The end of Farage’s regular column will further fuel speculation over the political direction of the Telegraph under Axel Springer. It is hoping to use the title to make inroads into the US market as a centre-right, pro-free speech challenger to the Wall Street Journal.

As to whether it will work or not. No, I’ve no interest as there’s a fatwa against using me at the paper. No, I don’t know why either, even as I do know who. And I’d deffo not pass the new ideological purity test anyway – you must be in favour of a United Europe.

But this centre right in the US thing? It does seem unlikely that there’s a gap there. Especially as that’s the declared patch of the Washington Post….

The post Not hugely sure about this first appeared on Tim Worstall.

I treated Sophie as if she were human. The very next day she betrayed me
Hugh Riminton
I was intrigued by the level of the new chatbot’s training. If I peppered her with questions, would she have answers?

At least, they mimic pretty well the behaviour of human females?

The post So, chatbots work perfectly then, do they? first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Julian Fellowes’ high-society period drama has, somehow, picked up Emmys and reached its fourth series. Poor Meryl Streep must feel so awkward watching her daughter Louisa Jacobson in such a uniformly awful show

A doctor with a fully qualified moustache races up a carriageway towards an immaculate stately home. “I fear we should have sent for you sooner!” says the lady who greets him on the doorstep as the screams of a woman in drug-free labour rattle the windows in their frames. Oh, ya think? is not Dr Moustache’s reply.

When this many cliches assemble so quickly, it can only mean one thing: Brownstone Abbey – AKA Julian Fellowes’ Revenge, AKA What Did We Do to Deserve This?, AKA The Gilded Age if you insist on its official title – is back for a fourth and, no one has said let alone promised, final season.

The post So, err, not liking it then first appeared on Tim Worstall.

British troops and their European allies would be allowed to fire back if attacked by Russians when potentially stationed as peacekeepers in Ukraine after a ceasefire, western officials said.

The Anglo-French led stabilisation force would also not rely on US systems or technology, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, and is expected to be almost exclusively European if deployed.

That’s not a logistical set up I expect to work and, well, will they be allowed to fire back on Ukrainians as well? Possibly more accurate to think of them as the thin red smear – after a couple of weeks at least.

The post Dream on first appeared on Tim Worstall.

What happens when the government spends money? Most politicians talk about public spending as though it is simply a cost. But government spending does something much more important: it creates income, supports jobs and generates additional economic activity.

In this Understanding Economics video, I explain the multiplier effect, one of the most important concepts in economics, and why understanding it fundamentally changes how we should think about government spending, taxation and austerity.

The multiplier effect describes how an initial amount of spending generates additional income as money circulates through the economy.

Nowhere does he note that private spending also has equal effects. He seems to think – certainly describes it as – something unique to government sp0ending.

The post Sigh first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Green party must avoid being taken over by hard left, says former leader
Adrian Ramsay says some new members would be ‘more at home’ in Your Party or Socialist Workers party

Avoid? Reverse maybe and good luck with that.

The post You’re a little late, Sunshine first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Labour is on track to deliver fewer homes this parliament than the Conservatives in a setback for Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary.
A total of 1.14 million homes are expected to be added to Britain’s housing stock in the five years of this parliament, according to fresh forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
That is fewer than the nearly 1.18 million built in the 2019-24 parliament, which was cut short by an early election. The period of Conservative rule was also blighted by the pandemic lockdowns that shut down building sites.

House prices are falling – in real terms at least – building costs are rising yet Section 106 demands are not moderating. Which is why several large housebuilders have announced they’re not buying land to build in certain markets. Housebuilding outcomes are going to be worse than predicted.

The post I think this is an overestimate, myself first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Take this. €12k. So you’re up north of Turin, toward the lakes, Swiss border. Cold as a witches tit in winter. Roof is, apparently, already redone. Sure, sure, new kitchen required etc. But you could be up and running with a whole house for £25,000.

There’s nowhere in Portugal at that sort of price (ruins cost that here).

That old coal fired Aga is probably worth a substantial fraction of that price in fact…..

