Tim Worstall

Philip Stone, charts editor of The Bookseller, rejects much of this kind of criticism as coming from snobs “disgusted by the reality of the world we live in”. He recently pointed out that sales of Martin Amis’s books totalled £200,000 last year, compared with the £1.7 million generated by Alan Titchmarsh. “So, shock, horror, publishers [...]

[Read more →]

Poverty in Britain is at a nine year high, says Joseph Rowntree Foundation report The report does say this but the report is wrong. The foundation’s report found that the number of people living in “low income” households was now 13.4million, the highest level since 2000 when it was nearly 14million. A low income household [...]

[Read more →]

Despite accepting tens of billions of pounds in taxpayers’ money to bail them out, they were still failing to lend to businesses and were maintaining historically low interest rates for savers, he said. Lord help us, that’s the City Minister speaking there. Base rates are (for good reasons) low at the moment. Thus of course [...]

[Read more →]

Experts all, of course, have their areas of expertise. Dr Hansen, who was one of the first scientists to warn of the dangers of global warming more than two decades ago, said that any deal reached at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen would be a “disaster track” for the world. He said it would [...]

[Read more →]

Preventing runaway global warming may be twice as expensive as previously thought and Britain will have to incur billions of pounds of additional debt to cover its share of the cost, according to the world’s most influential climate change economist. That entirely buggers up the whole calculation, doesn’t it? Stern said that the damage would [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve never had any objection to the creation of this People’s Bank that so many on the left aseem to have their hearts set on. Simple, low cost banking for the poor? Sure, why not? Millions more people on lower incomes will be able to open a bank account….. and qualify for cheaper direct debit [...]

[Read more →]

The perils of life as a sporting Wag loom large this week. Tiger Woods appears to be in the doghouse after claims – malicious, I’m sure – of an extra-marital dalliance with a pillow-lipped birdie. But if it had been true, and wife Elin took revenge on him and his 4×4 with a handy five [...]

[Read more →]

Unselfconsciously, the man in the baggy brown suit dropped one stalk of wheat and selected another from the mound beside the road. He carefully picked off the individual grains and popped them into his mouth. In fields that stretched to the horizon, men, women and children were bent double, picking up single stalks that had [...]

[Read more →]

As we know, there’s all sorts of people telling us that it’s finance capitalism which is the problem. Those shareholders greedy for their returns: if we just got rid of them and had mutuals as the major part of that finance system then all our worries would go away. Yeah, right. Capital adequacy is a [...]

[Read more →]

“The funny thing is I’m not actually all that bright. I think I’m just good at seeing things that fairly obviously need to be done – and getting on with doing them.” Sir John Crofton, creator of the Edinburgh Method of TB treatment.

[Read more →]

Apart from the fact that you’d have to count your fingers afterwards, and they’d probably charge you for it anyway: MPs crisis: House of Commons hit ‘by loo roll shortage’ On the other hand, how could this happen? How could there in fact be any use of loo roll in the building given that politicians [...]

[Read more →]

New figures released by the Conservatives show that around two million vendors have paid a combined total of £657.6 million since the controversial scheme was launched amid opposition from estate agents in August 2007. Also known as Sellers’ Packs, HIPs have raised £94 million for Government coffers in the form of VAT which must be [...]

[Read more →]

Britain has plummeted to the foot of an international league table for the number of young people remaining in education beyond the age of 15, according to research. It has been overtaken by Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and New Zealand in major rankings showing the number of teenagers in college and university. The University [...]

[Read more →]

Excellent news. After that little fiasco over their 6 month investigation of Tesco’s tax dodging (which led, as you might remember, to a libel suit and if I recall correctly, the payment of damages) The Guardian has decided to go after Tony Blair’s tax structures. Here. But why should I praise them for doing what [...]

[Read more →]

Richard Lindzen on climate change. On his specific points about clouds I just don’t know. But the basic outline sounds right to me.

[Read more →]

Here.

[Read more →]

Leave aside that it’s about trucks and look at the general principle: Simon Nicholls, Mr Denby’s lawyer, said: “There appears to be a lacuna in the regulation. There is a general principle that if there is an ambiguity in the law it should be read in favour of the defendant.” That’s the bit that Ritchie [...]

[Read more →]

About Zac Goldsmith: Voters have the right to expect every Conservative candidate to meet their obligations as citizens. Obeying the law of the land on tax matters is not meeting your obligations as a citizen in what manner?

[Read more →]

Please, go read your Adam Smith again. Since free trade replaced mercantilism, liberals have recognised that capitalism can do good even if that is not its first objective. The benign force Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” was instrumental in the creation of modern journalism. As Gavin Kennedy indefatigably continues to point out, the one [...]

[Read more →]

Someone’s taxes have to pay for the costly clean coal technology, wind farms, tidal research, home insulation, new railway lines – and all the other things that might help save the planet. But, but, but….we’re going to make a profit out of going green aren’t we? Lots of new jobs created, lots of tax raised, [...]

[Read more →]