Tim Worstall

I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that Equatorial Guinea is a vile dictatorship but this little bit of copying of one of the worst ideas from elsewhere in Africa leapt out at me: A teacher told me schools used to make a little money by selling uniforms to parents. Last year, however, Obiang’s family [...]

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So, on the official EU measurements there is “more poverty” in this country than in Poland. That is what happens when you misdescribe inequality as poverty. As Professor Saunders mordantly observes: “The people in Britain who get defined as poor actually enjoy a standard of living far higher than most Poles. Polish workers move to [...]

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On teen pregnancy rates. Hackney, one of London’s most deprived boroughs, saw a 25% drop in its teen pregnancy rate; Blackburn, also with high levels of deprivation, saw a comparable improvement. Have they controlled for a change in the local population? This is very much a question, not an assertion, for I don’t really know. [...]

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I’ve harped on this before but it’s worth another little run. Almost one in six children in Britain are living in households in which nobody has a job, according to a new report. The UK average for children in jobless households is 15.3 per cent, but this rises to almost a quarter in London and [...]

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I know the arguments and I know how the figures are calculated. According to the DWP, the median weekly income in 2007/08 for a couple with two children was £601 before housing costs and £533 after housing costs. Such a couple would be considered poor if their monthly income pre-housing was £361, or £322 after [...]

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The government insisted supplies were secure but the price of diesel rose 10% amid panic buying of fuel by motorists. Never believe anything until this government denies it.

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This won’t surprise those with my level of cynicism: Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”. The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for [...]

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