Tim Worstall

This is nuts. The role of the law is to promote the wellbeing of citizens, not to threaten it. Something has gone badly wrong when judges decide that it is more important to preserve the legal principle that everyone accused of a crime should have full access to the evidence against them than it is [...]

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The Liberal Democrats said they had calculated how much capital gains tax Mr Osborne avoided by the way he designated his London family home. They called on David Cameron to force him to pay it back. Flipping the designation of the primary residence in order to benefit from the ACA and not to have to [...]

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A combination of the cap, the rise in EU applicants and a rule that prevents universities from discriminating in favour of homegrown talent means that British sixth formers risk losing places to well-qualified rivals from abroad. Students from the EU are funded by the Government in the same way as British students, and count in [...]

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Flat taxes, as it happens, produces regressive tax systems (that is, the poor pay a higher share of their incomes) because, among other reasons, when combined with consumption taxes like VAT, where the poor tend to pay a far higher share of their incomes in this form of tax than the rich do since the [...]

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“You hear them shouting ‘Heil Griffin!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Griffin, swanking about wearing hideous ribbons! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher!’” CT [...]

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Lord Mandelson met the Queen in a private audience at Buckingham Palace — thanks to his new title of Lord President of the Council. The title, once held by his grandfather, puts him in charge of the highly-secretive Queen’s Privy Council. Hilary Benn’s, umm, a fourth generation MP and third generation Cabinet Minister as well. [...]

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Tee Hee.

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She leaves the Fawcett Society (those who continually lie to us about the gender pay gap) to head up a Fake Charity. So far, so normal for those in “civil society” who such at the Government’s teat. This is good though. Yesterday her husband said he hoped he was a hands on father. He refused [...]

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At the ASI. Why we don’t need additional taxes on air fares to beat climate change.

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It would be a terrible indictment if New Labour left office with child poverty and inequality both rising. Of course they move in tandem! For they are the same thing! Child poverty is measured as relative poverty: it’s a measure of inequality. It’s one thing to argue that it’s terribly important, as I don’t, or [...]

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Those, like the Guardian, who wish to keep Conservatism at bay, will hope Labour can still recover. There’s a specific view, line, for the whole newspaper. There is no such line, only public voices and views. ­Editorials and commentators seek to sway opinion – that’s what we do, basing our views on the evidence as [...]

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Restructuring gives banks a chance for a new start: new potential investors (whether in equity or debt instruments) will have more confidence, other banks will be more willing to lend to them and they will be more willing to lend to others. The bondholders will gain from an orderly restructuring, and if the value of [...]

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Lastly Mr Soros said that the practice of securitizing bank assets had greatly added to systemic risk and must now come under tighter controls, including requiring banks to limit proprietary trading to their own assets in order to protect depositors. “Banks must use less leveraging and accept risk on their investments, they should not be [...]

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Everyone knows HobNobs went to private school and then to Oxbridge along with their friends the Guardian journalists. Whereas custard creams grew up on a sink estate and are probably robbing your car right now as we speak. What?

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Bowing to European competition rules, Microsoft Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer. European buyers of Windows 7 will have to download and install a web browser for themselves. Err, how?

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I won’t have time to do a careful analysis for a few days, but a quick check shows that the Setser point — high government borrowing is more than offset by net negative borrowing from the private sector — remains true. Excellent, eh? We don’t have to worry about interest rates rising because government borrowing [...]

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By raising fears over government deficits, and by refusing to acknowledge that government spending pays for itself, these conservatives have set the economic and political agenda in all the British media, Really? Government spending pays for itself? Amazing, the woman’s in line for a Nobel any day now! Hey, I’m willing to believe that some [...]

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Oh, boy, this is going to be great. No, really, just superb. We’re going to have a new version of “Ode to Joy” that we can all use as our referral for the upcoming European Union anthem. Should be a corker. The unlikely sound of ukuleles will take over one of Britain’s largest classical musical [...]

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It’s an odd question to ask, yes, “is the BNP racist“? For of course the BNP is self avowedly racist. It’s the very core of how they think and what they propose. So I’m entirely happy to help those who might be using search engines to find out the truth of this matter, the answer [...]

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Can anyone explain the logic of this second sentence to me? And the reality is that tax yield is based on the combination of tax base and tax rate. You can control one of those two at any time, but not both at once. I’m pretty sure that the UK can determine both what are [...]

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