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Well now, that’s Ritchie telling us isn’t it?

So, if you’re a regular commentator on Worstall’s blogs about me, or have sided with the plutocrats here I’ll be deleting you now however reasonable you think you might try to make your comment because no one will be fooled by it, and by definition it will not be adding to useful debate.

Yup, the man’s commitment to debate and discussion is such that if you comment here about him you may not comment there about him.

53 thoughts on “Well now, that’s Ritchie telling us isn’t it?”

  1. ‘Plutocrats’. Laughs.

    Richie has learned a new word. Perhaps “neo-liberal” and ‘fascist’ were getting a bit tired.

  2. I’ve submitted my anecdote:

    “You might be interested to know that it was because of your attitude to my mildly-critical posts that I discovered Tim Worstall and his blog (I googled “Richard Murphy critique” or similar in an attempt to determine whether my experience was unique or whether that was your modus operandi) and gradually changeed my views from being soft-Left to stridently pro-markets (a neoliberal, as I’m sure you’d label me, if not worse), albeit I’m probably amongst the more tolerant of limited government intervention and regulation on Tim’s comments.

    Based on this data point, you might like to consider whether your approach of preaching to the choir and denigrating critics is helping or hindering your stated goals.”

    I’ll be surprised if it escapes his “moderation”.

  3. “Worstall’s blogs about me” – what a narcissist. It’s like he thinks he’s the only topic you ever write about.

  4. plutocrat
    noun derogatory
    “a person whose power derives from their wealth.”

    So, for example, if I made a bunch of money advising my private clients on how to avoid tax, and married a very well paid public servant with an exceptional pension provision, and bought a posh house before the government I supported pushed house prices up so high that few in the generations following mine could dream of such security, then I would be, by any definition, a man of wealth.

    If my wealth then enabled me to retire from having to work to pay my bills to write about my personal crusades (whilst, naturally, picking up on any friendly grants floating around from people sharing my worldview) to become, effectively, a full time political campaigner – a very privileged thing to be, by any measure – then I would be, most surely, a man of some power. Power, surely, derived form wealth.. because without my wealth, I would not have my power.

    What would that make me, dear Richard?

  5. The Other Bloke in Italy

    So, if after a drink or three, I come on here to say how wonderful Ritchie is, then go over there to tell him how wonderful he is, I get deleted over there.

    Got it…

  6. I doubt he’ll follow through. To identify all the regular commentators, someone has to read the comments. And therein lies the danger – they might learn something.

  7. This from Ritchie surprised me:

    I’ve been writing pretty incessantly sense I was eight and still have my first cast iron Remington typewriter.

    He is one of the most God-awful writers out there. Leaving the content aside, his syntax and general use of the language is appalling, yet he’s been at it almost his entire life! Is there anything this bloke is actually good at?!

  8. The fact that he has been writing ‘incessantly’ since he was eight and is still doing so is another reminder of his complete lack of self-awareness.

  9. Don’t actually know. Might be a mistake in the set up of the blog (the robots.txt thing) which is being investigated. Might be that I’ve had too many text ads which Google doesn’t like. Might be that someone has reported it as being “naughty”. That’s certainly true of Vodafone’s mobile filter, too much swearing on here.

  10. @Tim W,

    Yup, the robots.txt allows you to selectively block clients by their user-agent string. This might be intentional, or might just be a default someone’s left enabled. For a blog (as opposed to something private that one wouldn’t want Google to accidentally index!) that would seem to be a mistake.

    I think that’s by far the most likely explanation, rather than censorship.

  11. @ Tim Newman

    “He is one of the most God-awful writers out there. Leaving the content aside, his syntax and general use of the language is appalling.”

    He is, isn’t he. When he’s being concise it’s irritating to read, but it’s effective. I can handle that.

    But when he tries his hand at anything ‘extended’ it’s close to unreadable. Has anyone here read his book? Is it as badly written as his long blog posts? I’ve toyed with the idea of having a go at it, but whilst I don’t mind paying for writing that I disagree with, I do mind paying for writing that I can’t get to the end of.

  12. Leaving aside his now famous thin skin and rudeness, do people believe him to be genuinely thick or deliberately obtuse? As he kept on insisting that absolute simple democracy overrode all notions of individual rights and kept screaming “enemy of democracy” at anyone who pointed to human rights I thought “Is he for real?”

    So; is he?

  13. When he gets really angry, his short gnomic answers inevitably contain typos.
    I suspect that my last comment pointing his latest one out – “Don;t” – will not make it past moderation. Nor I suspect will any of my future comments.

  14. The fact that he has been writing ‘incessantly’ since he was eight and is still doing so is another reminder of his complete lack of self-awareness.

    So he’s still writing like an eight-year-old?

  15. Ian B asked:

    How do I side with the Plutocrats? Is there some kind of application form I can get from the post office?

    You don’t have a bunch of orphan child labor polishing your monocles and brushing your top hats? 😉

  16. Ironman, I think he’s a proper narcissist who’s mind cannot fathom the possibility it might be incorrect about anything what-so-ever. That’s why however much his contradictions, hypocrisy and factual inaccuracies are noted he simply brushes them aside as they must all be wrong because his word is gospel.

  17. A comment from The Master beneath that post

    It’s almost amusing how many of those barred have not realised they are on the list automatically deleted

    One posted about 7 comments, so I mailed him to stop wasting his time

    Then I found the email address was false, after all

    So he failed moderation anyway

    PS Why are they all male?

