Creating the capacity to pursue claims that impose poverty when the object of this benefit was to relieve it is indicative of a mindset that has lost touch with reality. Of course, if there is fraud, chase it, but I very much doubt that many of these claims involve fraud. They refer to simple human error. In that case, there should be forgiveness in most cases, coupled (perhaps) with repayment, at most, of a part of the sum overpaid, representing a fair tax rate (ten per cent?) on the excess earnings not declared. But so long as this persecution continues, we are living in a country governed ..read more

The risk of stating plainly what Idaho argued at the US supreme court on Wednesday morning is that it is so sadistic and extreme that people might not believe you. Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Prohibiting all abortions at any stage of gestation, with no exceptions for rape or incest, the Idaho law allows doctors to perform abortions in cases where the life – but not “merely” the health – of the pregnant woman is at risk. We can only kill this one person if by not doing so we kill this other person. A singular version of the trolley problem. And? The pos ..read more

But a way for me to think about this: The vaccine is an individualised neoantigen therapy. It is designed to trigger the immune system so it can fight back against a patient’s specific type of cancer and tumour. Known as mRNA-4157 (V940), the vaccine targets tumour neoantigens, which are expressed by tumours in a particular patient. These are markers on the tumour that can potentially be recognised by the immune system. The jab carries coding for up to 34 neoantigens and activates an anti-tumour immune response based on the unique mutations in a patient’s cancer. To personalise it, a sample o ..read more

The disgraced movie mogul’s appeal was dismissed in 2022. But on Thursday, New York’s highest court agreed with Weinstein’s claims that he was judged “on untested allegations of prior bad acts” in a way that portrayed him “in a highly prejudicial light”. Writing the court’s majority opinion, Judge Jenny Rivera said Judge Burke had acted “erroneously” in allowing the testimony of accusers who were not complainants in the case, calling it “an abuse of judicial discretion”. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial,” the court said. Essentially, varied women were allowed to say he d ..read more

Ryanair will be forced to scrap a planned expansion of UK flights unless it is allowed to hire foreign air stewards, chief executive Michael O’Leary has said. Mr O’Leary warned that British workers no longer want to work as cabin crew, and attacked “insane” post-Brexit rules that stop the company from deploying foreign workers at its 13 bases in the country. He said that it threatens the Irish carrier’s plans to station 20 more aircraft at British airports by the end of the decade, an increase that will create as many as 1,000 jobs. Mr O’Leary said: “The UK needs entry-level labour and young ..read more

I’ve been thinking Never wise to open a column with an obvious untruth. The post Ms Klein today first appeared on Tim Worstall ..read more

How about the capital as modern-day Sodom? Polling shows Londoners are far more likely than other Britons to frown upon same-sex relationships and sex before marriage. Largely because a large proportion of Londoners are not what would be, traditionally, described as traditional Britons. The post Well, yes Aditya first appeared on Tim Worstall ..read more

Ministers of Germany, Brazil, South Africa and Spain: why we need a global tax on billionaires Svenja Schulze, Fernando Haddad, Enoch Godongwana, Carlos Cuerpo and María Jesús Montero Finance chiefs say higher taxes for the super-rich are key to battling global inequality and climate crisis Billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers Hmm. By directing two-thirds of total expenditure on social services and wage support, as well as by calibrating tax policy administration, South Africa continues to target a progressive tax and fiscal agenda that confronts the country’s le ..read more

More than 1,000 higher rate taxpayers fled Scotland to the rest of the UK after Nicola Sturgeon’s government introduced two more income tax bands, a Treasury analysis has estimated. A paper by UK government economists found the changes introduced in 2018-19 led to 1,030 higher earners moving south, costing Scotland £61 million in tax receipts that year. “Fled” might also be a bit strong. Decided, on balance, to move? Rather than the claims being made here it would be fun to know the full and overall numbers. Did the tax rises lead to an increase in income collected? If so, what was the diffe ..read more

There is now a striking correlation between levels of education and holding stupid, destructive ideas, between being highly credentialled and falling for every fashionable conspiracy theory, every tribalistic affliction, every online fad. That long march through the institutions….. The post Sadly so first appeared on Tim Worstall ..read more