Richard Murphy had a long career in the City
And we all thought he was a suburban accountant specialising in the tax affairs of luvvies.
Richard Murphy had a long career in the City
And we all thought he was a suburban accountant specialising in the tax affairs of luvvies.
KPMG is regarded as ‘the city’ now? I suppose that makes inflationary sense now that being an economics writer is now ‘economist’.
Added he thought of himself compared to varoufakis, who was a Syriza party member and a distinguished economist
And you are who exactly, Worstall? Penny dreadful shite.
You must be spewing that someone without your obvious intellectual superiority is getting so much attention.
Otherwise what’s the point of 90% of your output?
I thought he was at one of the forerunners of KPMG (Peat Marwick?)?
And if he left there in his mid twenties it suggests he wasn’t regarded as someone of particularly great potential or was achieving much. My experience of the big 4 is that they weed out the weaker graduates pretty early on.
I also remember a blog he wrote where he had received advice from a senior manager telling him that he would achieve more if he were to be more reasonable. Most people would interpret this as a polite way of saying “stop being an obnoxious arsehole”. Ritchie, achieving oracle status at a young age, ignored that advice. He seems to have built his life around doing the exact opposite.
Or am I wrong with what I thought the ‘city’ meant that it is not merely working in the square mile but working in finance, trading and banking, and not financial services like doing audits?
Tim’s output Arnald, exposes what an incompetent, arrogant scumbag your buddy is. It is indeed a matter to which attention should be drawn, that a useless, puffed-up non-entity can gain so much attention by spewing poison leftist clichés by the bucket load.
@ Rob Harries
“Working in the City” means working in the square mile. ‘Working in “the City”‘ means working in finance, insurance, banking, investment.
Helping “luvvies” minimise tax paid from an office in Wansdworth is neither.
‘Long career’ usually means more than 20 years.
Hold on Mrs Kecks
So you’re saying that attention should be “drawn” to someone because that someone who you disagree with “gains” attention?
Carumba. I bet there’s a fair few folk that started reading Worstall for his charms and his sociopathic tendencies who would never have stumbled on Murphy.
All publicity is good publicity. You are responsible for fanning the flames.
You twat.
If 100s of articles pointing out someone’s idiocies and offensiveness is what makes a good CV in lefty-world, it would explain Corbyn’s successes I suppose. And a whole lot else.
Thing is Arnald, it’s perfectly obvious to anyone who reads him that Murphy is clueless on nearly every subject under the sun. I have a limited knowledge about tax, and am a complete layman when it comes to the law, but I know that Ritchie is equally clueless.
How do I know?
Well, he frequently writes about areas where I am a knowledgable specialist. I can spot his errors and misunderstandings. Whenever an expert points them out he responds in exactly the same way every single time. Blustering, ignoring points, trying to change what he said, insulting them, then finally banning them. It’s grimly predictable.
So when he uses the exact same tactics when people correct him on, for example, the law, then I know that he is just as ignorant of that as he is of my specialism. I don’t need to know anything about the law.
That’s why people have a problem with him. He’s allowed to have opinions, allowed to make suggestions, allowed to debate. But he can’t pass himself off as an expert and then not expect to be criticised.
He’s also trying to make changes to the UK which would make us all poorer and would reduce our freedom. That’s why he gets so much attention.
Arnald
“I bet there’s a fair few folk that started reading Worstall for his charms and his sociopathic tendencies who would never have stumbled on Murphy.”
Hmmm, I’m not sure it works like that!
All sorts of journals and newspapers are currently quoting the great architect of Corbynomics.
Whereas google still refuses to even provide a link to the web site timworstall.com …
However, you may be right in the sense that there may be less need to rebut him currently, as sufficient resources elsewhere are now firmly on the case?
“No one has suggested I’m the UK’s Varoufakis,” he says, “but the thought has occurred to me.”
What self-regard is revealed in that crass admission. A sycophantic hack suggests a comparison with a leftist pin-up and Murphy admits that the same thought has occurred to him. No false modesty for him. And his reply suggests he has fantasies about being in government. Doubtless, the Sage of Downham Market will soon purchase a large motorcycle.
“Like Varoufakis, Murphy is not short on confidence. “I believe that people’s QE will become the next big tool used by governments around the world,” he says.”