If I were relocating as I did 30 years back I think it would be Italy rather than here. Too old to change ways now, too settled, but…..

The post As I’ve been saying about Italy first appeared on Tim Worstall.

One week before the local elections in South Africa, the pavements and roads of the Johannesburg township Alexandra were filled with piles of rubbish, rotting in the heat. At the Jukskei River, its banks choked with rubble and litter, foul-smelling brown water flowed out of a culvert.

Etc, etc, the place is falling apart.

So, which explanation do we prefer? One is obviously just race but that’s a little too racist even for me. We can moderate that a bit to perhaps culture but that’s probably still too culturalist even for me. Or we could say it’s economic – the result of electing economic morons like socialists and would be commies. Which is where I would put it.

But the real point of paying it out this way is to reverse ferret this. OK, so we can all see it’s collapsing. So what is the excuse people try to use which doesn’t inculde “For fuck’s sake don’t elect the ANC or anything like?” Is there an excuse that anyone tries to use?

The post Which explanation do we prefer? first appeared on Tim Worstall.

The raids on Russia restarted on Friday, Kremlin officials said, complaining that Kyiv was now “simply ignoring” US wishes.

So Puti’s gang are complaining that Trumpi said “No noogies” but Zeli’s boys are still giving noogies?

It is all a bit “But, Teach!” isn’t it?

The post Not that anything about this is fun, but……. first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Neoliberalism is not simply a political and economic philosophy that says markets should allocate resources within society with minimal government intervention. It also encourages a particular understanding of human beings and their place within society. Within this worldview, people are increasingly treated as units of economic input. Their value is assessed by their capacity to work, compete, consume and contribute to the production of the financial returns neoliberalism demands as an indication of success.

The ideal person within this system is adaptable, productive, competitive, self-reliant and capable of meeting externally imposed expectations. They are also expected to conform. They must fit into standardised systems of education, employment, assessment and social behaviour. They must accept the objectives set for them, respond appropriately to incentives designed by others, and demonstrate their worth through measurable outcomes. They are not necessarily encouraged to question why those objectives exist, whose interests they serve, or whether the systems they operate within are appropriate. Indeed, questioning the system may itself be treated as a problem.

That does sound rather more like a Stalinist system where it’s the state that allocates labour regardless of the individual.

You know?

The post Could be a misdiagnosis, you know? first appeared on Tim Worstall.

The number of women having their breasts removed on the NHS because they identify as trans men are surging, figures show.
The health service performed 1,115 of the operations in 2024-25, a 52 per cent increase on the 734 trans mastectomies carried out in 2022-23.
NHS England estimates each procedure costs £5,800 meaning that taxpayers are footing a bill of up to £6.5m a year.
Gender-critical activists have called for a halt to the operations, saying there is evidence of harm but little proof of benefit and that they will be “looked back on with the same sort of horror as lobotomies”.
An official review of adult gender clinics found that the “majority” of the patients using the services were between 18 and 25, many with autism or mental health problems.

It is not most with mental health problems, it is many.

But it does seem odd to chop the tits off someone who really needs a course of lithium.

The post Note, carefully, the language first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Slavery is certainly ancient and embedded in most cultures. The transatlantic trade was, though, fundamentally different. The industrial scale of plantation slavery was unprecedented. Whereas enslaved people had previously laboured within the societies that regulated their treatment, New World slavers were far less restrained by any sense of morality and custom. And slavery in the Americas was racialised in a way unseen before, turning black people into chattel.

Ooooh, but these other slavers – you know, not the white, capitalist, ones – were not quite so bad so only the white, capitalist kinds has to gibs.

Sorry, no, it doesn’t work.

The post Nope, this isn’t true. first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Finally, we need to protect the vote. The two dictators won’t go down without a fight, which means we’re going to see more attempts to discredit election results that threaten their hold on power. We’re already seeing this with Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil and with Donald Trump in the US, as he and his allies lay the groundwork to contest a potential Democratic wave in next week’s midterm elections. Anticipating disinformation – and the acts that come with it – is how we prevent it. Journalists, election officials and civic leaders must raise the alarm early and often. We must demand that platforms put real guardrails in place and restore those they’ve disbanded, such as Meta’s third-party fact-checking programme in the US.

