Ritchie’s grants.
Two of them I think?
Calculated on the basis that he should have an income equivalent to a Professor? And both grants, umm, granted.
So, now he gets a job as 0.2 of a Professor. Which means he gets paid 0.2 of a Professor by City University.
Does he now give 0.2 of his grants back. And if not why not?
I had a similar thought Tim.
I mean, the grants were to enable him to do research. Part of his job at the University is to do research. So is he going to be doing even more research in the less time available to him (after his teaching duties)?
Or will he just be troughing more money for the same thing?
I’m sure his Quaker principles will guide him to the correct answer.
I imagine his new “research” will be double-counted. However normally to count, university research has to be published in recognised peer-reviewed journals. This will be interesting.
Even full-time professors can receive grants from external trusts to fund specific research. So plenty of wiggle room for Murphy, I’d say.
As a serious question, should Ritchie really be getting his “charity” grants at all?
The Friends Provident one certainly raises questions on how he got it. Their policy is not to give grants to sole operators, yet by any description he is one. Then of course there is the political aspect – and with RM sitting as the Wormtongue next to JC it’s harder and harder to claim that he is apolitical, despite all RM’s protestations.
@Tyler
You miss the point. When there is a conflict between form and substance and an evil Neo-liberal is involved this must be denounced.
When it involves a heroic tax campaigner, the LLP is a legal entity and he’s not a member of the Labour party, so there.
I also noticed that the Friends Provident Foundation require an organisation with proper governance – presumably to check that the money they give is being properly spent. How TRUK LLP can be said to have proper governance is anyone’s guess.
@ Andrew C
Being a member or not of a party actually isn’t a defence – something the expert lawyer RM fails to realise.
Charity commission guidelines state:
•Legal requirement: however, a charity cannot exist for a political purpose, which is any purpose directed at furthering the interests of any political party, or securing or opposing a change in the law, policy or decisions either in this country or abroad.
•Legal requirement: in the political arena, a charity must stress its independence and ensure that any involvement it has with political parties is balanced. A charity must not give support or funding to a political party, nor to a candidate or politician.
Think RM/TRUK fail on both those points.
Let’s face it though, TRUK and it’s various grants are really just RM trying to grab as much money as he can – the dirty little capitalist. It would also be interesting to know if he pays full income tax on those grants (as there are ways to play hokey with grants). All he ever admits to is that “he pays all the tax that is due”. But if he is busy avoiding paying tax, using accounting trickery, then less tax is due…..so a rather weasely answer.
Tyler
Surprisingly a comment from Zhou Enlai praising him for overcoming the ‘running capitalist dogs’ of the neoLiberal ‘machine’ which had ‘taken control’ of the university system didn’t make it past moderation.
Unsurprisingly a Comment under my moniker asking whether he and his family would consider letting their house out to Syrian refugees if he was that concerned didn’t either.
He is a gross hypocrite, as well as being an ignorant Stalinist thug…..
@ V_P
Total hypocrite. Attacks the 1% whilst comfortably being in the 1% himself. Attacks tax avoiders whilst avoiding tax himself – even if only NICs, but I suspect he’s managing his own and TRUK’s finances in the most tax efficient way possible.
Though, disastrously, his new gig will require him to pay income tax, I imagine.
There’s Friends Life lost our custom, then.
The problem with this is that he will now be introduced everywhere as Professor Murphy. It has given a modicum of respectability to a dangerous fool.
To be fair (briefly), weren’t the grants effectively part-time, calculated as a percentage of a university professor’s salary?
In which case, so long as everything adds up to less than 100%, he’s presumably in the clear (has to be less, so that he can claim that his political work is in the other bit).
But it would be more interesting to see how close the “professor’s salary” used in his grant calculations is to the actual professor’s salary he’s now getting. I suspect City has “Professors” on a lot less than some other universities pay.
@Van_Patten:
Mr Zhou’s comment would surely have illuminated and found resonance with readers but I’m not that surprised that Murphy chose not to pass it on.
His focus as a toiler now at the chalk face must be on bringing out and encouraging younger contributors.
I feel that suitable interventions from William Brown, Bingo Little or Adrian Mole would be welcome – particularly the thoughts of young Mole with his established leftist leanings.
Tyler:
“or securing or opposing a change in the law, policy or decisions”
Hmmm, not sure about that. Sounds like a very crude summary. If a charity is (say) trying to change the regulatory framework for social housing for the elderly, and the charity can show that the desired change is within its remit and that it is seeking cross-party support, the Charity Commission will not be concerned.
Anyone know what the law actually says?
