Tim Worstall

A couple of days back I pointed to our favourite retired accountant’s pieces in The Observer. They seemed very much like advice on how to avoid tax. Nothing illegal, of course, this is avoidance, not evasion. Just every Englishman’s legal right to reduce his taxable income in the manners and ways which Parliament has approved. [...]

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But it has not been a pointless exercise. Two-thirds of ideas come from public servants themselves, who may not suggest abolishing their own jobs, but do come forward with good practical savings drawn from experience: water cooler and paper savings, IT procurement, modifications to telephone exchanges, making people pay for frivolous freedom of information requests [...]

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A recent report from the TPA suggested that we should redefine poverty. Instead of it being 60% of median household income, as it is at present, if we move it to 50% of mendian household income then we’ve actyually got a chance of being able to afford to both reduce poverty and also make work [...]

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ACTRESS Susan Penhaligon has condemned television bosses as ageist, saying that at 61 she can only find roles in theatre. The former Bouquet Of Barbed Wire star says she is desperate to shake off her image as the teenage temptress Prue Manson in the hit Seventies drama because she wants more mature roles. But Susan [...]

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Clearly, “neo-liberal” isn’t strong enough now: Václav Klaus, the ultra-neoliberal Czech president, Ultra-neoliberal now, eh? But the sleight of hand is here: Worldwide, subsidies for fossil fuels are 12 times greater than subsidies for renewable energy. Many of the most generous handouts are awarded by rightwing governments (think of the money lavished on the oil [...]

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In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000. Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives. One’s a war zone, another’s in the middle of a [...]

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That’s what Ritchie tells me I am. Which brings us to entry two in his “Joy of Tax” series. The things which we enjoy only because the State gets to riffle through our wallets. What did tax do for me today? It provided the road I drove along to take my sons out this morning. [...]

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Here. Usual Grauniad complaint that if taxes are low then there’s no such thing as society (cont. pg 94). Among the Arab oil producers, for example, taxation accounted for only 5% of gross domestic product in 2002, rising to 17% in the non-oil countries – which is still very low compared with Germany (39%), Italy [...]

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RACE ace Ben Collins has been linked with telly’s motoring mystery man The Stig – in documents from his own company. Papers issued by Collins Autosport show the F3 driver signed up with Top Gear just as the iconic “white Stig” character appeared on screen in 2003. Accounts filed that December reveal the firm had [...]

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Ooooh, this is going to be fun. So, following Amnesty and all sorts of environmental groups pointing to the horrible pollution from the oil business in the Niger delta, the UN (UNEP, the environmental peeps) does a big report on who is to blame for it. The result is that it’s not Shell or the [...]

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Currently the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) imposes a £250 cap on payments so as to avoid commercialising the procedure. “We are suggesting moving closer to the Spanish system. But there is no suggestion of adopting the US model where a good-looking girl with a degree can get $30,000 (£19,000) for her eggs.” But [...]

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So pondering a little project. As part of that I need to know what were likely wages/pay to people who wrote the penny dreadfuls. Then, what were likely advances from publishers for novels…no, not the three volume standard, not what Dickens or whoever famous got for their part works. But what was the scale of [...]

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I mentioned that a certain retired accountant had written some pieces for The Observer describing how you could in fact organise your affairs in order to reduce your taxes. This, in some contrast to his current public position that one should not reorganise one’s affairs in order to reduce the tax which is righteously due. [...]

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At the ASI. If we’re all culturally tied into the Anglosphere, why this huge effort to tie us politically to Europe?

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Ed Miliband steps up his bid for the Labour leadership today by promising substantial tax cuts for any company prepared to guarantee a “living wage” of at least £7.60 an hour. The commitment is designed to appeal to the party’s core supporters who believe New Labour took insufficient measures to combat low pay, despite having [...]

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There is no longer any discrimination in our embrace of cultural liberalism; it stretches into every nook and cranny of our lives – from the financial markets to sex – and sometimes with consequences none of us like. It was Howard Davies, when he ran the Financial Services Authority, who compared financiers to consenting adults; [...]

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And here we were, thinking that the medical profession had at least some connection to science, perhaps even statistics: The NHS faces a chronic shortage of women in senior positions as female medical staff hit a glass ceiling, doctors‘ leaders are warning. Fewer than 30% of consultant posts in the health service are held by [...]

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One of the most ancient — and certainly one of the most fundamental — rights of any British citizen is the right to a fair trial. One of the basic justifications for the state is that it protects us from unjust attempts to deprive us of our liberty. So who would have believed that in [...]

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The of course your criticism is going to be false, isn’t it? Self-service checkouts were intended to bring an end to long supermarket queues, but research suggests some lines have lengthened since the technology was introduced. There then follows lots of harrumphing from both sides about whether the self service checkouts have in fact reduced [...]

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UKIP that is, over the European Arrest Warrant. The truly Kafkaesque bit about it is this: Foreigners, as a flight risk, are often refused bail and pretrial detention in some European jurisdictions can last years. Youi’re denied bail because you’re a flight risk….but the very existence of the EAW means that you’re not a flight [...]

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