The way this will actually appear in Murph’s CV is:
I was quoted by David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party Conference. This shows that I am both influential and not party political.
Alternatively, we’ll get the “first, they laugh at you” to which the correct response is “Yes, they laugh at Bozo the Clown too”
As soon as I saw the quote, I wondered what your reaction would be.
Glorious.
I’m reminded of the traditional definition of consultant.
I felt the flash of the EMP from Murphy all the way in Wiltshire when spoon face said that!
Hilarious.
Expect angry fist banging blog from Ritchie shortly.
Noel Scoper
It’s not fist banging – it’s fist typing.
Should have the Guardianistas clutching their pearls.
So to speak.
But he was clear described as Labour’s new tax guru…. He will have to get his denials out sharpish
He has responded with a disgusted tweet about “lame jokes”. Sorry Richard, it was a really good gag. You’re Roasted.
Review
“Richard Murphy is a rare voice of sanity at a time of economic madness. We desperately need an alternative to austerity – and with a few more Murphys, we’ll get it.” (Owen Jones, author of The Establishment)
“Conventional economists have run out of ideas. But Richard Murphy abounds with them.He writes with electric clarity about what went wrong and what could be done to put things right. He is a new economic thinker, and guided by a sharp and practical accountant’s eye he knows where the money is hidden, who has it and how to release it. Murphy is is as courageous as he says our politicians should be.” (Polly Toynbee The Guardian)
Polly’s support is surely the kiss of death for Murph. If you give a book a title that riffs on the title of a sex manual, it is a bit rich to complain when folks take the piss
diogenes
Indeed. If you use a lame joke for your book’s title, you can’t really complain about lame jokes (which were actually quite good).
“he knows where the money is hidden, who has it and how to release it”
Or people with savings in declared bank accounts which you want to steal from.
“He knows where the money is hidden…”
He also knows where it’s not hidden.
It’s not hidden in LLPs where one partner has a 99% stake and the other doesn’t appear to do anything.
Definitely nothing being hidden there.
aaaah. Peak Murphy.
Martin Davies: “…and with a few more Murphys, we’ll get it.” (Owen Jones, author of The Establishment)
I wonder what the collective noun for Murphys might be?
A bushel?
…and I like the way that Ragging on Ritchie is now a common enough pastime that the PM does it too.
Does this mean that this blog is now the most influential in Britain?
A bogon of Murphys?
TMB, I think it’s a taxturbation of Murphys
An inquisition of Murphys?
Tsk, it’s “a loon of Murphys”
it’s OK everyone, calm down – he’s gone with “offended pomposity”
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/10/07/i-hope-david-camerons-bought-a-big-bunch-of-flowers-for-his-wife/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+org%2FlWWh+%28Tax+Research+UK+2%29
The Italian word for bundle springs to mind.
So, a man whose book’s title is a play on the title of a sex manual describes a joke around that title as “tasteless”. I guess to be truly pompous one really can’t have any sense of irony.
Few people do pomposity better than Murph
The Independent’s headline: “David Cameron makes sex joke during speech at Tory Party Conference”. Pearl clutching indeed.
For a collective noun, how about a funch?
Murphy reminds me of the famous jibe about Jeffrey Archer, can’t remember who made it.
“Is there no beginning to his talents”
The difference being though that people paid for and enjoyed Archers books. To be polite they might not have been high art, but he could have taught Dan Brown a thing or two.
Guido has the full clip. It’s not just the joke, Cameron points out that Murph admitted his planes would cause a sterling crisis.
Cameron did describe him as an academic though.
Plans, not planes.
I though that Cam describing murphy as an academic was the joke, Glen.
John square: heh heh.
He’s certainly got 64 positions.
And for the productive part of the economy, they’re all variations on Greek.
The beginning of the end, although even my ‘laboured’ delivery is better than ‘Call me Dave’s’. Pedestrian, I thought.
However, the piss take may do the sales good.
Which is worse?
Public humiliation and crashing and burning but making thousands
Or not selling a single book?
The most important thing is that Dave didn’t take him seriously.
Well, Guido certainly made my day, by bringing me lots of JOY.
geddit? -:)
With a pretty healthy dose of BDSM thrown in, and we don’t get a safe word.
