Tim Worstall

Yes, yes, splurge that tax money all over the countryside as if I, El Gordo, were John Holmes pleasuring my harem! But I am clear that this transformation must benefit us all, business and consumers alike, in every part of the country. Digital Britain cannot be a two-tier Britain – with those who can take [...]

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Italian prosecutors were trying to establish yesterday whether US bonds with a face value of $134 billion seized from two alleged smugglers were real or counterfeit. The bonds were found when the two men — said to be Japanese but as yet not identified — were arrested while attempting to cross into Switzerland from Italy [...]

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So what will he cut? Our old friends, “ID cards, quango pay and the cost of ­politics” – popular but hardly yielding billions. I’m afraid I’m not interested enough to go back and check but I’m certain that I’ve seen Polly say that we could save billions by not having ID cards. Freezing public sector [...]

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Talking about the US newspaper business: Its theme is a prevailing article of faith among many in the news business: newspapers spend money generating valuable and socially relevant content; Or perhaps we should say not anywhere near there at all. You see, the fact that you spend money creating something does not make that something [...]

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Some people really don’t understand about trade, do they? Britain could become a booming market for solar power from next year when the UK introduces a support system used successfully by dozens of other countries. Last week 240 MPs signed a parliamentary motion supporting the mass rollout of solar photovoltaic (PV) power. The support was [...]

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There is, though, another way: a specially created company, Kilbride Community Rail, has been looking at paying for the reopening of lines by being allowed to cash in on the potential profits from local developments that will sell for more if they are on a rail line. That would be genuinely entrepreneurial thinking, something that [...]

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This is a nice example of troughing: Dozens of MEPs, including Britons, are taking legal action to try to block reforms of their second pensions which are intended to cut the controversial scheme’s cost to Europe’s taxpayers. Not so much that they are attempting to defend their legal rights (which is the actual situation). But [...]

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Seven out of 10 Britons believe UK taxes are too high for the services they receive, a survey showed. Around 70% of people said they did not think the amount of tax they paid was reflected in the services they received and only 15% said they would be prepared to pay more money to get [...]

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Lots of ideas floating around at the moment. Me, I favour some form of sortition (go and look it up!) and happen to think that being the descendant of someone who won a famous military victory some centuries back, the offspring of some particularly vicious medieval bandit, the fruit of the loins of some bribing  [...]

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Erm? — Most rapes are committed by strangers — Most rapists are known to the victim: a partner or former partner, friend, colleague, acquaintance or professional Can both of these be myths which judges need to disabuse juries of? One or the other could be a myth, but both? — Stranger rape is more traumatic [...]

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Society is going to the dogs, isn’t it? There seems a remarkable degree of consensus on a definition of today’s social evils. Individualism is top, closely linked to greed and the decline in community; also part of the definition is a sense of decline in values and a deterioration of virtues such as honesty, ­empathy, [...]

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Advertisements aired on television and radio, or run on billboards or in print products, are regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and advertisers pay a levy – typically 0.1% of their annual marketing budgets – to fund the ASA’s system. However, while the ASA regulates all paid-for online search advertising – the sponsored links [...]

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Here.

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At the ASI. Compass has come up with an excellent little idea. But only because they don’t understand it.

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GLENYS KINNOCK, the new minister for Europe, has amassed six publicly funded pensions worth £185,000 per year with her husband Neil, the former leader of the Labour party. They have already received up to £8m of taxpayers’ money in pay and allowances, he as a European commissioner and she as a member of the European [...]

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Seven years ago, when I first started at Radio 4, my show, currently the BBC’s only designated book programme, had two full-time producers and one part-time. Today, one person does three jobs for a salary that has twice been frozen. She doesn’t manage it all that successfully. Seriously, how much bloody production time do you [...]

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Will Hutton: Britain needs a spread of regionally based, specialist banks This is the system we had. Those regional banks then amalgamated into the national banks we now have, into Lloyds, Barclay’s and the rest. The dangers of regional banks can be seen in the difference between the US and Canadian experiences of the Great [...]

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I think it’s pretty obvious that subsidiaries do indeed need to be audited. Whether those then need to be published separately or simply taken account of in the parent company’s own audit I’m agnostic on (essentially because I don’t really understand the issue). But this looks decidedly odd: Critics point out that it was a [...]

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So, would have being in the euro been a better thing in this crisis than having sterling? PK: Well, the UK has achieved a lot of monetary traction in the way that no one else has through the depreciation of the pound. In effect, you’ve carried out a successful beggar-my-neighbour devaluation. WH: So, the United [...]

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