Is London a little bit tame for Nate Silver? The stats expert known for his hugely influential US election model is in town promoting a new book about risk, and can’t help noticing all the ways in which we play it safe on this side of the Atlantic. “You go to the tube in London and they have guard doors, which they don’t have in the subway in New York.” (He’s evidently been riding the Elizabeth line). Or, “You’re in an Uber and you don’t put your seatbelt on in the back seat, and there’s like the very polite British beeping,” he says, with a disarming, high-velocity giggle. Not that he minds too much – you get the impression he’s fond of the city, where he spent a year as a student, and in any case “both countries are making different trade-offs” – the US has less regulation and higher growth, but lower life expectancy: the very definition of live fast, die young.
