Tim Worstall

The second thing is, in our desire to explain these events solely as examples of personal pathology, we concentrate on the individual, and do not interrogate the role of society and a socially produced ideology of individualism. For the circumstances in which personal griefs and grudges express themselves in this brutally uninhibited way ought to [...]

[Read more →]

These people do infuriate at times: Businesses, including BP, have the financial firepower to lead the green energy agenda and at the same time secure their own long-term economic gain. Why do these nutters think that BP should be doing green energy? BP is one of the great concentrations of a certain set of talents [...]

[Read more →]

As we all know, our favourite retired accountant tells us that there’s a huge amount of tax being left unpaid. One of the numbers he uses to get to his sky high estimate is tax debts….taxes which everyone agrees are owed but which never quite manage to get into the Treasury’s coffers. First Quench Retailing, [...]

[Read more →]

In a sworn statement detailing his assets, Mr Mujica said he has no bank accounts or other assets and put his small flower farm in his wife’s name, only possessing the ageing car, worth £1,300. Everything else is in his wife’s name. But the important question will be to check his assets once he’s finished [...]

[Read more →]

“This meant that the farmers’ guarantee of a fair price was taken away as the powerful supermarkets and dairy trade forced prices down. And that, in a nutshell, is why dairy farming in Britain is in such a state of utter despair.” Well, sorta. Sorta the big bad supermarkets forcing prices down. And sorta not [...]

[Read more →]

Police officers searching the home of the Cumbria gunman have found documents confirming that Derrick Bird was the subject of an ongoing tax investigation. Tax causes mass murder. Better ban tax, eh?

[Read more →]

At the ASI. On why the personal allowance should be £40,000 a year per person.

[Read more →]

The trigger for killing spree: quiet envy of a brother Families cause killings eh? Better ban them.

[Read more →]

What is it with these people? Here’s a suggestion: in the 1930s, with the centre of the country devastated by dust storms, with coastal erosion, and with an underfunded national parks infrastructure, Roosevelt’s administration created the Civilian Conservation Corps, blending environmentalism with public works. Huge numbers of young Americans were put to work salvaging endangered [...]

[Read more →]

The Daily Telegraph has learned that Coalition ministers are studying proposals to cut the drink-drive limit for the first time in a generation. Under the plans, the limit would fall from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. Anyone caught above the new limit would face an automatic 12-month driving ban, even if [...]

[Read more →]

This is an important point: South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was facing fresh speculation over his private life last night after reports that his second wife had an affair with her bodyguard. As Elizabeth Pisani explains here, what really matters for the spread of HIV is not how much people are shagging around. If it’s [...]

[Read more →]

The Best Party, who used Tina Turner’s song “Simply The Best” for their campaign, called for clean politics, free towels in city swimming pools and a polar bear for the zoo and took 34.7 percent of Saturday’s vote and six seats on the 15-seat city council. And they now have a real comedian as Mayor. [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been scouring the world of likely companies (that’s scouring the world of companies likely to have this stuff, as well as the world for companies likely to do so) for those who might have some of my favourite metal just lying about. You know, in the rubbish left over from some other process sort [...]

[Read more →]

No, over here you won’t have heard of him. But over there, among those of a certain age, he’s famous, very famous indeed. Rightly so. As a side note, the 14th Street bridge at around and about 4 pm ish was my regular commute home at that time. But we’d all stayed late that night [...]

[Read more →]

They’re all big enough and ugly enough to take care of themselves, but this George Monbiot review of Matt Ridley’s new book, Ridley’s response, The Bishop’s comment and, well, my comment: Pater Monbiot does seem to have wasted all that money he spent at Stowe, doesn’t he? The lessons on playing the ball not the [...]

[Read more →]

Labour has a world-beating record on equality and diversity. We elected our first ethnic minority MPs more than 20 years ago. Being beaten by the Liberals by 95 years is hardly “world-beating”. The rest of it is simply that there should be a woman on the ballot paper so that people can vote for me.

[Read more →]

Jamie Baulch, the Olympic silver medal-winning relay sprinter, is to race against a horse for charity. The man v horse event over 100 metres, which takes place on June 30 at Kempton Park racecourse, Surrey, is believed to be the first of its kind. Bookmakers have made the horse, which will be ridden by the [...]

[Read more →]

The Times used to be rather good at these sorts of things. I have no doubt that there will be the occasional letter coming in as the sort of people who announce their weddings (and christenings, and tend to get obituaries in the paper) point out that the young shavers who write the paper these [...]

[Read more →]

Gurgle, snort: Create an independent working group to cap the spill and mitigate its repercussions. Obama needs to immediately gather the best and brightest scholars, scientists, and practitioners to engage this national-security emergency. People with ties to the oil industry need not apply. All the people who have the slightest idea about how to cap [...]

[Read more →]

Our favourite retired tax accountant gets a mention in The Guardian today on the issue of tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax debts and the tax gap. It’s worth reading the comments there. A goodly proportion of them are about how, umm, interestingly creative, Murphy’s estimates are. Perhaps the message is getting through…..

[Read more →]