Skip to content

Tim Worstall

Ah, but were they good jokes?

Léo Lins was found guilty of inciting intolerance with a 2022 stand-up routine that made fun of black people, indigenous people, fat people, gay people, Jews, evangelicals, disabled people and those with HIV.

During the performance, which was uploaded to YouTube and has more than three million views, Lins told a 4,000-strong crowd in Curitiba, in southern Brazil: “Prejudice, to me, is a primitive thing that shouldn’t exist any more. Just like indigenous people. Enough already.”

Wearing a bright red shirt and yellow trousers, he warned the audience that he “jokes about everything and everyone”.

He told them: “What show could be more inclusive? I even hired a sign language interpreter just to be able to offend the deaf-mute.”

Anyone got a translation?

Ho well

Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos “surrender” deal will fund tax cuts for Mauritians, it has emerged.

The Mauritian government has said it would use almost £500 million in payments under the terms of the Chagos agreement to pay off its national debt.

This will allow ministers to abolish income tax entirely for 81 per cent of employed Mauritians, and raise minimum salaries.

Rachel wouldn’t have let us keep the money anyway – tax cuts are for foreigners.

Ah

The wealthy love the national debt in the UK.

There is nothing that suits their purpose better than having the UK government in debt to them, and that’s why they love the national debt.

Let’s be clear what the national debt is. This supposed debt is simply the total amount of money that the government has spent into the UK economy that it has yet to reclaim by way of tax.

The national debt is created by government spending. There is no other way that it can come into existence. The government spends, and it doesn’t tax back enough. It creates a deficit in a year, and that adds to the national debt.

So government spending does not pay for itself, multipliers are too low for that to happen. Good to know, good to know.

This is fun too:

And that’s because capital gains, and inheritances, and other forms of income derived from wealth in the UK are heavily undertaxed, rarely, in net terms, paying more than about 4% per year.

The risk free return is about 5%. Inflation is 2 to 3% at present. If there’s a 4% tax on wealth then that means that the tax rate upon wealth is well over 100% of the risk free return on wealth.

Y’know, mebbe there’s not much room for taxing wealth more then?

A little thing

Sly Stone is gone but as everybody will be pointing out he left the stage a long, long, time ago.

They were the only band at Woodstock who had had a number 1. This is it.

Cracking piece…..

Are our courts really this bad?

A church sacked an accountant after she was discriminated against for not being Catholic, a tribunal has found.

University of Cambridge-educated Janet Parker argued with her female boss after she asked for leave to care for her newly adopted daughter.

When the 55-year-old’s request for flexible working was refused, she complained, observing that “the Catholic Church does not have a blemish-free history when it comes to adopted children or children in care”.

Ms Parker was then subjected to a “witch hunt” investigation for alleged professional negligence, which led to her dismissal from her £60,000-a-year role.

She has now won claims against Clifton Diocese after a tribunal ruled it discriminated against her, harassed her and then unfairly sacked her because she was not religious.

Ms Parker, who later told a reporter that she was an atheist, claimed the diocese’s approach to her flexible working request was “tainted by negative views of adoption, emanating from the religious beliefs of its staff”.

And she’s won and getting compo. I assume because the court is packed with idiots.

The Catholic Church has a negative view of adoption, does it?

Sheesh.

So, not a market based solution then?

Jeremy Pocklington, the permanent secretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, told the public accounts committee last December that 75pc of the money to fund carbon capture would come from levies on consumer and business energy bills and the rest from taxes.

And, of course, they’re already shrieking for more money:

A green technology project pioneered by Ed Miliband faces collapse without an additional £4bn in funding, industry chiefs have warned.

Sigh.

Yer wa’?

A video showing England fans singing “Ten German Bombers” in front of a young boy has been posted to a Facebook group run by the Football Association.

The 22-second clip was uploaded to the official page of the England Supporters Travel Club (ESTC) a little under two hours before Thomas Tuchel’s first away game as national team manager.

The footage shows a number of fans singing the illicit chant in a bar,

So it’s not actually the FA posting it, etc. Bit “illicit”? Impolitic perhaps but actually claiming that it’s illegal?

That’s about where we tell the people doing the defining to fuck off isn’t it? And if they have declared it to be illegal then we definitely tell ’em to fuck off.

Only a thought

It has taken until 2025 for a government to allocate the funding required to make the project happen. Today, we are setting aside £14.2bn to fund Sizewell C – so we can power the equivalent of around 6m homes with clean, homegrown energy that we control.

Where’s the British uranium mine?

Sheesh

Bloke wants to explain dynamics of US political policy etc.

deployed the National Guard in the Californian city
…
Trump wants to use the Federal force he supposedly loathes to impose his will in a place that wants to handle matters in its own way.

The result is a second conflict that has grown out of the first, between protestors and the Federal forces,

Erm

The National Guard is a state-based military force

Glorious

Yet it was Hang On Sloopy that remained Derringer’s signature tune and when he was touring with Starr’s band he would introduce the song by pointing out that when it was No 1 in the American charts, the Beatles’ Yesterday was stuck at No 2. What he omitted to point out was that McCartney’s song subsequently supplanted the McCoys’ hit and stayed at No 1 for a month, but it was a great story. “They don’t have to know which one was going which direction,” Derringer joked.

