Tim Worstall

It’s that old living wage argument coming out for another trot around the park, this time from a Labour councillor. Ed Miliband placed the living wage at the heart of his successful campaign for the Labour leadership, speaking of its potential to make Britain a “fairer and more prosperous place”. His leadership campaign championed the [...]

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The Guardian asks us for appropriate songs for the Euro. Rather than inflict my own songwriting on you, something from the past that seems appropriate. For it’s certainly going down, isn’t it?

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This is amusing. Last week it was all about how Andy Coulson had had access to the most secret government documents when it was obvious that he was a bad -un and shouldn’t have been let anywhere near them.This showed Cameron was incompetent and must go. This week it’s revealed that he didn’t have top [...]

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The number of low-skilled workers claiming the dole since the start of the recession has risen eight times more than the level for job seekers with advanced qualifications, official figures reveal. A wide-ranging analysis of jobs and unemployment since 2008 shows the number of people with little or no skills claiming jobless benefits rose by [...]

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The obituary of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald: So why have they got him in an Admiral’s uniform, not the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet?

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That means that we need to have a massive disaster management plan in place to get us through the potential crisis that  August represents.  I admit that I don’t have time to write that whole plan this morning, but here’s an outline of what is needed. Guess who?

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An interesting argument. The journalistic ethics of a previous generation were that the proprietor would not know, should not know, who sources were. Now we’re castigating a proprietor for not knowing who sources were?

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Math is hard, as Barbie said,  but could we try and get the arts people up to speed with simple arithmetic, just as a start? So, we’ve this awailin’ and a cryin’: Such debate as has been had about young people and their opportunities has focused exclusively on increased student fees and university numbers. This [...]

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One of the things to be open to outsourcing: wheelchair services for children Anyone care to have a stab at an argument about why this should be an NHS, directly provided, monopoly?

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Long piece here. But as has been pointed out about car seat belts: if we really want people to drive safely then ban seat belts and put a dagger on the steering wheel, aimed at the heart of the driver. The solution to repeated concussion in football players leading to their being punch drunk is [...]

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The financial and insurance sector paid out bonuses worth £14bn in the year to the end of March – the same as the previous year – with workers enjoying average bonuses of £12,500 last year, the Office for National Statistics said. Just glorious! Meanwhile, across the economy as a whole, bonuses of £35bn were paid, [...]

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Let’s hope he stays back, eh?

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Could it be that the left is predisposed to exaggerate the power of the press because doing so provides a comfortable explanation for what is an otherwise unpleasant fact – that the British people don’t share our beliefs for some deep-seated reasons?

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Here: Sure looks like a spnding, not a tax, problem to me. True, there’s no particular reason that tax should only be 18% of the economy, but it is true that even if tax were on that long run average, there would still be a huge deficit: so it’s not a collapse in revenues that’s [...]

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Snigger.

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It is simply not economically feasible to cut the US deficit without raising taxes, given that Americans are enjoying their lowest tax burden since 1958. It’s politics, not economics, which is the problem here. You can cut the US deficit quite easily purely through spending cuts. In an economic sense that is. Get shot of [...]

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NHP is to run the Southern Cross care homes alongside Dr Chai Patel, the former boss of the famous Priory clinic. The creation of the new business, which is yet to be named, helps to secure the future of more than half the Southern Cross care homes needing new operators. Southern Cross, Britain’s biggest care [...]

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Mr Gyimah said a retail bond market would create competition for small companies’ debt at a time when banks are adopting a “take it or leave it approach” to lending. Research published last week revealed that banks’ loan rejection rates have rocketed sevenfold since before the financial crisis. A small firms’ bond market would also [...]

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Nine years ago, I did tell you: The EU is not an optimal currency area. So it is inevitable that the disbenefits outweigh the benefits, if one looks at it in a solely economic manner. Yes, I was right, wasn’t I?

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This is utterly untrue. In a continent where collecting direct taxes is nigh on impossible – because people don’t earn enough and the infrastructure is not in place – tariffs are essential if revenue is to be raised. But Cameron wants them abolished. Yes, abolish them, create an African free trade area. More than that – Cameron [...]

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