Tim Harford
speaker
476 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 20 Jul
Tim Harford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal · Britain's Worst Airship Disaster · 20 Jul 2026
podcast
People gathered on the Thames embankment.
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The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, flew his biplane up to take a look.
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he would have been able to read in clear black letters near the airship's nose its utilitarian name, R-101.
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It must have been quite a moment for Lord Thompson.
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Lord Thompson was the British Secretary of State for Air, and if not for his bold ideas, this remarkable ship would never have existed.
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It was a vision indeed.
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The R101, accordingly, was designed as a luxurious floating hotel, a hotel that would swiftly carry men like Lord Thompson to the furthest corners of the British Empire.
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But the R101 had a rival.
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When he commissioned the R101, Lord Thompson had proposed a competition between two teams of airship designers.
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A private company, Vickers, would build the R100.
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Lord Thompson's Air Ministry would design and build its own ship, the R101.
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The Air Ministry, of course, would be the one to adjudicate which of the two airships was best.
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That competition came to represent more than a clash between two teams.
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Rather absurdly, it came to symbolise a struggle for supremacy between the two contrasting economic systems.
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The press quickly caught on to the idea of this contest, dubbing the R100 the capitalist airship and the R101 the socialist airship.
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Lord Thompson affectionately called them my children, although he certainly had a favourite child.
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In fact, it would be deadly.
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We're sometimes told that competition is good, it raises everyone's game, it brings out the best in us.
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But sometimes competition leads to tragedy.
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I think it might have been Alan Cummings.
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Showing 101–120 of 476 · page 6 of 24
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