Tim Worstall

Thanks Mark for pointing out in the comments to my last but one post the similarity between Nigel Farage and Dmitry Medvedev. Right, right, so how do we take advantage of this fact? We send Nigel over to the Kremlin, Nigel drugs, binds and gags Dmitry and hides him in a cupboard. Nigel then sends [...]

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Helps that he’s one of ours, too.

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However, news reaches me that David Cameron’s nearest neighbour on his relaxing Cornish holiday (and by that, I mean the next house round the cliff) is none other than UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

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Well now, this is interesting: Declan Ganley is planning to field more than 400 candidates in next June’s European Parliament elections, in the 26 countries – including Britain – where voters have had no direct say on the treaty. The energy and rhetoric of Mr Ganley, a multimillionaire businessman, was widely credited with persuading the [...]

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In a departure from our normal blogging, a little background on Tim Worstall (that being myself) and why you might want to vote for me in the upcoming UKIP London Region MEP selection process. I think you should vote for me because I think I would make an excellent MEP: but I agree, that’s really [...]

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Oh yes, super. Along with all the normal goodness you would expect two quite wonderful moments. TEBAF Margot insisting that the Lisbon Treaty should indeed go ahead because she’s worked her little fingers to the bone on it and a lovely Dan Hannan bit. When asked "What were the Irish voting against" he suggests it [...]

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European integration implies successive transfers of national sovereignty to the Union. Perhaps it does, so let’s ask the important question: do we desire European integration? The secondary one, do we desire European integration at the price of the transfer of national sovereignty to the Union? I don’t desire such integration, no. I have a feeling [...]

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The way this works: Government targets have led police to ignore serious crimes in favour of focusing on more trivial offences, a Labour-leaning think-tank says today. James Crabtree, associate director of Public Services at the IPPR, said: "Current targets to bring more offenders to justice have resulted in the police concentrating on easier to solve [...]

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That is, a proposal from Tim Montgomerie to the Tories. It would cost £44 billion to take approximately 14,000,000 people out of the tax system altogether. The Conservative government doesn’t have to set a timetable, but it would be the greatest of missions; as radical and just as Margaret Thatcher’s sale of council homes. It [...]

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Yes, this is indeed a hit, a veritable bullseye. Lord Pearson of Rannoch: The reason why I and my Eurosceptic friends believe that noble EU pensioners should declare that interest in our debates is that EU pensions are perhaps unique in that holders can lose them if they fail to uphold the EU’s interests or [...]

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Over in Strasbourg. It seems that if you haven’t got the right ideas, the right mindset, then they’ll simply throw you out. Even if you do have a pass, even is an MEP has indeed asked you to be there. Very democratic, don’t you think?

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Den Dover, the former chief whip for the Tories in the European parliament, has paid for two cars worth £65,000 using a family company bankrolled out of parliamentary expenses. Dover has been paying up to £100,000 a year in European Union allowances into the family firm MP Holdings. The money is mainly intended to meet [...]

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Guido cranks some numbers and yes, they’re interesting. However, what we might remember, and actually use as a line a time or two, is this. 100 % of the popular votes on the Lisbon Treaty have returned a no answer. 100%.

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Documents show that Paul Cottingham was given secretarial allowances worth £8,143 a month to administer in 2002. This was the maximum allowance available at the time. Euro-MPs can now receive an allowance for staff of £160,000 a year. Mr Cashman says that he currently pays his civil partner an annual salary of £30,000 inclusive of [...]

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Erm, no, you’ve got this the wrong way around. I have jolted quite a long way down a winding path into the future; but it is a perfectly plausible path. Just as Europe finally puts all the arguments about its own constitution behind it, and starts to get to grips with the issues that really [...]

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One slight correction needed here. If, on the other hand, Labour and Lib Dem MEPs are also shown to be behaving improperly, then anger will be directed not at the Conservatives but at the EU – which may actually boost the Tories, who are seen as the least Euro-enthusiastic of the three main parties. When [...]

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The ICM opinion poll for Global Vision, the Eurosceptic campaign group, found that among people who want to remain in the EU, a majority would like Britain to opt out of political and economic union, and restrict itself to links based on trade and co-operation. Roughly the Norway or Switzerland option: it’s difficult to say [...]

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Last night Mr Cameron’s efforts to appear tough were dealt a blow when the party’s chairman, Caroline Spelman, defended her own staffing arrangements. Ms Spelman admitted that when she became an MP in 1997 she employed as a constituency assistant a woman who also looked after her children, but insists that the staff member fully [...]

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News from Brussels. All that hard work that Mrs. and Miss Dover do in Brussels and Strasbourg….and yet no one would recognise them there. Odd, ain’t it?  

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They might, you know, they might.… A TNS/MRBI poll published in the Irish Times shows that opposition to the EU Treaty has more than doubled over the last week, increasing from 17 to 35 per cent over the last three weeks. Support for Yes campaigners, supporting a Treaty crafted to replace the old EU Constitution [...]

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