Tim Worstall

So we’ve a protectionist as Business Secretary then: Foreign ownership of British companies could be a “disadvantage” to the country over a long period of time, according to Lord Mandelson. As one of Britain’s best-known companies, Cadbury, fights off a takeover bid by US food giant Kraft, the business secretary said the country must be [...]

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See what happens when a housing boom turns to housing bust and you’re locked into a currency bloc? Mr Ruiz said the construction sector will shrink from 18pc of GDP at the peak of the boom to around 5pc, making it unlikely that there will be any significant recovery before 2012. Even then growth will [...]

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Mr Tajani stood silently by during a press conferences in which Mr O’Leary mocked Lisbon Treaty opponents as “numpties”, “numb nuts” and “clowns”. But Mr O’Leary’s view was very different to the one he held last October, following Ireland’s first referendum rejection. At the time he said: “It seems that only in the EU, Ireland [...]

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Workers who processed the MPs’ claims included serving soldiers, who were moonlighting between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to earn extra cash for body armour and other vital equipment. The soldiers were furious when they saw what MPs, including the Prime Minister, were claiming for and their anger convinced one of their civilian [...]

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It ruled: “We find that in no way whatsoever did the unlawful victimisation either prevent Miss Popa obtaining employment or cause her to lose employment. “There is no loss of chance in this case. This is simply a case of injury to feelings. “In the circumstances, we take the view that we are looking at [...]

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Ben Whittaker, vice-president of the National Union of Students, said: “Some of the accommodation out there is absolutely extortionate and our research shows that prices are going up year-on-year. There is no doubt that people are taking advantage of the vulnerable position students are in. “It’s compounded this year by the fact that we’ve seen [...]

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I do hope all those who have been screaming about the coup in Honduras will at least have the good grace to be embarrassed by this: TEGUCIGALPA — It’s been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He’s sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and “Israeli [...]

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“It’s now or never for the leaders of the world’s biggest economies to make the changes that will support their claims to have learnt the lessons of the financial and economic crises. Oooh aye? “Strict and consistent measures must be put in place to regulate financial markets, particularly in regard to hedge and private equity [...]

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Here’s a question for our expert on Elizabethan poetry turned saviour of the world. Earlier today, I joined with colleagues in the European Parliament to sign a letter to President Obama in support of his pledge to crack down on tax havens. We call on the President to stand firm on this issue at the G20 meetings and [...]

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I know that one of the enviro/greenie worries is the rate of topsoil erosion. OK, could be a problem, certainly. But what I’d like to know is what is the rate of topsoil creation? We didn’t start out with some set number, erosion, the activities of worms (??) floods, additional cow shit, breakdown of plant [...]

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Ritchie’s on about secrecy jurisdictions again. Step 2 is to define secrecy jurisdictions as places that intentionally create regulation for the primary benefit and use of those not resident in their geographical domain. Obviously, we need to have a method of measuring “intent” here. A simple one might be that if the same legal manouvres, [...]

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Instead it may set off a once-in-a-century upheaval in the structure of British politics, with the Liberal Democrats displacing Labour as the dominant part of the Left in a neat reversal of the process that began almost 100 years ago with the defeat of David Lloyd George. Not convinced it’s going to happen but here’s [...]

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But very clever. The director of a food company that provided pies to Fortnum & Mason has been jailed for re-packaging cheap supermarket goods and claiming that they were organic. Neil Stansfield, 51, bought stock from Tesco and Waitrose several times a day and sold it at twice the original price in new packaging, recording [...]

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It is these interim targets that should now be addressed by all countries during the coming weeks. If we are to reach the goal of reducing emissions to 20 gigatonnes by 2050, we must be at about 35 gigatonnes by the halfway point of 2030. That means global emissions have to peak within the next [...]

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A quite wondrous article. Capitalism works, in so far as it does on its own terms, because it is clear eyed about what motivates humans a lot of the time. Greed and indolence (along with those dashings of altrusim etc). So, in order to make sure that capitalism doesn’t work, once and for all, we [...]

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Yes, you know what she means*, but it’s not good news from the front of the war between Guardian journalists and statistical understanding really: A comprehensive analysis last year found that two-thirds of the population pulled in less than the national average of £24,907, * 2/3 get less than the mean average….not median.

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So Gary Glitter can’t go on his hols: But the court heard he had not attended any of the treatment programs recommended to help him curb his behaviour and a psychiatrist said he may reoffend again in the future. District Judge Timothy Workman said: “Whilst his desire to leave the UK may have reduced in [...]

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So, in his paper proposing a tax code of conduct Mr. Murphy says that: It is therefore important to note what a Code of Conduct can achieve that other mechanisms cannot, especially since a Code is not law and consequently involves voluntary adoption by those who abide by it. The benefits of a Code are: [...]

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He continued: ‘British citizens will be burdened for many years with either higher taxes or cuts in public services because of an economic crisis… cooked up in trading rooms where many people earned annual bonuses equal to a lifetime’s earnings of some of those suffering the consequences.’ We still have something of a problem here [...]

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Despite the critical environmental situation, only around a quarter of the world’s population have high enough purchasing power to benefit from the system of global resource extraction and resource trade. 80% of the world population still live on less than US $10 a day and legitimately demand for further growth and increased material consumption in [...]

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