Tim Worstall

Some of the disapproving commenters here might want to consider that the Christian religion has a surrogacy arrangement as its foundational story. Snurk!

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Man who makes his living writing “think tank” reports for unions thinks it’s a good idea that unions spend more money on think tank reports being written. Truly amazing outcome that. No, really.

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The model for that iconic poster: Doyle quit after just one week at the factory where her picture was made famous. And that’s how the war was won.

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see more Failbook

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From Liberal Conspiracy: The majority of people working in Britain’s financial services industry are happy to stay in the UK, said a survey by the eFinancialCareers.com website, despite fears a clampdown on pay may force top performers overseas. The online poll of 415 workers in London’s City finance district said only 14 percent were actively [...]

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Research by Richard Murphy (of Tax Research) has shown that the state recoups 92% of the cost of creating new public sector jobs – through lower benefit payments and increased tax revenues. Wowee! That’s a way to get tax rates down isn’t it? So instead of us having to pay £100,000 in taxes to employ [...]

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Northern Ireland Water may be the only public-owned body left in the UK in charge of water supplies … In September 2009, the utility regulator found Northern Ireland Water was half as efficient at delivering services as other UK water providers. So this privatisation thing is really, just awfully, terrible, isn’t it?

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We have house guests and we were discussing the various fates of mutual friends that we’ve not seen for years. And one such story was of Tom, a delightful man who worked for many years as a subeditor on the Daily Telegraph (and one of his colleagues, The Great Redacto, has been a commenter here [...]

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To tell the old joke again: ORDER OF ST MICHAEL AND ST GEORGE GCMG Sir Peter Forbes Ricketts, KCMG. Formerly permanent under secretary and head of the Diplomatic Service, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. KCMG Simon Lawrance Gass, CMG, CVO. HM Ambassador, Iran. Professor Eldryd Hugh Owen Parry, OBE. Trustee and Founder, Tropical Health and Education [...]

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Aslie Pitter, founder of Britain’s first gay football team, Stonewall FC, was awarded an MBE for voluntary service. Wonder if that will get Geoff frothing again?

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At the ASI. The airports show that infrastructure should be state owned and run, right? And NI water shows that the state shouldn’t be owning or running infrastructure……

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From our quite lovely 14 hour power cut. What fun it is to be in one of Europe’s leading producers of renewable energy!

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From a PR email: Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2011 Shows Agriculture Innovation Is Key to Reducing Poverty, Stabilizing Climate It’s taken them what, 30 years to work this out? Technological advance is the solution to most problems? Better late than never I suppose…..

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see more Very Demotivational

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That she’s no longer in the European Parliament?

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Our Willy Hutton keeps telling us that we’re screwed because the banks just won’t lend money to business for investment in long term projects. And as I keep trying to point out that’s because we have a different system of financing investment. The markets. But, we are told, markets only seem to be willing to [...]

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At the ASI. Using Ronald Coase to show why country by country reporting isn’t such a good idea.

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Ministers say people should prepare to spend more than a third of their lives in retirement due to the “staggering” rise in life expectancy. In the first official projection of its kind, the Department for Work and Pensions today forecasts that almost a fifth of Britons will celebrate their 100th birthday. The long lives are, [...]

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Despite record profits this year, and 9% dividends to shareholders, Heinz managers are using the broad context of ‘austerity Britain’ to hold down wages below inflation, having imposed a pay freeze in 2009 because of ‘uncertainty’ about the international economy.  This includes explicit comparison to the low wage settlements across the UK, including the public [...]

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I wonder if the baby in question will ever have to be nervous about his parents finding out that he’s straight? mister choos. Which leads me to an interesting question. We’re near, perhaps not now but getting close to, the first generation of children born by surrogacy/artifical insemination/ in vitro techniques to same sex couples [...]

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