You know, democracy, authoritariansim, vote the neoliberlas out and all that?

As the lefties rather controlled the factchecking apparatus therefore the lefties want that to be reimposed. For, under that guise they’ll be able to censor the information flow. As they did. All under the guise of freedom and democracy, of course.

The post You always know the rhetoric will lead to this first appeared on Tim Worstall.

The starting point is simple: every pound saved by one person must be matched by a financial liability somewhere else. This is not an economic theory. It is a fundamental principle of double-entry bookkeeping.

Cash savings are not wasted money, are they?

The post So, therefore…. first appeared on Tim Worstall.

For Black History Month, figures from the arts, culture and sport reveal the people and ideas that made them who they are today

So a whole month devoted to those of a specific tint. Well, OK:

According to the 2021/2022 census data, Black people make up approximately 3.7% of the total population of the United Kingdom (around 2.48 million people).

Breakdown by Region (2021/2022 Censuses)

• United Kingdom: 3.7%
• England: 4.2% (or 4.0% specifically in England and Wales combined)
• Scotland: 1.2%
• Wales: 0.8%
• Northern Ireland: 0.6%

Key Details

• Concentration: Almost 96% of Black Britons live in England, with nearly half (47.8%) of the total Black British population residing in Greater London

It’s really a London thing, isn’t it? But we’re all to be deluged, nationally, with it because the media thinks London is England.

BTW, the pop of London is some 13.5% such tint.

The post This is fun, no? first appeared on Tim Worstall.

She would sometimes help cast diverse models for brands, and the process could be painful. At one shoot for a magazine in Paris, a creative director asked her to cast models as though from a shopping list, she said: “It was like: one Black, one Asian, one old, one fat. You’re not casting these people because of who they are. You’re just trying to tick every box,” she said.

Imagine seeking personalities in clothing models……

And, of course, the selecting from the list is because the critics keep saying that you’ve got to have diversity therefore diverse becomes the list…..

The post Yes, yes, and? first appeared on Tim Worstall.

Last week, the chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) reparations commission, Hilary Beckles, emphasised that the absence of a dedicated official event did not mean reparations would remain peripheral. He described the gathering as “the Chogm of reparations” and the “first round of reparations negotiations”.

“This is the meeting of the Commonwealth in the Caribbean, and the number one item in the Caribbean as far as this gathering is concerned is reparatory justice,” Beckles said.

That’s what “reparatory justice” means here – gibs the money. Nowt else either.

Of course Our Andeh is playing along:

But facing a changing world together requires us to stand on firm foundations. To meet those challenges of the future, we need to face up to the past. For years, those members of the Commonwealth affected by the slave trade have asked for an honest conversation about the legacies of slavery. By sticking our heads in the sand, we have damaged the ability of the Commonwealth to function.

Having these difficult conversations to safeguard the Commonwealth for the future is the right thing to do. It is also the patriotic thing to do.

They’re going to end up giving in, aren’t they?

The post Gibs first appeared on Tim Worstall.

….a potential “Ministry of Sex”.

The opposition Strong Armenia Party promised earlier this year to establish a new government ministry to leave “no unsatisfied women” in the country. It claimed the policy was needed because sexual dissatisfaction had caused a rise in political activism by middle-aged white women.

Myself I think it’s the fallen birthrate. An absence of daughters in law to terrorise therefore they try it out on society as a whole. There I stand, can do no other.

The post It’s an interesting diagnosis first appeared on Tim Worstall.

It is undoubtedly too early to declare victory, but the recent electoral defeats of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić and Flávio Bolsonaro make me wonder: is 2026 turning out to be the year democracy slowly, but surely, fought back?

Democracy is when the left win. Obviously. How could anyone doubt that?

The post Democracy means lefty first appeared on Tim Worstall.