Tim Worstall

Before privatisation, it used to be simple: British Gas supplied gas while electricity came from the regional electricity boards. But whereas greater competition should have forced prices down, it is now dominated by half a dozen major players. And the way they are behaving has many of the characteristics of a price-fixing cartel — though, [...]

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So of course this is going to happen: Tim Jones, the chief executive of the National Employment Savings Trust (Nest), said that forcing companies to offer all members of staff a workplace scheme would result in the “redistribution” of workers’ wages towards the extra huge pensions bill. He said: “There is no new money in [...]

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The Reform, the palatial gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall which numbered the traitor Guy Burgess among its members, must be feeling the pinch now that David Walker, the husband of The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee, can no longer wine and dine his contacts there at the taxpayers’ expense. Yeah, yeah, only having pop so they can [...]

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Sir Simon was pressed by the committee about revelations in this newspaper that developers who stood to benefit from the changes had donated millions of pounds to the Conservatives and whether this had any bearing on the planning reforms. He replied: “This process has seen the most intensive lobbying I’ve seen in a long time [...]

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Hell, it’s Lancashire, so drill baby, drill.

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OK, so that last time around I was given a great big raspberry (several in fact) for not understanding the basic units etc etc. So, let me ask the same question in a different way. With a bit of background so that people can understand why I’m asking this question. Forget domestic, forget lights, fridges, [...]

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We can start by setting up local barter currencies in every city that help new enterprises use wasted land, buildings, resources and people. Err, yes. Just what we need, we really should stop Lambeth from trading with Southwark. Tony Greenham is head of business and finance at Nef (the New Economics Foundation). He has previously [...]

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Taxman accused of ‘cover-up’ over Goldman’s bill Britain’s most senior taxman will be asked by MPs to reveal information about tax settlements with Goldman Sachs and Vodafone – or face accusations that he is mis-using confidentiality rules to “cover up his own mistakes”. So they’re going to haul Dave Harnett up before the committee and [...]

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This doesn’t look good: Jose Manuel Barroso has said he will this week propose “individual criminal responsibility for financial players to be recognised in European law”. The plans for an EU-wide directive would focus on curbing high frequency trading. Two entirely different things here. 1) Are we absolutely certain that we want to have the [...]

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During the past century global average temperatures have risen by almost 1C, and climate experts predict 7C of warming by 2100. Where? Who? There are a few fanatics predicting 7 oC, yes, but not any respectable scientists. Are there?

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Something I’ve just realised about the Daily Telegraph’s campaign, “Hands off Our Land“. They’re not in fact demanding that government take its hands off their land. They’re arguing that government should put its hands all over everyone else’s land. Far from saying “It’s my land, gerroff it” they’re saying “that’s his land don’t let him [...]

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At the ASI. Political gridlock means politicians can demand less in protection money.

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I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture. Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. Yet pundits continue to hallucinate trends [...]

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Wonders will never cease, eh? The government is to launch a “house swap” programme, reminiscent of Norman Tebbit’s call for the jobless to “get on your bike”, in an attempt to encourage people to move around the country to find work. The controversial plan to tackle the unemployment crisis means people living in social housing [...]

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There is, however, one great benefit from this decision: perhaps for the first time, the judges’ way of thinking has been made absolutely clear. They think it is for the Supreme Court to decide when the elected government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and then to correct its legislative blunders. Lord Brown does not spell [...]

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It made Dr Fox seem like a 21st-century Bob Boothby: Is this another of these coded references then?

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Speaking at the protest, political campaigner Peter Tatchell proposed a one-off 20pc emergency tax on the net wealth of the richest 10pc of the UK population, as well as the introduction of a “Tobin Tax” on financial transactions. “The richest 10pc of the UK population have a combined personal wealth of £4 million, million. A [...]

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The orders – which record an advance decision that a patient’s life should not be saved if their heart stops – are routinely being applied without the knowledge of the patient or their relatives. On one ward, one-third of DNR orders were issued without consultation with the patient or their family, according to the NHS’s [...]

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At the ASI. Is politics meritocratic or not?

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You know  the one, rents are too damn high? For example, Dave Hill (who is usually better with numbers than this): Oh dearie me. “They’ll be paying their landlord £825 per month. Let’s say that one of the parents is working, as is the case with two-thirds of private renting households in the country. Shelter [...]

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