In the end you get used to people you were at college with going on to occupy positions of stratospheric influence and power. And so Lord Dilnot, as he now is, turns out to be warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, and chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, in which capacity he made a highly suitable compère for this attempt (16-27 February) to examine what the BBC publicists called “the big trends and changes in our lives”.As Dilnot and his academic guests roamed over the early attempts to define and quantify our nation’s resources, the statistics themselves were never less than ear-catching. Henry VII was adjudged to have raised £140,000 in the last year of his reign – around £100 million at current values – whereas the present administrat