Tim Worstall

I read this, as usual passionate, piece about the evils of cuts and the benefits of fiscal expansion with gradually rising eyebrows. Hari is pointing to Ireland as an example of what is going to happen to Britain. Well, OK, fair enough you might think. They’ve cut and yet it hasn’t sorted out the economy [...]

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At the ASI. It appears that GPs can manage procurement budgets….rather better than bureaucrats can, actually.

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Does a book review. This part she gets right: A number of explanations for the intractable rate of maternal mortality that continues to bedevil the world are suggested – but poverty is left out. Doctors Allan Rosenfield and Deborah Maine wrote their seminal article on maternal mortality for the Lancet in 1985; in 1999 Rosenfield [...]

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Gill had written: “Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian.” After a mock apology, he continued: “Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks [...]

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The ad by Tricketts of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales showed the woman’s breasts discreetly covered by a pair of door knockers. The ad said “We sell big knockers…..Window Hinges, Door Handles, Window Handles …” A woman complained to the Advertising Standards Agency that she found the poster offensive. Bernard Levin once write about how [...]

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The usual blathering over here. But allow me to make a serious suggestion. No, really, a serious and sensible suggestion. Go back to your roots laddies, go back to your roots. Yes, adapt them to changing circumstances but what was it you were all about? Ah, yes…. To secure for the workers by hand or [...]

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In the previous post I am directed to this: The Right to Be Lazy is an essay by Cuban-born French revolutionary Marxist Paul Lafargue, written from his prison cell in 1883. It polemicizes heavily against contemporary liberal, conservative and even socialist ideas of work. Lafargues criticizes these ideas from a Marxist perspective as dogmatic and [...]

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Thirty-seven years later a new campaign has been launched, backed by a host of trade unions, including the UCU, PCS, CWU, RMT, NUJ and NUT, under the name Right to Work. For “right to work” already has a meaning in American English. It means being able to take a job without having to belong to [...]

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“The Gulf of Mexico is a bit like the River Tyne. There is a lot of industry and boat traffic along it, as well as the oil industry, which has minor leaks all the time. When Tony Hayward said it was a drop in the ocean, it might have been the wrong thing to say [...]

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“So while we talk about good things and cooperation this is not just a financial matter, it is making contributions to the world economy. And it could become derailed very soon if we go back to economic nationalism. We mustn’t let that happen.” George Osborne, the Chancellor, said that negotiations are currently underway between the [...]

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As George Clooney’s latest girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, becomes embroiled in a scandal involving alleged drug taking and prostitution at a nightclub in her native Italy, we look back at the dating history of “Gorgeous George”. They’ve really bought into this “get the hits on the web” business, haven’t they?

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UKIP wins donation case. The basis of the Supreme Court’s judegment (on a 4-3 basis) is that Parliament intended to stop foreign donations. However, what they actually did was enact that donations from those not on the elctoral roll were verboeten and subject to forfeiture. The Supreme Court divined a difference between what Parliament meant [...]

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Back when it was all banned there was an argument that the ban had little or nothing to do with protecting gamblers. It was to protect American companies (both on and offline) who were getting their lunch eaten by foreign competitors. Now they’re thinking of allowing it again: With pressure mounting on the federal government [...]

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Yes, courtesy of Huffington Post you can do all the work, get none of the money and not even see your name in lights! The Huffington Post has openings for unpaid blog team internships for the fall. Primary responsibilities include: -Evaluating blog submissions and editing copy -Correspondence and other communication, including editorial and technical problem-solving, [...]

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For I feel the need for a burst of civil disobedience. Zil lanes for the Olympics indeed. I think a massed arming of the populace with ballons filled with paint should do it. Via.

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There we have it, thirty years ago the world’s centre of economic activity was in the mid Atlantic, today it is around Turkey, in thirty years time it will have reached India and China. This is the new globalization and I’d like to hear how Western politicians plan on dealing with it. Why should politicians [...]

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It would appear that you are to be prevented from swearing in emails….. There will never be another s— deal at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The New York company is telling employees that they will no longer be able to get away with profanity in electronic messages. That means all 34,000 traders, investment bankers and [...]

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Snigger.

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The taxpayer is spending more than £15m a year to send the children of British diplomats and military officers to private schools such as Fettes, Winchester, Roedean and Marlborough. The subsidies – costing as much as £30,000 a year in school fees – are being paid by the Foreign Office even when the diplomats have [...]

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Tell people they are fat, says health minister Not sure this is going to get a better response that “Yes, your bum does look big in that”.

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