figures, Foreword, Introduction, Summary, References, Bibliography, Selected Reading and Internet Data and Index available as a PDF for download here...



MM1 looking for the facts hidden in the data


Here we analyse and document the facts derived from the data.


The reader will be abundantly aware that the author is an adherent of the quaint old traditions of the human race of using evidence from the real world, from studies and analysis of artefacts and written and oral narratives to establish the facts, the best known facts, about ANY AND ALL matters.

I contend that anything conceivable is theoretically possible, but for it to be probable, likely or a fact and therefore some conception of the truth, the best known truth, there must be reliable evidence.

No evidence, no fact, no truth. That simple.

All humans perceive the world through their senses and these and our half remembered histories are notoriously unreliable, so we must always corroborate all that is possible with lines of evidence.

Of course we are also subject to and heavily driven by our many instincts and fears and hopes through our emotions, but, whilst they may be life saving in situations of immediate threat, they are hopelessly inadequate guides to rational action and behaviours beyond such immediate threat.

Throughout recorded history we are aware of innumerable instances of whole populations being seized by fits of irrational, hysterical pre-occupations. These have always been profoundly harmful and mostly murderously so to great swathes of the populations of the regions afflicted with or subject to this madness.

Sometimes the nonsense that has gripped a population has faded and become more benign, but all too often at an enormous cost along the way. Sometimes such murderous nonsense has had to be defeated and destroyed in terrible and vicious wars.

We see the history of thousands of years of empires, slavery, religion and political ideology as ample testament to this horror.

Gradually from the time of ancient Greece and beyond we are the beneficiaries of the development of a new way of seeing, thinking and conceiving using evidence, rationality and reason through the enlightenment to the development of the well understood core principle of the scientific methodology and also the central tenet of the rule of law.

Using such an approach allows us to remain calm about whatever we observe and find and allows us to explore the options and trade-offs, looking carefully at the estimated costs and benefits of whatever process we are studying; to conceive and design policies and actions to try to ensure the greatest benefit for people for the present and future.

The current growth of irrational and unreasonable hysteria over the last three decades or so has led to a very large number of crass and stupid overreactions to what have turned out to be just the normal reality of what Alex Epstein has called “the wild potential” of the world.

The evidence and the best known facts collated and presented here explore the reality of just a small number of these modern false narratives.

For the relatively recent history of some of the silliness I suggest the reader track down and read the book:

“Scared to Death. From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth” by Christopher Booker and Richard North. 2007. Continuum


The evidential data collated and presented here in graphical form deals with several more recent matters from the evidence regarding:

UK economy (plus population, incomes and inequality),
UK housing (plus cost of living and "poverty"),
UK air quality (including road transport and energy),
Pandemic in the UK (mortality effects of COVID-19),
Climate (exploring paleo, ice core and modern climate data)


"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled" (Richard Feynman)



The government have lost confidence in the people, so they are disolving the people and will elect another (to paraphase Bertolt Brecht from "The Solution")


Ignorance, faith and ideology "come to shipwreck on the hard rock of facts" (from Kelly and Evans "Societal Inequality and individual subjective well-being")


Contact us for more information.

e: info@mm1.me.uk

w: www.mm1.me.uk