Tim Worstall

Col Gaddafi’s second son and heir apparent appeared on television late in the evening to say there would be “rivers of blood” and that Libya was on the brink of a civil war that would burn its oil wealth. “Our spirits are high and the leader Muammar Gaddafi is leading the battle in Tripoli, and [...]

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So, the latest booze scare: Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “How many more people have to die from alcohol-related conditions, and how many more families devastated by the consequences before the Government takes the situation as seriously as it took the dangers of tobacco? “We already know from the [...]

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Hmm: Details of a cache of 24 presents totalling nearly £200,000 and allegedly given by Silvio Berlusconi to the teenage dancer at the centre of the under age prostitution charge against him emerged from prosecutors details of the case against him. Berlusconi’s a billionaire, isn’t he. Assume it’s just one billion. £200,000 in presents out [...]

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Journalists need to accept more responsibility when reporting on climate change findings, and perhaps guidelines need to be drawn up. All the news that we approve of your printing perhaps…..

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Standing at the newspaper counter just now, as one does, my eye, as it can be, was drawn to the current Portuguese Penthouse, the cover story of which, translated, seems to be: Sodomy, the ultimate taboo. Now I agree, given my age, inclinations and general uxoriousness, I don’t know this following statement to be true, [...]

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The Resolution Foundation has detailed the impact on the 6 million lower- and middle-income households in Britain whose average net household income is £20,300 a year and who spend disproportionally more on the goods going up fastest in price. A fifth are now materially deprived and over half have savings worth less than a month’s [...]

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At the ASI. It’s the regulations, stupid

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But for all this, the twin motors of capitalism and consumerism are driving profound changes for the better, especially when allied with technological advances, good governance and rapid urbanisation. People are living longer. Their lives are more prosperous and more peaceful. Excellent stuff: but this is about Africa and it’s in The Observer. How did [...]

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No, not that sort, the regular sort: The casting of Portman, Moore and Bening, all straight actresses, in the roles of women who are bisexual or lesbian has provoked acrimony in Hollywood’s gay community. Some argued that only well-known heterosexual stars were happy to take gay parts because they could be confident their career would [...]

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“Water poverty” will become the new fuel poverty for an increasing number of households as scarcity of supply pushes up bills, according to an influential thinktank that says Britain must deal urgently with climate change. A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one of the largest social policy research-and-development charities, says that low-income households are [...]

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The report, Richer Yet Poorer: Economic inequality and polarisation in the North of England, shows that economic growth has exacerbated the gap between rich and poor with the highest-earning 20% increasing their earnings at double the rate of the bottom 20%. Periods of fast economic growth do tend to do this, increase inequality. One reason, [...]

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Looking at their 2009 financial statements, we find that income tax paid in 2009 was £3.1m 1 and that profit for the financial year (after significant items) was £164.6m 2. That makes their ‘effective tax rate’ under the Guardian’s preferred metric a measly 1.9%. Excellent work. A serious note to the Barlcay’s PR team. You’ve [...]

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UKUncut really are remarkable. They’ve managed to once again take as their target a company which isn’t doing anything wrong with tax: Barclays. Think through their targets so far: Arcadia does pay all of its corporation tax, Lady Green isn’t British and doesn’t live here, so there’s no tax system on the planet which would [...]

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The Guardian’s editorial today seems worth noting in full. Apologists for abuse and those who just want to abuse need not comment. Your repeating of a copyrighted newspaper article in full is indeed gross abuse of copyright. Did you ask permission before breaking said law? Pay them? You know, before stealing the property of another?

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Dunno how exactly true this is but it’s persuasive to me: ‘On page 38 of the Annual Report you will find the relevant figures for corporation tax paid to the UK in the financial years 2007, 2008 and 2009. You will note that Barclays had an effective corporation tax rate of 27%, 9% and 23% [...]

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Today: It is I think quite fair to say that a great many people who callled me yesterday afternoon were stunned by the news that Barclays paid just £113 million in tax in the UK in 2009. And off we go into a discussion of how they’re tax dodging bastards. Yet we actually know the [...]

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The latest from the numpties. Having, themselves, shown that advertising services to help people quit smoking has no effect on the number of people who quit smoking, they insist that more advertising should be done. Given that we can’t hang them anymore can we at least stop spending tax money on them?

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Toby Young in The Spectator: But even if you bracket that question, Murphy’s definition of “tax compliance” doesn’t get us very far. For instance, it lets Vodafone off the hook since “the economic substance” of the company’s “transactions” were carried out in Germany, not the UK. Non-doms, too, wriggle free since the tax they avoid [...]

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Saying that everyone could be made better off with increased international trade is not the same as people actually being made better off. There are winners and losers from increased international trade, and while I agree that the gains exceed the losses in almost all cases, the gains haven’t been distributed in a way that [...]

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Yet as corporation tax rates have come down in the UK, from 52% in the late 1970s to 28% today, total revenue from the levy has remained surprisingly buoyant. EU figures show that the UK’s corporation tax take was worth 3.6% of GDP in 2008 – down slightly from 4% in 2006, before the credit [...]

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