Utopia, you are standing in it!

This month marks the 190th anniversary of the passing of the 1832 Reform Act, one of the iconic milestones in modern British political history. ‘Was the 1832 Reform Act “Great”?’ may not be the standard exam question it once was, but ongoing research about the Act’s broader legacy and impact on political culture, based on new resources and analytical techniques, continues to reshape our understanding of its place in modern British political development.

Much attention used to be focussed on the number of voters enfranchised by the Act. The extent to which the overall increase of around 314,000 electors in the UK (from around 11 to 18% of adult males) amounted to some form of democratic advance, however, has always been complicated by the Act’s limitations as an enfranchising measure, especially given the huge expectations aroused by the popular outdoors campaign in its support. Not only were most working class…

Although the tide had already turned for the Nazis , June 6-1944 was to become the final push for the allied troops to free Europe from the Nazi regime.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of former US President Theodore Roosevelt,was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion,[29] and the only one whose son also landed that day; Captain Quentin Roosevelt II was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.

At the time of the D-Day landings on June 6th 1944, Roosevelt was a frail man, not in the best of health; needing the aid of a walking stick. His health had suffered as a result of the first World War, he had arthritis …

David Farrar has drawn our attention to a splendid job opportunity at the Reserve Bank.

No, not to pitch in to meet the challenge set by The Governor and the Treasurer’s agreement that the appropriate target for monetary policy is to achieve an inflation rate of 2–3 per cent, on average, over time.

Rather, the RBNZ intends to appoint a Team Lead Brand and Design, to lead

“… a small but busy team of design specialists to work actively and collaboratively across the organisation to produce engaging brand and related content.”

Alongside this the appointee will:

• Develop and maintain the RBNZ’s brand and design strategy
• Work closely with others to plan and support the development of website content, social media content, initiatives and campaigns
• Ensure the design team has a clear programme of work and is efficiently managing daily production workflow
• Produce engaging collateral and digital content – this is…

Random 3,000 to 4,000 MW wind power output collapses at the heart of Australia’s power pricing and supply calamity. In a, don’t say we told you so moment, Australia’s self-inflicted renewable energy chickens are coming home to roost.

Power rationing is now routine and power prices soaring out of control.

What’s depicted above – courtesy of Aneroid Energy – is the output delivered by Australian wind power outfits to the Eastern Grid last month.

Spread from Far North Queensland, across the ranges of NSW, all over Victoria, Northern Tasmania and across South Australia its entire capacity routinely delivers just a trickle of its combined notional capacity of 8,587 MW.

Rapid and unpredictable surges and collapses in wind power output (sunset does precisely the same job with solar power output, although somewhat more predictable) are causing total chaos in Australia’s wholesale power markets, as the team from Jo Nova outline below (we’ll return…

I’ve already shared the “feel-good story” for 2022, so today I’m going to share this year’s feel-good map.

Courtesy of the Tax Foundation, here are the states that have lowered personal income tax rates and/or corporate income tax rates in 2021 and 2022. I’ve previously written about these reforms (both this year and last year), but more and more states and lowering tax burdens, giving us a new reason to write about this topic.

The map is actually even better than it looks because there are several states that don’t have any income taxes, so it’s impossible for them to lower rates. I’ve labelled them with a red zero.

And when you add together the states with no income tax with the states that are reducing income tax rates, more than half of them are either at the right destination (zero) or moving in that direction.