Tim Worstall

Back-up power generation capacity will be available for unwindy days, with gas or coal power filling in the gaps. What’s difficult to manage is the fact that it takes around three to four hours to switch on a coal station, about 90 minutes to get a gas station running full blast, and several days to [...]

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A strategy review by the new chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group is set to push total job cuts at the taxpayer-backed bank to in excess of 43,000, equivalent to the population of Winchester. This is what they wanted, after all. A smaller banking sector…..no?

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Because it’s not certain that they actually know the law themselves: “Restaurant owners are supposed to apply income tax and National Insurance to tips, but when tips are paid in cash, it’s all too easy for waiting staff to pocket them and for the proprietor to turn a blind eye. It’s understandable as many restaurant [...]

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Slightly odd statement in an obituary: Although two of the Indian characters were played by ethnic actors (in fact, one was Pakistani and the other Bangladeshi), an English actor, Michael Bates, “blacked up” to play the main comic “native”, the anglophile servant Rangi Ram. This, plus the casually racist humour of the time and the [...]

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OK, so it’s the IMF this time. But a report on a cyber attack follows a standard a set patterm Organisation X has been hit by a cyber attack/phishing attempt/hacked. Organisation X has information that could be used to do Y. Then the fun bit: Mohan Koo, a cyber security specialist who is managing director [...]

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SON: You could buy me some Pokemon Black and White cards.

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Royal Bank of Scotland’s head of group resourcing, Susan Bor, is leaving the company as part of a restructuring exercise. …….as part of these changes Bor has decided, after 12 years at RBS, that it is time to leave. An internal e-mail states that “Susan feels that now is the right time for her to [...]

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The mistress of disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin has resigned from her role at the Royal Bank of Scotland. During Sir Fred’s tenure, the woman ran a large team but now wants to explore other options.

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The questions remain though, Tim: Why did you take the word of a proven fantasist, liar and police informer at face value and without a jot of corroborating evidence in support of his claims? And what exactly are you doing in bed with such a deeply unsavoury nonentity? Well, lessee. Individual I’ve never met (let [...]

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Oh, very good indeed.

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Britain’s challenges require a wholly different mindset. The country has to rebuild itself economically and socially. It has to develop a good, long-termist capitalism with innovation, investment and engaging the people at its heart. But that in turn requires preconditions. Indeed it does. it needs a web of supporting institutions, regulations and processes, ranging from [...]

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At the ASI. Yes, it really were Maggie what done it.

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I can appreciate that greater European union has benefits for the continent’s politicians, who get their hands on the delightful baubles of office: motorcades, private jets, fawning officials and the intoxicating sense of power. But what does it do for the rest of us? To put partisanship aside for a moment (difficult, I know, for [...]

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So we are told: More than 1,800 homes for the old and disabled are not providing decent care, with staff even failing to ensure that the frail and vulnerable are properly fed, the statistics from watchdogs reveal. Campaigners said elderly people were being left in conditions which would not befit a dog, as shocking failings [...]

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The David Miliband and Ed Balls leaks are meant to hurt Labour. Why now? Because the Labour Party needs to be trampled into the dust. The buildings razed, the population sold into bondage and the land ploughed with salt. It is sweet and necessary for us to kill our enemies and to hear the lamentations [...]

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Specifically, renewables tehnology, which is a pity as he’s an environmental correspondent. These powered swimsuits presage the growing development of “thin-film” solar panels, which can be printed like a page rather than constructed from costly silicon. This promises to provide a host of new ways of generating electricity, and bring costs crashing down. Mark Little, [...]

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At the ASI. We’ve found the secret of what makes people happy….

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The other day, I heard that a top executive of one of our biggest power companies has had an emergency generator installed in his large house. One must assume that he knows something we don’t. Maybe he can do the sums: offshore wind just isn’t going to be built fast enough to take over from [...]

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He titles his piece: The IMF says tax havens are a danger to society Then says: The IMF also asserts, without presenting any evidence, that tax havens and the ‘tax competition’ between jurisdictions that they lead, make for more efficient resource allocation in global markets. The title and the body are somewhat different, no? For [...]

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Compass, that lefty campaigning organisation that charges a subscription fee so that Neal Lawson can earn a hefty wedge, is asking people what is their definition of the Good Society. Here. And seeing as it’s friday, that afternoon when we’re all looking for something to do to while away the hours until the pub, why [...]

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