I quoted from the government guidelines directly, but here are the relevant links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/speaking-out-guidance-on-campaigning-and-political-activity-by-charities-cc9
Tyler:
Thanks for the link. Interesting. Unfortunately, there’s lots of wriggle room in there for a slimeball like Murphy.
@ Theo
Probably. However the more he nails himself to JC’s mast the less there is. He has done work for the Greens and Labour, but it can’t be said that he’s been unbiased in his political views and engaged all parties equally.
Friend’s provident specifically state they won’t fund:
•Individual or sole trader applicants.
•Activities to promote a specific political party.
Not sure how he got through the first part – Mrs. Murphy might be a partner in TRUK but doesn’t seem to have any measurable output for TRUK, and RM himself is fond of looking through face value to see the underlying situation, which is that he is a sole trader. And a hypocrite, clearly.
And his output at the moment (all along the lines of it’s time for PQE) is voluminous and is specifically aimed to promote a specific candidate and party. It’s party political campaigning.
I’m sure if anyone actually goes to the FPF etc he will deny then aggress, most probably with legal threats, but I feel that his claims simply don’t stand up to much scrutiny.
Tyler: Granted, if our mad professor gets any closer to Corbyn, he could find his grants in jeopardy. Meanwhile, consider the political campaigning that Oxfat (no, that’s not a typo) can get away with, and which the prof. endorses:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/09/09/poverty-in-the-eu-is-not-an-issue-of-scarcity-it-is-an-issue-of-sharing/
Tyler:
FPF are a left-leaning Quaker-dominated outfit and connected to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (both are based in York and the Director of FPF was previously the JRF’s policy director).
If you can provide me with chapter-and-verse — not here, but via Tim – I am happy as an ex-Quaker to complain formally to the FPF and to the Charity Commission.
Given that Ritche has said he ignored all his economics teachings, and that he’s right, he must be saying:
– ignore his lectures, still get a first as all university economics should be ignored
– ignore all your non-Ritchie lectures, as they are all wrong and he is right.
Perhaps Tim needs a banner here. “Dear Student. Did you find this site by Googling your Professor Murphy? If so, click [ragging on Ritchie] and question everything he says”.
Also a link on how to have a part time lecturer removed, it can be done. Had one once who was there to make extra money for his divorce, totally disengaged, basically just read the assigned text and don’t bother me. Took a few of us to get together and complain loudly enough to the course tutor, but he was replaced. If you are paying for a service nothing wrong with demanding that it be provided properly, which funnily enough is why most of the complaints were from the foreign students.
He can employ 0.2 of somebody who understands something…
According to Google starting salaries for professors are around #75k so Ritchie will be on #15k. Add that to his #65k of grants plus whatever he makes for lobbying for the TUC, PCS, etc and he will be on well over #100k. Add in the wife’s part time GP salary (probably another #60-70k) and he will easily be in the top 1%. Perhaps he will up the threshhold at which he thinks ‘the rich’ should pay more tax……
For trust applications individual tends to be either students or those social services are trying to help.
@ Theo
As you say FPF and JRCT seem very closely connected. As much as it aggrieves me though, I think little will happen if complaints are made. Charities seem to be laws unto themselves until something goes drastically wrong, so I would imagine that they will simply ignore any complaint made against them or they way they operate. It still might be worth a complaint but my guess is until RM’s charity funding is totally untenable (for example, working for JC full time) these will fall on deaf ears.
That all said there is something else that bothers me about this whole situation. For a man so self-righteous and moralising as Richard Murphy, there seems to be a very grubby undercurrent to what he says and does. He claims not to be interested in power, image and money and instead his only goal is to change the world for the better, but his actions betray him.
Take this lecturer post he’s just got. Why has he done it? Teaching one part of an undergrad course a day a week isn’t going to change the world – and it takes a lot of time. Which could be better used elsewhere, if his overt aim is accounted for. But my guess is that saving the world is really only a secondary goal, and this job pays well and gives him an ego-polishing title he can use when social climbing. And of course, given there are no real checks and balances (let alone serious deliverables) for his charity grants he can fit that extra work (and pay) in without detriment to his other paychecks.
He seems to spend lots of his time making sure he gets into positions of influence and power, burnishing his “credentials” and most importantly, getting well paid. The polar opposite of his claims. His ego clearly is rather fragile, but whilst he raves against the well paid and powerful he clearly wants to join the club.
Maybe it’s egomania, or simple jealousy, but he seems to want to beat all those rich bankers and politicians at their own game. Which is rather hypocritical, don’t you think?
Tyler
Murphy is a hypocrite, but so are many of his ilk. What I despise most about him is his arrogant ignorance and its malign influence. I don’t share your pessimism about challenging FPF: every challenge ties up some of their resources, and in time they – and Murphy – could be brought to account.