Tim Worstall

Here’s why I ask: According to the analysis, the wealthiest fifth of Britons have a net household income averaging £48,700 and they use public services with an estimated value of £5,400 each year. The poorest fifth have an average income of £13,800 but use public services totalling £11,500. See? I think I’m right in saying [...]

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This is the reality: Labour managed the economy well until the bankers broke its back.

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I thought this was a quite gorgeous line: He claims real spending will be at the same level as 2008 – but he ignores the analysis I offered last Friday. Well how about that and hush ma’ mouth n’all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer ignores a blog post from a Wandsworth accountant who has retired [...]

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Now Kerry Katona is a catwalk queen as she takes to the runway to launch Liverpool Fashion Week Discussion of the appropriate designs in the comments please.

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Yup: However, Vidal fails to highlight the most important point facing conservationists – the lack of available funding needed to protect this wilderness. It costs lots of money. So, you who worry about such things, dig into your pockets and go and buy this land. For the price of that semi in southern England that [...]

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Step forward Hadley Freeman: Now, I ask you, if a man can’t even keep his own homophobic principles straight, can you trust him at all? If he’s not even good at homophobia, which has pretty much only one rule to remember, can he really sort out New York’s public transportation? The education system? The traffic [...]

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This looks like a good thing: Morrisons is to announce tomorrow that it is to fund 20 undergraduates a year on its three-year degree course in food manufacturing, which starts in January. The students will spend half their time working in the company’s factories and half studying for the course, run by Bradford University’s management [...]

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The Guardian’s got a “cut your own budget” gadget that you can play with. Quite dangerous really, but the time I’d had a go the budget seemed to be about 3 pence and I was going to raise that by charging any MP who wanted to propose a law a fee for the privilege of [...]

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No, it isn’t, as Jim White tells us, simply an outbreak or manifestation of greed. Nor is it that some chav is getting above himself, not knowing his place in the scheme of things (recall, we used to have maximum wages in football, to make sure such a shocking thing never happened). It’s a simple [...]

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In talking about evolution: The leopard’s spots, which are actually rosette shaped, are so cleverly designed that they provide camouflage even when the cat is moving. We do not say that something “is designed”. We can say that “the design is such that” but “is designed” implies that someone did the designing, which nullifies the [...]

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So, I understand that the Dispatches programme, featuring our favourite retired accountant, Richard Murphy, made some allegations about tax avoiding behaviour by some Tory politico types. The programme also focuses on Mr Hammond, whose £7.5million fortune makes him one of the wealthiest of the Cabinet’s 18 millionaires. It suggests that his practice of paying himself [...]

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see more Very Demotivational

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And it is a puzzle. I simply do not understand how he can hold violently contradictory views like this: On the other hand it taxes its companies on a completely perverse territorial basis – so that profit earned outside the US is not taxed until remitted from abroad……..The answer is very obvious: the US needs [...]

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Taking Naomi Klein’s word on matters economic is certain to lead you into error. The first such opportunity was provided by General Pinochet’s coup in Chile. The coup was plotted by two factions: the generals and a group of economists trained at the University of Chicago and funded by the CIA. Their ideas had already [...]

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Teacher of humanities is against cuts in subsidies to teachers of humanities. No, I really didn’t see that one coming.

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The academic concluded that a significant proportion of even smart people neither understand nor remember numbers. Instead, they are guided by repetition and familiarity (Pepsi being a cornerstone of America’s caffeine-industrial complex). And no matter how stark the numbers, how they are presented is far more important. Yes, the left is that portion of the [...]

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BBC bosses fear that the coalition government is gearing up for a £500m-plus raid on the licence fee, by forcing the broadcaster to meet the full cost of free television licences for the over 75s. The benefit – which was introduced by Gordon Brown when he was chancellor – costs £556m, and is currently paid [...]

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Labour is to stick to its target set before the election of halving the UK’s deficit by 2013-14, the shadow chancellor Alan Johnson said today, but will slightly increase the contribution to be made by higher taxes, as opposed to public spending cuts. Alan Johnson is to fine tune his posturing and preening about that [...]

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In any case, tidal energy is guaranteed unless the Earth stops turning; wind isn’t. Tidal power (well, at least most of it, the Sun has some influence) comes from the Moon going around the Earth. It’s actually wind (and wave, which comes from the wind) power which comes from the rotation of the Earth.

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No, I’ve no idea who he is either but I can tell you that he’s a twat. Chris Packham, the wildlife presenter, has called on world leaders to limit population growth in order to stop the mass extinction of species including tigers and pandas. A fair enough call. But he said different policies could be [...]

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