That was for Tipo en España.
It’s mad that Murph somehow thinks that was an insult to Cameron’s wife. He’s that far up his own arse. Mental.
The Joy of Divisions springs to mind.
Anyway, we shoudl all get reviewing.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/059307517X/ref=cm_cr_pr_show_all?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=all_stars&pageNumber=1
Priceless!!!
Murphy calls Cameron’s joke “a tasteless intervention”
Comments ensue:
1. John Hansell “To be fair he was trying those positions on a sow”
2. John Appleseed “That’s absolutely unacceptable. Richard Murphy, I thought it would be below your dignity to allow comments like this onto your blog.”
3. Richard Murphy “I think that was fair comment in this case Or at least sufficiently amusing. Unlike this joke”
Wot a bitter hypocritical FVCKING CVNT!
I enjoyed the joke, and according to the Mail Owen Jones was called Tory Scum by the intelligentsia protesting outside.
“64 different positions”. Is Richard “PQE can’t possibly be inflationary but will give us the inflation we need but which QE.has failed to deliver’ Murphy so lacking in self awareness that he missed the clever part of the joke?
I’ve been browsing his Twitter feed, full of comments from people equally as pompous and stupid as him. The permanently offended brigade.
“Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy 7 hrs7 hours ago
“@bevclack: Have spent last 30 mins wandering aimlessly around St Pancras Station.” A temple to conspicuous waste”
I thought he was all in favour of infrastructure. He can’t hold his position for 5 seconds on any topic apart from taxing to the max.
“I censor nothing. I do exercise my right to editorial freedom to decide what is worth publishing” ..you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Well OJ is now a 1%er…
This tweet from Ritchie
“The Joy of Tax is about building a better, fairer society. Cameron doesn’t believe he can do that. Is he admitting his impotence?”
Never mind the irony of the man tweeting this filth also complaining about tasteless jokes, just witness the complete narcissistic meltdown.
What a pity no one at the Labour Party conference mentioned any of your books Tim.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/07/joy-of-tax-david-cameron-joke-conservative-conference
His typing fists have been working fast.
He’s getting hammered in the comments under that CiF article. Heh!
My God, yes, he’s being monstered. It’s beautiful.
Looks Cameron has had another go at Murphy – the front page of tonight’s evening standard has the headline “Cameron: We must confront extremist poison”.
I didn’t have time to read the article, but assume that Cameron was referring to the Murphaloon’s policies…???
His response in the Guardian article quoted by the excellent GlenDorran sets a new standard in self-regard, pomposity and humourlessness – he must be regretting his dalliance with Corbyn now – he is a national laughing stock. I can see his blood pressure rising! With two recent hospitalisation he should be careful – Glorious stuff!
The best part about that CiF article is that he presumably can’t moderate the comments.
*ha ha*
I see the replies to his pompous blog post are from the usual suspects – not a dissenter allowed.
@ Blue Eyes
There is one smug comment to the effect that “you shouldn’t be on a blog where you can’t censor the comments”
@john77: wonderful.
As this is a blog post about jokes, I think this might be of interest:
Acceptable joke or not?
Economics of the Bullingdon boys – wealth funds http://wp.me/p6lKpM-3S
Matt
Where were you when Murph suggested that PQE could be used as a pension savings vehicle?
@Matt U
Nope – not interesting at all.
You might consider how anyone can post here, but my posts regarding your and RM’s pronouncements are blocked by Mr Murphy.
“Nope – not interesting at all.”
Ok, not interesting, It is pensions, after all!
Would you at least accept pension funds investing in government infrastructure, as suggested by Messrs Osborne and Johnson, is bonkers?
“You might consider how anyone can post here, but my posts regarding your and RM’s pronouncements are blocked by Mr Murphy.”
People can do what they like on their blogs, I have not blocked anybody on mine, but I have been blocked by others on theirs.
Pity Dave described him as an academic and not a retired accountant in a shed in Norfolk.