“Not short on confidence” suggests that even the sycophantic hack is beginning to have some doubts about Murphy…
Theo has it
Rob & GD –
Murphy did an internship with Peat Marwick, which quite sensibly declined to offer him a position upon completion of the internship. Some might call that (what was then) Big 8 experience, but I don’t. Much of the bile Ritchie directs at the large international accounting firms can be traced back to the fact that he’s never recovered from getting the boot from Peat Marwick.
Arnald –
Given that only a lefty dimwit would equate tax return preparation in the suburbs with working “in the City”, I can see why Tim’s post would exasperate you so. Christ, I live in the U.S. and even I know what working “in the City” means with regards to London.
Oh, and by the way… I have a degree in Economics and actually did work for a Big 8 firm (Coopers & Lybrand) for several years. For the last 21 years I’ve had my own practice in the suburbs here in Ohio. I have every bit the experience working “in the City” as Murphy does, and out-do him a bit in both education and professional pedigree.
The headline has just been changed.
A little bird told me.
Wind in the Willows?
Mr. Toad?
“Like Varoufakis, Murphy is not short on confidence.”
That would be the same Varoufakis who basically got fired for being economically illiterate and annoying everyone. Yep, sounds like our Murphy.
(I’m being a bit unfair on Varoufakis, he clearly understands a lot more than Murphy.)
Andrew M –
No, Varoufakis is at about Murphy level. Men who “understand a lot more than Murphy” don’t act the way he acted. When you’re the finance minister of a country, you don’t act like Paul Krugman on the tail end of a three day drunk.
You especially don’t do it when you’re the finance minister of a shitty little Third World country that’s dead broke and must beg from others in order to keep its crappy little socialist programs alive.
The man is a self-aggrandizing moron, like Murphy. He simply had a slightly larger stage.
Murphy’s firm had 3 partners and about a dozen staff.
I’ve worked in smaller tax departments.
In terms of tax experience he really wouldn’t have had much, especially if he was advising mainly entertainers
He’s just not a tax expert. He just isn’t.
Ritchie’s CV:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Documents/RichardMurphycvJuly2006.pdf
Remember this is a man that claims:
– to have tried to get into academia (was just an invited lecturer so they didn’t want him either)
– that closed his accountancy firm to concentrate on other interests, those “other interests” being dumped by/dumping the first missus for another
– that sold that firm when effective CGT was 10%, but campaigns to equalise it to Income Tax + NI for others
– that claims to have been shocked that, despite the fact his CV claims he single handedly set up the Trivial Pursuit factory in Ireland for tax purposes (and wrote articles about the KPI involved), that this was shocking tax abuse he never knew about before
– that shock was so bad, he quit…
– … but stayed as an advisor for 6 years and floated the company
– is an internet entrepreneur (was actually the accountant for an internet startup set up by the bloke that set up the Trivial Pursuit Licensee)
– Trivial Pursuit was licensed from the Canadian owners through a Barbados company called “Sans Serif” by a UK company called “San Serif Print Promotions Limited” that Ritchie was FD of – he claims he was not aware of this coincidence
– that claims he sold the internet company to Yahoo for £20m (despite leaving when turnover was less than 200K)
etc
And FCABlog, RIP 🙁
re FCABlog
It looks as if Richard claims he “named” Christie on twitter (as Andrew if you look at Richard’s twitter account)?
@PF
Tweeted first
https://twitter.com/timbushlondon/status/639131394439028737
Ritchie tweeted 13 hours later
https://twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/639329360290410496
So as usual, he’s full of shit. He’s been dying to get the true identity and complain to the ICAEW for years.
I’m Andrew
No! I’m Andrew
No! I’m Andrew (and so is my wife)
Etc.
(with apologies to Spartacus and Life of Brain)
“I believe that people’s QE will become the next big tool used by governments around the world,” he says.
But it already has Richard. It’s been used by the governments of Zimbabwe and Argentina and of course Venezuela…
Ahh, I remember his long career in the City. Whenever I heard his cry of “Standard! Latest news!” I’d think about buying a copy.
Even then he had friends in high places, making the Standard a free paper merely to save him from his perennial difficulty in working out the change.
His disgustingly gloating tone over what he’s done to Christie sums him up.
“some of the people mentioned in this blog have been in touch with my employer in an attempt to put pressure on them to put pressure on me.” Christie Malry
Did you do that because you’re a Quaker Richard, or do you take all the credit personally?