After he’d told the story on stage a few times it occurred to him that perhaps he should ask his band leader if he minded the impertinent swank. “It’s fine,” Starr told him. “I didn’t play on either of them.”

Tho’, to be fair, best version of that song is Basie:

Why?

Only talking Italian will do on Venice market stalls
Critics have branded the move racist but councillors insist it is needed to save struggling markets from closure amid chronic population decline

Venetians don’t speak Italian, they speak Veneto.

This being a truth of most of Italy. The only people who really speak Italian are the Florentines – because that’s the variant of the Romance languages which was chosen to be “Italian”.

This is why Italian is so easy to learn as a language. For you don’t need to learn it very well – it’s a second language for pretty much everyone else too.

Bit barrel scraping isn’t it?

Multiple women have accused Jared Leto of impropriety, with some calling the 53-year-old actor and musician’s behavior “predatory, terrifying and unacceptable”.

In a new report by Air Mail on Saturday, nine women have come forward to accuse Leto of engaging in inappropriate behavior over the years, including flirting with teenagers.

Film star smiles at 18 year old. Jail ‘im.

OK, OK, chats up 16 year olds. And?

Hmm

Ocean acidification, often called the “evil twin” of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater.

It’s not so much acidification as a reduction in alkalinity – we’re still not crossing the 7 neutral boundary.

found that ocean acidification’s “boundary” was also reached about five years ago.

So we’re all dead already then?

It found that by 2020 the average ocean condition worldwide was already very close to – and in some regions beyond – the planetary boundary for ocean acidification. This is defined as when the concentration of calcium carbonate in seawater is more than 20% below preindustrial levels.

And how valid is that as a target?

Now, me being as I am, I’d assume that we’ve been here – on a planetary basis that is – before. Those past periods of warming and high CO2. So, what happened to the shellfishes when it did?

Rilly?

The Government’s official climate change adviser is to spend £8.2m on a report assessing the risks of global warming to the UK – roughly five times the cost of the previous study.

The Climate Change Committee said the significant funding uplift was needed because of the growing complexity of the task.

But as we’re getting stuff sorted, building out Ed’s dreams, then it’s getting simply, no? Only the last bit to go?

On the other hand, maybe C Northcote was right about bureaucracy?

Targeted, eh?

Nick Frost has revealed he was targeted by trans activists after accepting the role of Hagrid in the new HBO Harry Potter series.

The actor and comedian, 53, had to turn off Instagram comments on the post announcing his casting after being swamped with criticism for collaborating with JK Rowling.

The author, who is also serving as an executive producer of the new series, has become a vocal presence in the transgender debate.

Folk talk back to you on a talking to peeps piece of sofware and that’s being targeted?

Screw the landlords

Poundland bosses are hatching a plan to enforce steep rent cuts on store landlords as part of a last-ditch bid for survival.

The discount retailer has earmarked hundreds of stores for sharp rent reductions as its Polish parent company looks to persuade new owners to take the chain off its hands.

An auction of Poundland has been whittled down to a shoot-out between the distressed investment funds Gordon Brothers and Hilco.

The winning bidder will inherit a radical new turnaround plan drawn up by senior management, which proposes taking the axe to Poundland’s sprawling estate of more than 800 stores.

Between 150 and 200 have been singled out for imminent closure with as many as 500 more selected for swingeing rent bill decreases as bosses seek to dramatically rein in costs. Poundland employs 16,000 people.

UK commercial leases have rent reviews – well, afer decades of inflation, they would. The rent reviews are every three or five years over the lifetime of a – say – 25 year lease.

Such rent reviews are upwards only. That’s why the adjustment to internet shopping is such a crunching grind in this country. Because there’s no simple way for rents to adjust downwards. It’s only new leases which can or will be at lower rents. Or, if a company enters any of the varied restructuring or bankruptcy types then the landlords can be crammed down. But “rents are down the market, why isn’t ours falling?” doesn’t work. So there’s no smooth adjustment possible.

The Body Shop saga – largely about cramming down the landlords.

Free Money!

To be able to claim, you’ll need to meet all of the following criteria:

You were living in the UK, for at least three consecutive months, between June 20 1997 and June 21 2008. If you live in Scotland, there’s a larger window – ranging from May 22 1992 to June 21 2008.
You were aged 16 or over during this period.
You purchased goods or services in the UK during this time for non-business purposes – although proof of this won’t be required.
You were still living in the UK on Sept 6 2016 (the date the claim against Mastercard was filed).
It doesn’t matter whether you have used a Mastercard debit or credit card or not – this is because Mr Merricks argued that the company’s high transaction fees hit all shoppers, irrespective of which card payment provider they used.

The case, the claim, is one of the utmost stupidity. But free money is free money. As to where it’s all really going:

The remaining £100m will be used to cover legal fees,

Can you help support The Blog? If you can spare a few pounds you can donate to our fundraising campaign below. All donations are greatly appreciated and go towards our server, security and software costs. 25,000 people per day read our sites and every penny goes towards our fight against for independent journalism. We don't take a wage and do what we do because we enjoy it and hope our readers enjoy it too.