Tim Worstall

Sunny thinks that: But parodies of films and music aren’t allowed under UK copyright law, unless you have explicit permission of the copyright owner. I didn’t know this either until this week. My response: That’s because it’s not true. You can parody anything you like. You just cannot include someone else’s copyright material in your [...]

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I think it’s an interesting reflection on politics today when the choice in a major election is between a drunken, possibly alcoholic, philanderer and a philanderer. I’ve nothing at all against booze, excessive consumption of such, extra-marital legovers nor even illegitimate children. All add enormously to the gaiety and variety of life and no society [...]

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We’ve the usual screaming nonsense from The Guardian today about offshore wind power. Twats: As well as hundreds of miles of cabling to connect the turbines to the shore, fleets of boats have to be built, including heavy barges for laying the foundations and turbines, and smaller vessels to ferry workers for construction and maintenance [...]

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Ireland has shocked Europe with plans for a referendum on the EU’s fiscal treaty, a move that risks an unprecedented fragmentation of the eurozone and a major clash with Germany. Put on the popcorn!

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Given the success of my last foray into this story I fihnd this interesting: The consensus among health professionals yesterday was that there is something about people who take sleeping pills that makes them likely to die earlier – but it’s almost certainly a complex combination of factors. If they need pills to sleep, that [...]

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Chris Huhne has accepted a taxpayer-funded payout of more than £17,000 despite being the first Cabinet minister in history to be forced out of office due to a criminal investigation. Well, we didn’t did we?

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Sorry Laura; that’s just wrong. The duty of a company that wants to be a good corporate citizen – or even just law abiding – is to be tax compliant. Tax compliance is seeking to pay the right amount of tax (but no more) in the right place at the right time where right means [...]

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I love this. A series of posts. All saying much the same thing. Because HMRC already has the power to stop abusive tax shenannigans and has done so in the case of Barclay’s this proves that HMRC must have more power. Eh? That HMRC were able to put a stop to it without the general [...]

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Makes me feel very odd indeed but I do agree: I would outlaw marriage for everyone, including heterosexuals, and grant access to a civil partnership union across the board. This is the situation in, just as an example, Portugal. In a legal sense there is no such thing as marriage. There is just the single [...]

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The NHS was always rationed. What matters is whether it is done rationally or haphazardly, nationally or by postcode, in public or secretly. Entering its greatest ever cash crisis, it matters more than ever how its shrinking funds are spent. Indeed, something free at the point of use and also highly desirable will need some [...]

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Doctors call for rethink after large study finds prescribed pills could be associated with up to 0.5m extra deaths a year in US That’s a lot, certainly. The study was carried out in the US, where up to 10% of the adult population took sleeping pills in 2010. The authors estimate that sleeping pills may [...]

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Recruitment programmes that filter out candidates who fail gain at least 2:1 degrees run counter to many employers’ duties to hire a “diverse” workforce, it is claimed. Imagine that, discrimination against the thick and or lazy.

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“The role of the private sector is critical because innovation at the technology frontier is quite different in nature from catching up technologically. It is not something that can be achieved through government planning.” That’s about China but it applies everywhere. The technological frontier is where, by definition, you don’t know what’s going to work, [...]

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Ritchie’s not blogging at Forbes any more. I wonder why? Did they not renew his contract or something?

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So, we’re talking about tax avoidance. No one, of course, denies that business should not claim allowances and reliefs clearly intended for their use. To claim capital allowances and R & D relief is tax compliant in most cases (there can be doubts when leasing is involved in some cases). Tax compliance is seeking to [...]

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More than 160 German tax collectors have volunteered for possible assignments in Greece to help the struggling Mediterranean country gather tax more efficiently, the finance ministry said in Berlin at the weekend.The offer risks fuelling resentment among Greeks who have already reacted angrily to earlier German calls for the appointment of a “budget commissioner” to [...]

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Sales of fairly traded products have bucked the trend of decline in the UK retail market to grow by 12% in the last year. The value of Fairtrade products sold through shops reached £1.32bn in 2011, compared to £1.17bn in 2010, according to figures from the Fairtrade Foundation, as it launches its annual marketing fortnight [...]

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Michael Portillo, the former Conservative defence secretary, also said the statistics had taken him by surprise. “The tax system is more progressive than I had imagined,” he said. How long have you been in friggin’ politics? Shouldn’t you actually know by now that the UK tax system is markedly more progressive than those of most [...]

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The silent film The Artist, a tribute to the golden age of Hollywood which has been described as the most joyful film of the year, took three of the five big awards at this year’s Oscars including Best Actor for Jean Dujardin. Don’t let anyone speak French in it.

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