Douglas Carswell A French presidential election is due in a couple of weeks. Should one care? Will the outcome change anything? Not, I suspect, if incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy wins. We’ll have more Euro summitry and muppetry.  More bailout and borrow economics. More talk of reform, without much change.  Not to mention, more of the Love Actuallywith  [ Read More ]

John Tyler Apple is clearly no friend of the USA. This behemoth of technology, which unveiled its first shareholder dividend in 17 years last week, has amassed a $100 billion treasure chest from a string of hit products.  Some $64 billion of this amazing pile of gold is kept from the IRS of the USA  [ Read More ]

Tim Worstall So here’s an interesting little idea. Yes, we’ve a new report out from our retired accountant from Wandsworth today. About the huge amounts of tax revenue that are lost to governments as a result of the grey economy….the legal activities but illegal because they’re not paying tax, not the black economy which is  [ Read More ]

John Redwood Western governments mainly know just one refrain. They say they need to spend more, so they need increased revenues. When the economy is doing well they want to spend more, so the public sector participates in the success and modernises to keep up with the private sector. When times are bad for the  [ Read More ]

Gordon Lee The government should abolish TV licence fees which currently stand at £145.50. Instead, the BBC should be funded through direct government grants, and allowing the BBC to collect more revenue through its commercial activities. Such an arrangement will help to continue to protect and recognise the huge cultural value of the BBC, and  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell The United States Congress has insisted that the American government does not increase the country’s overdraft by as much as President Obama had wanted. You might not have guessed it from the appalling BBC coverage over the past few days – which has portrayed Congressional efforts to limit the debt as grossly irresponsible  [ Read More ]

Tim Worstall In the eight years between 2000 and 2008, the OBR found, the top 5pc of earners increased their share of the wage pool from 23.3pc to 26.4pc – generating an extra £7.2bn in tax. The top 5pc earn above £60,000, while the bottom 50pc are on less than £18,500. “If the recent trend  [ Read More ]