    PPS I am aware that most commentators are but I also know one or two women do, I think wisely and appropriately, use pseudonyms on this site and I am happy for them to do so

  18. You don’t have a bunch of orphan child labor polishing your monocles and brushing your top hats?

    Being a collector of military memorabilia, I contacted the council to ask if they had a ragged child who would like some work experience as a helmet polisher, and the switchboard put me through to Rotherham.

  19. Ironman>

    I’m quite sure that he’s doing it on purpose. The question is whether he truly believes in the old-fashioned Nazi policies he pushes, or has fixed on Nazism as a good wheeze for getting money out of the gullible.

  20. I sense a competition in the offing. Who can get the most lunatic statement couched as obsequious comment through the new moderation policy whilst using a user name from this site ?

    I salute James Lloyd as the winner thus far.
    ‘Tolerance of all points of view is nothing more than a prescription for tyranny on these pages’

    Bravo Sir. Nicely played.

  21. worzel: It’s a nice idea, but, as the Internet adage has it, I’m worried we wouldn’t be able to tell the sufficiently advanced troll from the genuine kook. Not least because under his new comment policy, I think that’s all Our Murph is going to have left.

  22. worzel

    No! A Mr Richard Murphy tops that simply by responding “I agree”.
    Genius!! How I wish I’d posted that.

  23. Ironman,

    Candidly, I’m not sure a remark of that intermelectual rigour is within your neoliberal canon.

    And because your (sic) wasting my time, your (sic) the first one on my new list

  24. And then all our little commissar needs to do is declare anyone expressing an alternative opinion to be “an oppressor” and our little “peoples” Republic is off and running.

  25. Murphy is borderline dyslexic I reckon so I think the odd post under slightly different spellings to his fanboy regulars might get through. Might try late at night when he’s got half an eye on the model trains or the brownnoser sucking him off under the desk.

    Ivan Horsecocks, Ivan Horlicks and Ivan Bollocks for example

  26. He condemns his contractors for believing in rights for the rich. So he is expressly telling us that “the rich” shouldn’t have rights. This his idea of democracy is the rule of the mob
    He is by his own words a two – bob fascist.

  27. Allegedly my final conversation with Ritchie:
    Me:
    Does that mean I am on the list then?
    RM:
    Of course
    I’ve been to Worstall’s site
    You’re there, often
    That’s your last post

    I’ll get my bugle.

  28. Hmmmm, in response to another piece of illiteracy, I have just posted “who is Wostall?”.
    I know it won’t get through, but the site tells me that “your comment is awaiting moderation”.
    So it seems that the bugger has to read the comments before he deletes them. What joy!

  29. RM (to a brown-nosing comment)
    There’s no break – except from trolls
    I’ll be writing come what may
    And fending off claims from my son’s for my time as the end of the school holiday looms nigh
    I know my reply “Did you really mean to put an apostrophe in ‘son’s’ ”?” will not appear, but it will be interesting to see if the apostrophe stay’s (so to speak)

  30. There can be no knowing as to whether Murphaloon is stupid, cynical, or simply mainlining an hallucinogen with his breakfast each morning.

    The thing that got me were his “Blessed Assumptions”, eg estimate the size of the black economy by assuming that all the illegal businesses are the same size as the legal ones.

    Can I have a badge for being on the Banned List.

  31. This predictive text on my phone is dyslexic
    I mean detractors; not contractors
    Or maybe I meant commentators, or maybe I meant…

  32. I like the implication, Tim, that you making a comment that Section 28 was enacted democratically, you have ‘come out’ (did he intend that pun?) as an ‘enemy of democracy – truly priceless stuff – luckily I think even those on the Left are beginning to despair of the numerous gaffes and hostages to fortune that comprise his prolific output!

  33. I love and admire the way Murphy writes for several different organisations, then quotes from those same in support of his own views. The ultimate narcissist ?

  34. Just use a different username in both blogs

    He isn’t sophisticated enough to track IP address but if he does then just use tor browser to stop him

    That’s if you can be bothered obviously!

  35. Own up – who posted as “Jack C” for comment of the day, which Murphy passed:

    Very well done for your campaigning generally, and well done for turning the tables on Tim Worstall, or Tim Worst-of-All as I like to call him!, by highlighting one of his articles here.

    What I like is the way you stick to the big picture, driven by hope, morality, decency, morality and decency. The trolls like to feel clever with their facts and real-world projections, but you see things as you feel they should be, and not as they are in grubby, complicated reality.

    Truly you are a vivid beacon of hope in a sea of neolibrul oppression. Keep On Keeping On!

  36. I got this through, and got 7 likes:

    Very well done for your campaigning generally, and well done for turning the tables on Tim Worstall, or Tim Worst-of-All as I like to call him!, by highlighting one of his articles here.

    What I like is the way you stick to the big picture, driven by hope, morality, decency, morality and decency. The trolls like to feel clever with their facts and real-world projections, but you see things as you feel they should be, and not as they are in grubby, complicated reality.

    Truly you are a vivid beacon of hope in a sea of neolibrul oppression. Keep On Keeping On!

  37. From the Vainglory box above:

    Oh man. Watching @worstall execute @richardjmurphy is like watching a very, very clever cat slowly killing at ataxic mouse.

    And now it’s not just our host, it’s the commenters too 🙂

  38. Vaguely on topic in that it relates to Ritchy-land. Had an interesting conversation with a couple of my French colleagues today. Most of them live in France, since the income taxes in this corner of Switzerland are in fact HIGHER than those in France if you don’t have kids. And then there’s health insurance, out-of-pocket healthcare costs, and admin fees for every interaction with authority, all of which are lower in France (or non-existant).

    Kinda blows his whole “CH is universally a tax haven” meme out of the water…

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