Tim Worstall

Please, can we have fewer of these insanely stupid ideas?

The left could begin by fighting for fairer and more redistributive taxation across the European Union - as a first step to a global agreement.

Sheesh!
Given the inequality of incomes across the EU that would mean that everyone in the richer northern countries would be shelling out […]

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While no one would begrudge the young their future choice of memories, it does seem that something has been lost in the process. For the rest of us, remembering and re-telling the moments when our shared environment changed - grew sharper, turned colourful, or involved less hassle - becomes a crucial collective experience, one that […]

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Bozos.
Using their online system, you cannot book a ticket from outside the country.
Which knuckle dragging mouth breather designed that system then?

Chief Operating Officer
Andrew Haines, Chief Operating Officer
The First Great Western executive team is led by Chief Operating Officer Andrew Haines, who joined First Great Western in September 2007.
Andrew has spent his entire career in […]

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Above all, global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources.

It is?
All the copper in those mines is evaporating as a result of the higher temperatures no doubt.

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So I just hope all the environmental NGOs can rally the troops in London in a pro-Ken campaign, even if they can’t come out and explicitly endorse him.

No, of course they can’t explicitly endorse him: that would be illegal, wouldn’t it? But mytrue venom is reserved for this idiotic statement.

Wouldn’t it be great, just once, […]

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Really rather confused here. She’s complaining about all the meat that people eat, how it’s trashing the planet.

This time last year it cost me about £7.50 a month to feed a pig on my small farm in Somerset; today it’s nearer £15.

So I trust that you’ll be shutting down that pig production unit for the […]

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Most Wonderful.

Entirely missing from their perspective is the social context and significance of the religious resurgence they are so anxious to beat back. Panicked by the rise of radical Islamism and the newly assertive religious identity of migrant communities in a secular Europe, the anti-religious evangelists are increasingly using atheism as a banner for the […]

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No, really, tit-jobs are caused by the evil corporations.

So the argument against breast enlargement is not really a feminist one - it has more in common with the anti-globalisation movement. We don’t please men by all trying to be the same shape, we please corporations. We make commodities of ourselves.

Absolutely nothing at all to do […]

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A quite wondrous column today. He starts off by quoting The Daily Mash, good man, showing some taste at last. Then, well, at the centre of his assertions is this:

A few weeks ago, the green thinker Jim Bliss roughly calculated the environmental costs of this technique. He used as his case study the scheme BP […]

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This is weird:

The question is not whether Tibet should be independent but the extent of the autonomy that it is allowed. Tibet has been firmly ensconced as part of the Chinese empire since the Qing dynasty’s military intervention in Tibet in the early 18th century.

The British conquered Mallorca in the 18 th century: should the […]

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Most voters have a profound sense of justice

Indeed they do Polly, indeed they do.

But the word "poverty" plays badly with focus groups, even with the poor themselves: people are unconvinced it exists outside Africa. "Redistribution" does badly too. Mention the word benefit and people add "scrounger" on the end - often encouraged by Labour ministers […]

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But there is a core message, an important one, directed ever more stridently at the poorest people in Britain and designed to deny hope and resourcefulness. If you are poor, the Government’s message is simple: “You are not in charge of your life and prosperity. We are. Trust us. Keep on voting for us or […]

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Monbiot says the new GP contract, the push for longer opening hours, is all part of the privatisation of the NHS. You see, if the GPs didn’t give in, then nasty private business would step into the breach.

So why is it so keen on this reform? Because it assists a quite different agenda. To avoid […]

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Jebus.

The working class have their own aspirations and ambitions.

You classist little shit you.
No point in giving them a bath tub you know, they’ll only keep the coal in it.

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From the World Have Your Say people at the World Service. And remember, this isn’t paid for by the licence fee, this is out of tax money:

Has Robert Mugabe got this right? He’s approved new laws giving local owners the right to take a majority share of foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe. (51% must belong […]

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Hmm, interesting question really, isn’t it. Why would people use a Foundation? That is, an organisation which owns itself, and has a charitable purpose?
Businesses owned by one pay the same tax as businsses owned in other ways, so that’s not it, no. It’s actually all about the transfer of the ownership of the whole organisation. […]

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Yes, we’ve got another bunch of do-gooders around, the Fair Pay Network.

Evidence suggests that fair pay policies increase worker efficiency within organisations that adopt them. This is primarily felt through the contribution which fair pay levels have in combating the recruitment and retention problems which plague employers of low-paid workers.

This is, of course, true. But […]

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Really?

The existing law regards lower prices as an unalloyed blessing, fining stores that collude to avoid them. That perspective is the right one in markets where shoppers choose purely rationally. But rational economic man is no drinker.

It’s irrational to get blitzed? That every human society has had a socially accepted method of doing so (booze, […]

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Gosh.

At the end of the bank results season the cumulative provisions of our major banks against loan losses as a result of the "credit crunch" exceeds £13bn, a new milestone for the Guinness Book of Records. All, though, surprisingly have managed higher absolute profits and increased their dividends. It seems that such is underlying bank […]

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The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, will today criticise the Prom concerts as one of many British cultural events that fail to engender new common values

Land of Hope and Glory, otherwise known as Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1, is a regular feature in the traditionally patriotic second half of the Last […]

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