Richard Murphy says:
August 7 2015 at 7:25 am
As far as I know Tim Worstall has never yet found merit in a single thing written by anyone who might be considered left of centreTim is undoubtedly technically clever but the lack of any wisdom that he persistently reveals coupled with the continuously personal and crude nature of the attacks he makes means that there is no one with any credibility, left or right, who takes this former UKIP press officer’s comments seriously.
I’ve praised pieces and insights from Chris Dillow, Paul Krugman and Karl Marx just in the past couple of weeks. At least one of those could be considered to be “left of centre” I think.
But it’s entirely true that no one at all takes me seriously. Not even the editors who (so far at least) continue to employ me several years after they fired Ritchie.
Not even the editors who (so far at least) continue to employ me several years after they fired Ritchie.
Ouch.
That Burns so much, Ritchie is now delivering an ode to a haggis.
Mr Murphy is gaining a readership in New Zealand, if Uphil Gardna and C Ocoshunta are to be believed.
“Technically clever”
Is that a bit like “technically you are correct, but I’m going to ignore you”
“…technically clever but the lack of any wisdom…”
So, you’re right but you’re insufficiently left-wing.
Because left-wing received wisdom trumps technical correctness.
Ritchie’s output is clearly generated by the linguistic equivalent of the Bistromathic drive.
For Murphy, Marx is a bit of a neoliberal
From Murphy’s perspective, Marx was first and foremost ‘a Jew’ and therefore ideologically suspect.
He endorsed this, yesterday:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/08/06/who-pays-for-peoples-qe/comment-page-1/#comment-731093
“For Murphy, Marx is a bit of a neoliberal”
Well, at the end of his life he did declare himself “not a marxist”, did he not?
I guess that makes him a neoliberal splitter. Or something.
Andrew K
I see ‘R Spanditt’ Has also lent his support – ‘Haman Amalek’ was exposed by another stool pigeon yesterday – keep the coming, though – taking a lot of his time to remove them. As to his post – the tragedy is that anyone takes his witterings seriously enough for Tim and our efforts to be necessary…..
Is Chris Dillow really a Marxist? I mean REALLY , genuinely a Marxist?
VP>
Oh drat, I rather liked that one. Interesting that it was linked here, and then disappeared pretty rapidly. Ritchie must be constantly refreshing these comments to see how he’s been caught this time.
abacab
one of the genuine moments where I nearly choked myself was when Murphy described himself as ‘a libertarian’…….
Dave
“must be constantly refreshing these comments”
Or else someone has now managed to work out how to send e-mails to his e-mail address (you know, the one clearly marked on his “about” page)..:)
Or maybe even given moderation rights (as a biscuit)!
After earlier, it might be wise to assume that anything at all reported on here (even if nothing to do with anyone here) will get busted? Whatever else, our friendly Channel Islander isn’t stupid…
Actually, I’m being slow – as VP said, it was reported openly on the thread itself (not privately).
I think the Amalek one is fairly subtle. I only recognised it because the Amalekites were part of the plot of a book I read recently.
I just found this beautiful manifestation of Murphy’s Rant Law: when he gets angry his spelling/typing goes all over the place. One can almost see him inputting the data on his foam-flecked keyboard using his fists.
GD>
The name might have been subtle, the content wasn’t. Except that bit about ‘cycle on, be steadfast’ or whatever it was.
Dave – some completely “off” bicycle metaphor as a substitute for “ploughing a furrow” – I thought it was quite funny!
Andrew K – can asking someone if they have any comments be libellous! I didn’t know…
PF/ Andrew K
That example ie brilliant – what an utter cretin! Love the description of Murphy hunched over his Keyboard!
Corbyn yesterday explicitly refused to condemn the IRA – http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/potential-labour-leader-jeremy-corbyn-6208734
If that’s not support in the context, I don’t know what is.
Was Murphy born in Ireland ? What makes him Irish ? He sounds English.
