


The trial of Lucy Letby has shocked British statisticians
And shown that many Britons are woefully ignorant of statistics
It was “feeble”. It was “very unsatisfactory”. It was, in short, “terrible”. If you wish to annoy a statistician, ask them about the trial of Lucy Letby, a British nurse. Statisticians will, typically, take no view whatsoever on the guilt or otherwise of Ms Letby, who in August 2023 was found guilty of murdering seven very young babies in a hospital near Liverpool between 2015 and 2016, and given 15 life sentences without the chance of parole.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Two cultures”

Britain’s government pulls the plug on a superfast computer
The decision is likely to hurt researchers and AI companies

Youth clubs in Britain have been vanishing
Their impact is hard to measure, but can be profound

Mike Lynch was Britain’s first software billionaire
He was celebrating his freedom when his yacht sank in a freak storm
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The winner is likely to make some people cross
Britain’s boom in public inquiries into past disasters
Judges are still trusted to rake over political failures