Tim Worstall

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Because candidly, I don’t trust this bank. It’s giving me no reason to do so. In that case why is it still operating here? Strangely, the law of England and Wales is silent upon the requirement for Richard Murphy to trust a bank in order for it to be allowed to operate in the jurisdiction. [...]

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Only a little side note really: Charles and Emma Darwin had ten children, of whom seven survived to adulthood. Although only three provided Darwin with grandchildren, You can see why people had large families…..if only 30% of your children provide you with grandchildren then you need a pretty good number just to keep the genes [...]

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted yesterday’s summit of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and British leaders in Berlin, said the sort of rampant speculation and misuse of leverage that occurred in the credit bubble would not be tolerated. "We have today underscored our conviction that all financial markets, products and participants must be subject [...]

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Waste collection crews are being issued with devices featuring GPS technology that allow councils to store a history of information about individual rubbish collections, including whether householders are failing to recycle properly. The system feeds binmen with up-to-the minute information about houses they are visiting. It also provides local authorities with enough information to issue [...]

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Just what is it that they teach at Eton? Heading up the field is, of course, the Obama ‘big bang’. $888 billion in all, of which around $150 billion could be said be genuinely green or sustainable. Over the longer term, the US President is talking about $150 billion just for clean energy and energy [...]

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Gordon Brown is to prevent banks and building societies offering 100 per cent mortgages in an attempt to usher in a new era of "responsible lending". Just what we need, eh? A law against something that no one’s going to do for another generation.

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At the ASI. What is economic value?

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Access to the page: http://mail.google.com/mail/ … has been denied for the following reason: Banned phrase found. Strange page to be banned from really….

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But the final prize must be the inclusion of the South Downs in our necklace of national properties. The squires and megafarmers of Sussex must forget fears about ramblers and regulations and open up their countryside. As Wordsworth said of the Lakes: “Every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive [...]

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Describe what’s happening honestly and why there must be no cuts in public services. Make bold savings on Trident, aircraft carriers and ID cards among other things Is there some manner in which defence and security are not public services? Whatever you think of these specific programmes, the external and internal security of the country [...]

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The joint leader of Unite, the union, Tony Woodley, said the crisis is now so severe that a major car plant faces the threat of immediate closure. Quite. It’s just what he car industry needs too. There’s massive over capacity globally…..and this is nothing to do with the credit crunch either. We’ve got more car [...]

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At the ASI. Lady Warsi being silly.

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Would you invade a sinking asset?

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One word that is extremely unpopular in aid documents but has great historical resonance on “power to the people” is “liberty.” Neither the 347 page World Bank 1998 “Participation Sourcebook” nor the 372-page World Bank 2006 “Empowerment in Practice” ever mentioned the word “liberty.” The poor cannot have liberty, but they can have lots of [...]

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Ms. Cavendish: (I know this because I retain a deep childhood nostalgia for Fray Bentos). … At a service station recently, my seven-year-old picked out an M&S corned beef butty that was called “the nation’s favourite sandwich” and emblazoned with the Union Jack. It looked pretty disgusting but he was hungry. He also knows my [...]

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I know, I know, we shouldn’t be making Irish jokes in these enlightened times. However: Prawo Jazdy, presumed to be one of the hundreds of thousands of Poles lured to Ireland during its economic boom, was the Scarlet Pimpernel of motoring, leaving a trail of multiple identities and vehicles across the data base of the [...]

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Weber, Nietzsche, Sombart, Partnoy, Keynes, yes let’s go for the name dropping. OK, so people are not entirely rational in all and any circumstances. Markets aren’t perfect. Emotions, animal spirits. Ho hum. Aesthetics, harmony with nature, the ethics and politics of community – these need to be reasserted as values independent of and superior to [...]

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As Polly keeps telling us, we should be more like Sweden. As Polly doesn’t keep telling us we should copy things like their absence of a national minimum wage, their absence of inheritance tax, their absence of a national health service and their voucher driven schools system. Now while the current government is, by Swedish [...]

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Err, sorry about this, but Dame Vera doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. The 91-year-old is said to be ‘furious’ after the BNP used the song, and another of her classics ‘All Alone in Vienna’, on the CD. The ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ album, which sells for £4.95 and features a Spitfire on [...]

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