@Arnster:
I bet there’s a fair few folk that started reading Worstall […] who would never have stumbled on Murphy.
Me for one and I’m grateful because I’ve had hours of fun as a result. There’s nothing to compare with Murphy.
It’s like Coco the Clown performing open heart surgery, for the squeamish.
Anyone know how Christie got rumbled?
I am disgusted that he is not content with attempting to shut down what might be considered rational debate on his own blog, but trying to close it down anywhere, by any means that he has influence. To suggest he hasn’t contacted the employer is just absolute nonsense given the context.
Noel
Thanks for that – Interesting.
Santhie Goundar tweets:
“Am I to infer [from a different Tim Bush tweet] that that now-defunct blog was written by an ICAEW Technical Strategy Board member?”
Which, if true, would be quite amusing!
TMB
“It’s like Coco the Clown performing open heart surgery, for the squeamish.”
🙂
My own experience with Mr. Murphy was that I saw an article on UK tax in the Guardian which quoted him.
Although not an expert in UK accounting, I do have over 25 years of experience at international tax planning for HNW individuals. In addition, I was then in the process of co-writing a book with an LSE Professor Emeritus (Not a sessional lecturer like Gabriel Zucman).
In any event, I found Mr. Murphy’s quote to contain a basic misunderstanding of tax treaty rules that any half-qualified tax lawyer would know the correct answer to. I googled him, found his blog, and proceeded to simply cite the actual law with what I thought was an extremely professionally polite comment correcting his mistake.
Within minutes, a full blow ad hominem attack calling me a “neoliberal fascist” for having posted the comment and was immediately banned from commenting (i.e. replying to again ask him where he felt I had made a mistake of law) on his blog. My immediate reaction was “Who the F—, is this guy anyway”. This lead me to read some of his prior blogs and where I continually found basic mistakes and similar attacks when challenged. Why I got banned after one post I will never know (especially prickly that day I guess).
Long ago, I discovered the basic truism that if someone acts like a jackass to you, they aren’t nice people who happen to pick you out for nasty treatment. They generally act like a jackass to everyone. To see if this was true in Mr. Murphy’s case, I googled him which lead me to the delightful Mr. Worstall and his “Ragging on Ritchie” section.
I also follow Tim on Forbes and though mostly agree with his analysis, do occasionally cringe at some of his language and analogies. As for Mr. Murphy, I only tune in to Tim’s blogs about him when I am truly bored as it is very close to shooting fish in a barrel.
Has that f***er ****ed over “Christie Malry”.4
Jesus.
@David
I had a not dissimilar introduction to Murphy. He had clearly misunderstood a new piece of legislation and I naively thought pointing this out on his site would benefit him.
But not so. He is like a man staring at a cow and telling you it’s a horse. No matter what lengths you go to to point out his error he will simply repeat that he’s looking at a horse.
If Corbyn is elected leader of Labour and Murphy’s blog comes under scrutiny there will catalogue of basic errors to show.
It is noticeable that on his website there are always supporters of his opinions but when the topic becomes technical you won’t find anyone supporting his stance.
We’re talking about a ‘tax expert’ who was bemused when inter-spouse transfers of assets for CGT planning was discussed and who opined on the BBC about an alleged NIC scam apparently ‘forgetting’ that there was basic anti-avoidance legislation that would stop the so-called scam in it’s tracks.
He’s one of the few people I could cheerfully walk up to and punch in the face by way of introducing myself.
@David
Had a quick meander around your website and I see that you
are “often sought out by the international business and legal press including the BBC”
Next time you talk to the BBC could you point out that Murphy is a complete fuckwit when it comes to tax knowledge and that if it’s just uneducated opinion they’re after they can get that anywhere.
Thanks.
@Ecks, You say
I am of the opinion its more like
@PF, The reason Google doesn’t search Tim’s site is he hasn’t had a SEO expert help him, nothing to do with Google refusing.
“He is like a man staring at a cow and telling you it’s a horse. No matter what lengths you go to to point out his error he will simply repeat that he’s looking at a horse.”
So true!