@Batman
Irish ancestry. I once queried him on what domicile he claimed. He shrieked and stamped his foot about how he had never used his domicile to avoid tax but didn’t answer the question I had asked him.
Batman – He’s dual.
@Andrew
I realise that he must have Irish ancestors. I am just a bit bemused that someone who is English (I think) by birth (he has no accent) should choose Irish nationality. I am Northern Irish (catholic) and could have an Irish passport (I have a British one). But it’s kind of a political statement and having grown up in the UK I don’t really care one way or the other. Clearly for him it’s a big deal. I just find it a bit odd. But then that’s not the only thing I find odd about him.
@Andrew
And to be frank, the fact he has an Irish passport makes me less likely to want one 😉
PF>
Ritchie never reads too closely something that seems complimentary. The tortured bicycle metaphor looks like it was there to get ‘the solution is cycle on, be’ in.
I sent a link to Tim’s blog about Corbyn and Murphy to a leftie colleague today. He replied calling it ‘sneering’ but of course couldn’t actually refute any of it.
“never yet found merit in a single thing written by anyone who might be considered left of centre”
It’s the old Libtard one way street. Perhaps we could get list of right-of-centre writings that Mr. Murphy likes.
@Batman,
Ritchie was born in the UK to Irish parents. He has also stated he has obtained Irish passports for his sons and his wife also has Irish parent(s).
@Batman
I’m now remembering the short debate I had with him on domicile.
He claimed that it was easy to simply state that you were UK domicile.
I pointed out that if it were easy to change domicile, we’d all be doing it. The UK tax authorities might accept a claim from someone but another tax authority might disagree. The same if you try to change FROM UK domicile.
He said that domicile was only a factor in UK tax and no other country took account of it.
I pointed out that there were actually a lot of countries that had domicile as a tax factor. Not least Eire but also Australia, NZ, South Africa, Italy Belgium, Switzerland and some US states. Even if domicile wasn’t an income tax issue in these countries it was still valid for IHT.
For pointing out his lack of knowledge I was accused of being ‘pedantic’ and barred.
why have 2 passports though, emigration certainly I can see keeping dual nationality if you can, certainly I intend to, but if you taking up the passport because a technicality allows you to you must have a reason.
Maybe he’s been concerned about UK membership of EU and wants a backup EU passport should UK leave
I wonder how often our kind host has to ban commentators or remove contributions because of inappropriate thoughts or ridiculous names. Is it a problem that most blogs suffer? Perhaps Tim could enlighten us.
I can say that in the case of my first blog, which ran about four or five years, I banned two people. One for really abusing me in a private email, and the other for death threats via email. I was doing around 500 unique visitors a day, on average, and was a nasty enough piece of work that trolls tended to look elsewhere for their fun.
The advantage of my new blog is that I don’t allow comments, don’t answer emails and (this is the crucial part), don’t really have any visitors.
Why not have multiple passports? I’m eligible for an Irish passport through my paternal grandmother, and if I ever got Costa Rican citizenship I’d have unfettered freedom of movement in much of Latin America. If Murphy’s parents were Irish citizens then so is he.
BiCR. Im soon to have my first child and she will have both UK and Philippines passports because it makes sense for staying in Philippines or UK. I can’t, however, see any advantage in having both Ireland and UK passports.
Dongguan John
Travelling on an Irish passport might mean that one is slightly less likely to be kidnapped and threatened by crazed Muslim /anti western terrorists. (note the “slightly”)
@R S-H, stick it to the man!
ken, it would be extremely handy if the UK voted to leave the EU.
Maybe shopping around for the best citizenship deal is A-OK, in the same way shopping around for the best tax deal isn’t.
“Citizenship planning good: tax planning bad,” said the pig wearing the LHTD name tag.
“ken, it would be extremely handy if the UK voted to leave the EU.”
If the UK left the EU, the only possible outcome is the Norwego-Swiss solution regarding free movement of people. So nothing would likely change.