Yes, pompous little prat.

Worstall has appeared occasionally on the Zelo Street radar as he has cheered on Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and UKIP, denounced Warren Buffet as a “liar” for being of inconvenient opinion, and told how the CP, which operates train services in his adopted country of Portugal, has sent its rolling stock to the UK for refurbishment, which it has not.

Erm, I’m a member of UKIP, I stood for them in the Euro-Parliament elections and in the run up to that election I was one of the press officers for the party.

What the fuck am I supposed to do, not cheer on the Leader of the party I’m a member of, standing for and working for? Not cheer on the party I’m a member of, standing for and working for?

We’re not all like the Labour Party you know, where the only reason for standing in front of someone is so that they can be knifed in the back.

As to Buffett, no, I said he was either mistaken, badly informed, or not telling quite the whole and true story (you do not, in any US media outlet, get to call Buffett a liar). Which he was, one at least of the three, as he ignored the effect of the corporate income tax on his tax rate.

As to sending rolling stock to the UK: I’d be amazed if I did claim that to be honest although with several million words of mine out there I can’t prove that I didn’t. What I do recall saying is that they had contracted out some of the refurb work on some rolling stock to a UK company. Which they did, for I would quite often have a pint with the bloke running the programme. I even went down to the works where they were doing it, had a look round and helped them dispose of some copper/silver/cadmium scrap from that refurb work.

So I think we’ll be taking Mr. Fenton’s views on “facts” as being variable, shall we?

As to this:

Forbes gives what are no more than op-ed pieces the grand title of “reports”, and so Worstall’s is given a gravitas it does not merit:

There’s a hint on the Forbes site actually. The link to the stories, the URL in fact:

http://blogs.forbes.com/timworstall/

It’s a blog matey, a blog.

He also confuses Laurie Penny’s Comment is Free (CiF) piece with Guardian news reporting: “the direct allegation that the Guardian published yesterday” being his actual words.

CiF is not Guardian editorial. Or perhaps Worstall would like to explain the presence there of folks like Norman Tebbit?

Or, indeed, the occasional presence of Tim Worstall on CiF. Pieces which are indeed published by The Guardian. And paid for by them as well.

None of which means “Guardian published” and “Guardian news reporting” are the same thing.

So, other than someone living in a place famous for being where people change trains but do not visit, who is this Tim Fenton?

Mr Sumner’s blog not only revealed his market monetarism to the world at large (“I cannot go anywhere in the world of economics…without hearing his name,” says Mr Cowen). It also drew together like-minded economists, many of them at small schools some distance from the centre of the economic universe, who did not realise there were other people thinking the same way they did. They had no institutional home, no critical mass. The blogs provided one.

Ms. Solent made the observation some 6 or 7 years ago. Nice to see that The Economist has caught up.

As an aside about the magazine itself. I used to read it religiously, cover to cover. Up until, hmm, about 2007, 2008. For before that it was an excellent wide ranging review of what was happening in odd parts of the world, often a very good guide to what was going to happen.

Since then it’s been rather a non-interesting roundup of what I’ve already read that week. Perhaps not of the actual pieces I’ve already read (although you can sometimes spot exactly where an idea has come from) but of the general news I’ve already seen online.

Just to make clear, this harrumph about the magazine is nothing to do with Ryan Avent getting Megan McArdle’s job blogging for them even though I tried out for it (and not even never being told sweet FA by the editor about whether or why I hadn’t got the job, very bad form that).

Nope, nothing at all……

He then tells us that:

show that right-wing ‘ideas’ on growth only involve attack workers wages

So let’s just walk out way through this timeline, shall we?

So we see a drop in the workers’ wages under Callaghan (Labour) then the workers’ wages start to rise under Thatcher I….and she was a horrible righty, wasn’t she? And under Thatcher II, then Thatcher III the worker’s wages are still rising. Then we have even more Bastard Tories in the shape of Major I and Major II and the workers’ wages just keep on rising.

And when does this top out? Just at the point that Gordon Brown (Labour, you will recall) started writing his own budgets. For they promised to follow the Tory (Bastard Right Wingers whose policies only involve attacks on the workers’ wages!) for the first couple of years.

The joy of this is of course that Sunny doesn’t in fact realise all of this. Tories oppress the workers, of course they do. Even his posting a graph which actually detailsthe opposite can’t make him change his mind on that. The cognitive dissonance associated with finding out that capitalism really does increase wages and social democracy doesn’t just cannot be accomodated.

The narrative across much of the Westminster media, who know little about economics

…..

The Minimum Income Standard found that:

basic out-of-work benefits provide well under half of the minimum income (net of rent and council tax) required for an adult with no children, and somewhat less than two-thirds for families with children.

If the government goes ahead with this, the number of children in poverty – already due to rise 200,000 by the time of the next election – will rise even further. I hope the government will decide that forcing children into poverty is as politically risky as doing the same to pensioners.

If anyone doubts what this could mean, it’s worth looking at this story from yesterday’s Coventry Telegraph: an ex-serviceman and his wife, who have committed suicide after being denied benefits.

Sigh.

Whatever the level of benefits is or should be has no effect on someone denied benefits.

Bastard, of course. How dare he when we haven’t/can’t/ inequality of happiness etc etc cont. pg 94 Grauniad

Cision Frontline Breakfast: come and meet the UK’s superstar bloggers

Rightie ho. Who then? Dale? Guido? Sunny? Will Straw? Mumsnet?

Who?

Alex Powis – The Daily Street
Alex writes for urban fashion and culture blog, The Daily Street – with particular focus on the music industry, being a DJ and producer. The Daily Street discusses anything from clothing and life style to trainers and art. The bloggers have entered deals with some of UK’s urban industry key people “which allows them to bring the latest news” to their readers. In January 2011, The Daily Street was ranked number one of the top 10 urban fashion and lifestyle blogs by Cision.

Vicki Jeffels – Vegemitevix
Vicki writes for her own blog, Vegemitevix. She moved with her three kids, dog, cat, a guitar and twenty boxes of books, from New Zealand to North Hampshire in the UK in August 2008. Vegmitevix is all about her experiences as a mother with the ups and downs of family life, her life as an expat and travelling adventures.

Delightful people both I’m absolutely certain but, umm, “UK’s superstar bloggers”?

Maybe I don’t get out and about enough, is that it?

1) Both Marie Stopes and BPAS are not-for-profit organisations. By definition they have no financial interest in women having more abortions.

Sunny seems to think that making a profit is the only possible financial interest that anyone could have.

The Tory Party is a not for profit organisation but I’m pretty sure he’d think that the Tory Party has financial interests.

Whilst I usually breeze through these landmark birthdays, this time it hurt. Truth to tell I’m pissed at turning 60. They say 60 is the new 50, but almost overnight I appear to have morphed into a grumpy, white-haired doppelganger of Spencer Tracy, circa Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. I’m not a happy bunny.

The value of something is determined by the value of the alternative.

I just realised that plenty of mainstream US Democrats, having spent the last however long castigating people to the left of them for perceiving some progressive tendencies in the government of Fidel Castro, are now reduced to supporting the re-election of a President who imprisons people without human rights in Cuba, but who has made excellent advances in the field of bringing healthcare to the poor.