His perversity in this respect seems pathological. He reminds me of those very insecure but arrogant types who feel they have not achieved what their own assessment of their talents leads them to believe they merit. Such people often gravitate to left-wing politics, because they cannot accept any responsibility for their relative failure and want to blame the ‘system’. To boost their credentials among the comrades, they embellish their achievements and expertise, which often means that they get respect and some deference for providing justifications for leftist dogma. I’ve known several people like this, and Murphy might well fit the template. Who knows?
Norwich City, perhaps?
I’ve challenged him on this, but he claims he definitely didn’t go to Christie’s employers. I have to say, given that his tweet went straight to the subject of employers and that previous comments refer to the ICAEW and Christie’s professional ethics…he’s lying.
Vale Christie.
Christie, if you’re reading this I for one always enjoyed your blog and hope that you suffer no long term ill effects.
Murphy really is a shocking person but his time will come, and not in the way he hopes.
Arnald – you are poor of spirit and mind and also just poor, so there’s that. If only your pop career had taken off!
I love the way that fabian and quaker people are in favout of free speech..
Given murphys recent blog about how IFRS is wrong (as he’s alway claimed of course) and that auditors have been at least mistaken (if not negligent) in signing off accounts maybe he should be reported to the IACAEW.
Amusingly he challenges “true and fair” on the basis that you can’t have an opinion if you don’t show all the workings then defends the use of the wording when someone takes his argument further as to the semantics of “true and fair”
Ironman: but Ritchie “doesn’t do personal”. Unless it’s going after someone via their employers for expressing opinions he doesn’t agree with.
What a disgusting little man. Every time you think he’s reached the bottom he manages to scrape that bit lower.
A real shame that Christie has had to give up blogging, he’s one of those rare people who can explain technical stuff to the layman.
If Murphy didn’t like what he was saying he had his own blog to respond and I don’t think Christie banned him so he always had the opportunity to set the record straight and if Murphy was libeled he always had the courts.
This is typical lefty politics, the egg shell veneer covering their true nature always falls away to expose their real authoritarian nature whenever they face real and knowledgeable criticism.
Like many I’m quite looking forward to Corbyn and his economics being torn apart but we need to be very very careful about where this could end up.
Arnald,
Tim regularly makes the claim “I am not an enonomist”. Because he isn’t.
Murphy is claiming to have had a long career in the City. But he didn’t.
So what’s your point?
A truly evil man and a vicious Stalinist thug with a penchant for stool pigeons – Fortunately Christie’s contributions will stand the test of time whilst Murphy’s evil will pass into the dustbin of history
Pretty sure (and I hope) that Christie’s career is OK. If he were in trouble, I’m sure they’d have demanded he take down the archive.
If Christie’s career is not OK, does he have any comeback on the LHTD? Where does the law stand on this?
I imagine that’ll depend on what his contract of employment says. Was Murphy bringing his employer’s attention to misconduct or just conduct?
Christie’s blog says he’s stopping because of the lack of anonymity.
Murphy has made his last post on the subject. We can take that to mean he has been found out for what he has done.
Ironman
I take his silence as tantamount to an admission of guilt – what a piece of work…
I originally found Worstall by Googling ‘Richard Murphy idiot’. I somehow got to that initial Google query all by myself.
P.S I once Googled ‘Heston Blumenthal cunt’, so I’ve got form for this kinda thing. I then found a wonderful website called DontStartMeOff.com – it was eventually closed down by a bunch of Feminist fuckers :'( http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jan/23/mary-beard-website-abusive-closes
Even if he didn’t do it directly his posts/tweet have a definite ring of will no one rid me of this damnable priest to them.
Mentioning his employer in the way he did either pretty much guaranteed someone would contact them in his behalf or if he was aware that the employer or someone from there read the blog or post then it would act as a defacto complaint that they would have to act on.
Though maybe that’s assigning too much cunning and malice to him
FWIW, the way I read this:
hxxp://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/09/03/why-has-fcablog-blocked-me/
is that Richard has met this chap in a professional capacity:
“I have over the years contacted his employer many times, and met the author of the fcablog in his capacity of working for them”
but without realising he was the author of FCABlog:
“And to mention the fact meant that he knew I was now aware of who he was – which I had for less than 24 hours”
To others commenting above – it appears, from looking at the tweets / timeline, it was Tim Bush (rather than Richard) who inadvertently (or otherwise) let the cat out of the bag, and which Richard immediately then looks to have picked up on, and which might not have been too difficult for him if in fact he already knew him…