Richard Murphy says there\’s nothing to worry about:
All that’s happened is some fairly low grade data has been mislaid.
Given the man\’s ability to be entirely and completely wrong on all issues, major and minor, from whether the sun rises in the east to whether kittens are cute, this is the moment when I start panicking.
The disaster is that we are not spending enough on good public services.
At £500 billion and rising? See what I mean?
Panic! Panic!
Update. Richard Murphy\’s comment upon myself:
Rim Worstall fell off the edge of reason long ago, so I’ll ignore him.
He also calls me a Tory which is a damn libel!
“Can anyone tell me that all the fuss is about? ALL the above data on me would be readily available to anyone who wanted to find it with relative ease, at little cost and in minutes, I suspect.”
Unbelievable.
Much as I disagree with Richard Murphy on most issues, he’s absolutely right here. The lost CD will have no impact on anyone, aside from the silly sods who’ll be fired for sending it.
419 scams work because the victim has proved by giving his bank details that he’s gullible, not because the bank details are any use in their own right…
Right, john b, you’ll be proving your point by posting your name, address and full bank details on this forum, right now, won’t you?
Come on John. Money, mouth, place the former where the latter is. Give us your name, address and bank details. And National Insurance number. Come on! Hand them over!
Richard Murphy blocks posts to his site but if he wants to repsond to this he is welcome to copy it over to his site and reply to it there.
“Clear evidence that the Revenue is under-staffed”
Nonsense, Richard. That’s like saying that because 25,000 jobs have been lost I’ve suddenly forgotten how to zip up my trousers and have trapped my knob in the zip. Carelessness is in absolutely no way related to job reduction, and believe me, the civil service is so grossly overstaffed that losing 10,000 people here or there is the equivalent of losing a tree or two in Amazonia.
“The disaster is that we are not spending enough on good public services.”
Mr Murphy clearly lives in a fantasy world. What’s impact has the billions (mis)spent over the past decade had on the quality of publci services in this country. Very little in my view.
I suspect Richard will not allow my comment onto his site so I’ll post it here in the hope that he might read it and respond!
Richard,
I’ve got news for you. Everything Jock says is 100% accurate.
Can you seriously not see the difference between a single ID fraudster targetting YOU and spending hours/days finding out all sorts of information about you and then utilising that to duplicate your ID, vs sufficient details falling into the wrong hands to allow ID fraudsters to do this to 25 million people?
I presume you are blissfully unaware that there is a well known internet based black market for this kind of information? If /anyone/ a bit dodgy gets hold of these CDs then that information, which PATENTLY IS ENOUGH TO PERFORM ID FRAUD will end up in that black market.
Do you have any idea how much that could cost the country?
You stating categorically in your article “It’s not for one minute enough to aid theft of my identity.”.
Sorry this is utter bullshit, and I’m pretty convinced you know it. If you believe this then please publish the following information about yourself on this page;
name
address
postcode
bank account number
sort code
childrens names
child benefit number
phone number
date of birth
childrens date of birth.
So far I can only find your name….. If you don’t publish this information then please remove that sentence as it will be obvious that /even you/ don’t believe it…
Z.
I’ve tried posting the following at Dicky’s site:
“Gareth, you are paid to get thinks right so why should you get credit for it? “long suffering”, you precious little darling, try a job in the real world if it is too much for you.
Richard, some idiot makes a mistake that anyone with two brain cells wouldn’t make and you want to spend more of productive peoples’ income stopping them doing it again. Where is the injection of sanity in that?”
History suggests the anally retentive Richard may not post it so I’ll add it here as well.
I say, ‘johnb’ has gone a bit quiet, hasn’t he….?
Well here’s some answers Zorro,
Richard Murphy
The Old Orchard
Bexwell Road
Downham Market
Norfolk
PE38 9LJ
+44 (0) 1366 383500
He’s barking, isn’t he? He actually wants to live in some fiscal dictatorship. Why doesn’t he work for the revenue… or better still bugger off to Cuba or somewhere like that?
Sorry, I was busy doing, y’know, other stuff.
John Band, Flat 9, 6 Durward Street, London E1 5BA. Birth date 17/12/1978. All readily available in a few minutes to anyone who can be bothered looking.
I’m reluctant to post the bank details – not because I think they’re at all likely to be used for fraud, but because in the event that anyone nicks *any* money from me through *any* means, then the fact that I’d published my bank account # on the web would provide my bank with an excellent excuse to not compensate me. This obviously doesn’t apply to the benefits CD.
John B, nice try but no cigar.
“…This obviously doesn’t apply to the benefits CD.”
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Oh, you were serious…. 🙂
“would provide my bank with an excellent excuse to not compensate me.”
And why would the bank have an excuse? After all, if it couldn’t cause a problem, how could they have an excuse.
Anyway, what’s your NI number?
According to the ‘Gureadian’ (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2214760,00.html):
“A spokesperson for HMRC said: “This individual should not have been involved. It was none of their business. They should have forwarded it on to someone else – another group of civil servants at a more senior level.””
Two things here. If it wasn’t that person’s business, how come they had access to the data at all?
And note, they don’t go on to say “..and of course those civil servants at the senior level would never have popped that disc in the internal mail, oh dear me no…”
Richard Murphy also suggests that the government should take over Northern Rock and that:
“If it were to own a bank it could pioneer best practice”
He is clearly deluded. Any bank that mislaid its clients personal data in the post would not last long.
I also remain to be convinced that HM Government could follow best practice in running a bath.
They probably need more staff – poor lambs.
I see Mr Murphy’s latest post on this is titled ‘Man Bit Dog’.
I’d have believed ‘Dog Bit Man’
All well and good, but who the fuck is Rim Worstall?
Actually, Tim, it is much closer to £600 billion a year. Government spending in 2006/07 was a grand total of £586.6 billion.
DK
P.S. That figure does not, of course, includes local spending raised through Council Tax, rates, etc. which I believe is of the order of £24 billion.
So, let’s make it a round total of £610 billion which is spend by government of one form or another.
DK
“Any bank that mislaid its clients personal data in the post would not last long.”
I’d wager a million pounds to a penny that every major bank has, at some point within the last 10 years, mislaid [some of] its clients’ personal data in the post.
“Rim Worstall”, is that a typo or Mr Murphy’s subconscious coming out?