Tim Worstall

When I’m dictator for life the English tourist board will launch a worldwide campaign “Stick to your own Grot hole you poxy gits” and then be shut down.

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Well, yes, sorta.

But these seasons slip by unnoticed, while we gorge on a monolithic diet of white bread, potatoes and red meat. We steadfastly ignore the real beauty of the alimentary calendar. The unique landscape and growing conditions found in each UK region should allow a recognisable distinctiveness that local people can not only take […]

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More figures about regional inequality from the ONS. This time it’s Gross Disposable Household Income.

The total represents the cash left after that person has paid his or her mortgage interest payments, taxes, including council tax, rent, insurance and pension contributions.

So we’ve already stripped housing costs out of this, which is possibly the largest regional variation […]

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Which all sounds great. So where do I sign up? This is a difficult one. Even among exclusive all-male drinking clubs, the Bullingdon is a notably exclusive all-male drinking club. A quick survey of known recent members reveals that around 60% are Old Etonians; the rest simply went to really posh public schools. Osborne is […]

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I’ve muttered about this before and this seems to confirm at least part of it.

It found that workers in the capital and the Home Counties generate a third of the nation’s wealth, producing £375 billion a year in goods and services, out of the nation’s total output of £1,155 billion. London alone produces £218 billion.
Londoners […]

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Anyone recognise this?

"But it’s also a country of animal-loving, tea-drinking, charity donors, where queuing remains a national pastime and bastions of civilisation, such as Radio 4, are jealously protected."

Or is this more accurate?

The guide says: "As a glance at the tabloid newspapers will confirm, England is […]

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Seamus thinks that the seal raping the pengiun story will be the top one for the year:

Why am I troubling you with this prurient bestiophilic drivel? Just because I am pretty much certain that at the end of the year this will prove to have been the most-viewed, emailed, Dugg or by any other metric […]

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Why is it always retired Ambassadors who are so sensible?

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Labour’s three consecutive election victories have been based on a bedrock of English votes.

The bedrock is the Celts: the English votes are the swing ones, surely?

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Maybe they were right, maybe not, but this?

They offered them a shorter route that avoided two streets at the centre of the race riots in 2001, and an alternative date for the event on July 1.

As I say, maybe there really were safety fears, but to offer an alternative date for a march on the […]

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This is, of course, the reason why in just about every British town of any size, the slums are in the east.

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Gordon Brown is one of the least talented people in Britain, along with Heather Mills and Kerry Katona, according to a new poll.

Sadly though, they all still do quite well: so what does that tell us about Britain?

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A startling revelation: the Frogs are trying to spice up their sex lives and in doing so they’re buying up British designed sex toys.
One possible explanation is that the Brits (as George Mikes pointed out, the Continentals have sex lives, the British have hot water bottles) needed technological assistance and thus developed the technology […]

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Jerusalem, one of the country’s best-loved hymns and the favourite of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has been banned from services at one of Britain’s foremost churches.
The verses, which were written by William Blake more than two centuries ago, cannot be sung by choirs or congregations at Southwark Cathedral because the words do not praise God […]

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So, how come this is true?

British families are healthier and twice as well off as they were two decades ago but are no happier, according to an official survey.
Life expectancy has increased significantly over the past 35 years for both men and women, while the number of people dying from heart disease and strokes has […]

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So, not a new problem then, not something caused by the alienation of a neo-liberal economy or whatever the current trope is:

The English, who are now among the worst binge-drinkers in Europe, were also renowned as drunks in the Middle Ages.
"A surviving 12th-century Latin manuscript refers disapprovingly to ‘Potatrix Anglia’ - ‘England the drunken’," said […]

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Aren’t we suppoed to be celebrating it? The things which historically have bound us together?

give an airing to Britain’s vibrant tradition of racism.

Or isn’t that what Maddy means*?
 
*Working out what Maddy actually does mean is a task too complex for me, apologies.

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The 2013 Olympic Games are going to be fun, aren’t they?

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Quite:

But there is one characteristic that at least distinguishes the English from equally admirable races. We pride ourselves on not boasting about being English. When G.K. Chesterton wrote of “the people of England that never have spoken yet”, he did not mean to suggest that we had nothing to say for ourselves - merely that […]

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Most people in Britain do not believe they could lead their lives enjoyably or successfully without alcohol - but don’t consider this to be a problem either, according to new research.
The fear of a life without alcohol is so endemic that most adults say they are scared by the idea of socialising, relaxing, taking part […]

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