Tim Worstall

In short, she’s decided that since she doesn’t like shopping on Sundays then you shouldn’t be able to either. How liberal. Her final line is a glory though. After whining bitterly about how capitalism insists upon creating desires which it can then satisfy, moaning about how it is nothing but production so as to facilitate [...]

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Jon Cruddas: Along with a belief that the market has self-evident limits, equality is surely Labour’s most fundamental idea – to return to Tawney, its creed. Moreover, as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett prove in their much-acclaimed book The Spirit Level, a society as unequal as ours is simply dysfunctional. Purnell says he thinks “we [...]

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The latest statistics indicate that, between March and May this year, a record 927,000 individuals were working fewer than 30 hours a week because they could not find a full-time job, a rise of 38 per cent on last year. The figures include new employees who have been hired on a part-time basis and existing [...]

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At the ASI. On the Charities Commission and private schools.

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A bunch of guys got together and made “worst failure ever” into a Google Bomb which then pointed to Barack Obama’s page at the White House. OK, fun….then a couple of guys (one of them me, with this “worst failure ever” piece describing it all) wrote web pieces describing what had been done. Which, as [...]

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Although Lord Mandelson is the government’s first secretary, the jobs of foreign secretary, chancellor of the exchequer or prime minister would pose constitutional difficulties for an unelected peer. Anyone remember Lord Carrington?

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They really are desperate, aren’t they? There was something sensible-ish about the Criminal Compensation Board. If you had a criminal record then any compensation you got under the scheme was reduced. Now they’re extending this scheme of discounts: Under the new rules, a deduction must be made for any unspent convictions, including motoring offences, ‘unless [...]

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Indeed, Paul Golby, who runs the British operations of E.ON, Europe’s biggest wind-power producer, has told the government that a 90% fossil fuel or nuclear back-up will be needed for any of the National Grid’s future wind-power capacity. As Martin Fuchs, his German boss, pointed out: “The wind, sadly, does not blow where large quantities [...]

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As I have found through researching a book on normal birth, countless mothers testify that birth without drugs results in less pain overall. And as a woman who has given birth three times without any pain relief, I can only agree. Er, no love. You have personal experience of the amount of pain a drug [...]

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Nick Cohen is arguing, in essence, that mathematicians won’t publish papers rubbishing the bank’s risk models for fear of libel. Hmmm. How about this from Wired? That has, by your reading it in your browser in the UK (no, really, this counts as publication) been published in the UK. Has Wired been sued for it? [...]

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These focus on bringing the changes that must occur in transport and in business if we are to make full-scale carbon cuts and if we are to transform UK industry into one that can provide the kinds of green technology that will make money for Britain in an overheating world. The idea of UK PLC [...]

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The Observer leader tells us: And with unemployment rising at the fastest rate in a generation, the argument that City financiers are “wealth-creators” has surely been demolished. Apparently no value is added then. Next sentence: Finance is necessary to channel cash to enterprising individuals who can put it to good use and allow consumers to [...]

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At the ASI. Why measure inequality purely in monetary terms?

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Not that I particularly want to defend Jack Straw but… According to a Parliamentary Answer, Jack Straw’s department, which was created only two years ago, employs a staggering 970 personnel staff, out of a total of 3,680 officials. Robert Blevin, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, tells me that a private company with [...]

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At the ASI. On falling food prices.

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• Soccer star’s wife is laid … And?

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The joint suicide of Sir Edward and Lady Downes shows how vital a lifelong partnership can be. Janice Turner. vital adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of life Suicide is characteristic of life?

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Cameron’s “Broken Britain” trope never refers to the fact that the risk of being a victim of any kind of crime was 40% in 1995 and is now 23%. Risk? Percentage? Does Polly mean that 23% of the population are victims of crime in any one year? What?

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Haribo qualified for 332,000 euros in farming subsidies for the sugar used in its “gummy bears” produced in Germany. In France, the EU country that benefits the most from farm subsidies, over 103 million euros every year boosts the profits of sugar manufacturers – companies that do not own any farms. Groupe Doux, a French [...]

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