Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry

The line between medical disorder and normal bodily or mental function has become increasingly blurred. This is particularly apparent when it comes to mental illness disorders, the boundaries of which are expanding all the time. Diagnoses of conditions like autism, ADHD, depression, and anxiety have risen enormously in a short period of time, partly driven by social mimesis, including via the internet.

But it's not only mental health diagnoses which have become more common. Genetic tests can now detect pathologies decades before people experience symptoms, and sometimes before they're even born. And increased health screening draws more and more people into believing they are unwell.

My guest today argues that we are seeing a process of 'diagnosis creep', the result of both increasingly sensitive modern testing, and also a social push towards seeking out diagnoses to explain dysfunction that would historically have gone un-labelled. Suzanne O'Sullivan is a consultant clinical neurologist working in the NHS, and in her book 'The Age of Diagnosis' she suggests that this overdiagnosis can sometimes cause serious harm.

MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees.
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In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, I spoke with Ed West about the recent unrest in France. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the political economist Nicholas Eberstadt once put it, “a shrinking, aging world is something that we're intuitively, almost completely unprepared to encounter, because all of our experience, in ways that we don't even think about, has been framed by a growing world population.”

Nowhere is this more true than in the discipline of economics. The great well of economic theory that we are familiar with was all written during times of population growth. We are about to enter uncharted territory, and my guest today argues that demography is now the most fundamental force shaping our economic future.

The demographer Paul Morland is a former Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Senior Member at St Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include 'The Human Tide' and 'No One Left.' He is the co-author, with Philip Pilkington, of a new book titled 'Bust: The Economics of Population Decline', which argues that depopulation triggered by low birth rates is already transforming our economies, not only in the developed world, but everywhere.
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This interview was actually recorded before Suella Braverman's most recent Question Time appearance, which sparked a public row over the question of English identity and ethnicity. As it happens, that was one of the topics we covered in our conversation, which is themed around Suella's new memoir, an account of her family's experiences of the British Empire, and her vision for modern Britain.

Suella Braverman is a politician, barrister, and former Attorney General and Home Secretary. Earlier this year, she defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, and now serves as their spokesperson for education, skills, and equality. Suella's new book is titled 'Patriot: Empire, Betrayal, and Hope.'
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In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, Rob Henderson and I discussed the new matchmaking scheme from the Singaporean government, which seems to be intended to boost the country's birth rate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.