Matt
We thought it was crazy when Murph suggested it
https://www.timworstall.com/2015/08/26/calling-actuaries/
Matt Usselmann: it is not necessary to support every plank of Conservative party economic policy in order to oppose every plank of Corbyn/Murphy’s idiocy. Indeed, it is generally in the intersection of the two that you will find most criticism here. Building nuclear power stations with taxpayers’ money is only preferable if the alternative is shivering in the dark when the whirligigs stop spinning. It’s a false dichotomy to think those are the only choices, however.
I’m not sure whether George Osborne is an idiot or a genius. Obviously investing your pension fund in a bypass round Uttoxeter is hardly going to pay many pensions. So far, so idiot. But the Left (cf RM) has been banging on about investing in infrastructure for ever and a day, so here’s our George allowing them to put their money (or rather their future pensions) where their mouths are. Public sector unions now face a choice – let their pensions be splashed on some non-income generating bit of infrastructure, or have their refusal pointed out every time they pipe up about ‘investing in the future’. The work of a genius.
Idiot, genius or idiot-savant? You decide.
Yep, Murphy wanted private pensions looted to fund skools n ospitals n airports n stuff, but ended up with his paymaster’s pensions bring looted instead.
Is this what is called ‘blowback’?
As a break from the hilarity, try to watch Ruth Davidson’s speech from today. It was bloody brilliant. She’s wasted in the Scottish Parliament.
“We thought it was crazy when Murph suggested it
https://www.timworstall.com/2015/08/26/calling-actuaries/”
That is about trying to figure out how much to put aside to finance a decent pension, based on some assumptions.
(a) I found this from December, forcing every pension fund to invest 25% of their assets in government infrastructure.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/12/23/if-you-want-to-know-why-pension-funds-should-invest-in-long-term-infrastructure-this-is-the-answer/
.
(b) Or this about a people’s pension:
http://b.3cdn.net/nefoundation/5ddea38e3ffca8bef3_com6y1pby.pdf
A 4%-7% return is suggested here.
Can anybody spot the difference . On the one hand these proposals
(a) force EVERY PENSION FUND to invest in infrastructure; or to
(b) do it VOLUNTARILY via a People’s Pension subject to an agreed return
On the other hand
FORCING ONLY local authority pension funds to invest in infrastructure (as suggested by Osborne/Johnson)? Without any hint what the return should be?
I mean if it was such a good idea, surely the MP’s pension fund should be FORCED to invest in the UK’s infrastructure as well, without any guarantee of return.
Matt Usslmann: People can do what they like on their blogs, I have not blocked anybody on mine, but I have been blocked by others on theirs.
You can’t block tumbleweed.
Matt U,
Why on earth should the govt borrow money from pension funds at 4%-7% return, when they can borrow money on the open market at 2.5%? (or thereabouts – haven’t checked the latest bond yields). You’re doubling the cost of big projects for no good reason.
Given that BluLabour under Ozburke seem to be in the business of selling remaindered ZaNu policies (in the same way The Works will soon be selling unsold JOT’s at 1p a go) Murphalot picked the wrong crew. He should have tried to throw in with the Pig Fucker and his gang. The sky could have been the limit.
Tim + Rob
It will be a mixture of idiot-savant, blowback, and BlackRock,
Blackrock will not take on the liability of employing Osborne’s ex-Personal Secretary, without a large slice of the management fees for the public sector pensions cake.
That is my guess, anyway!
@ Matt Usselmann
NO, I do not agree that investing pensions in infrastructure is bonkers. A properly designed infrastructure contract can provide solid reliable long-term returns, which is why Warren Buffet owns a railroad.
When discussing investment by/for pension funds, you may disregard my obvious superiority but you will be rightly laughed at if you describe Warren Buffet’s investment strategy as “bonkers”.
Before you jump up and down saying that government infrastructure is different I shall point out that all infrastructure developments – with the sole exceptions of military roads and aqueducts, neither of which are on Osborne’s menu – were pioneered by the private sector with the expectation of profits, years (mostly centuries) before any government jumped in on the act.
@MattU: I don’t think RM writing ‘a return of 4-7%’ on his blog constitutes a guarantee now does it? And where exactly was this 4-7% return going to come from? There’s not much return on building roads, council houses, health centres and the like is there? And as for it being voluntary, you obviously haven’t studied the fascistic nature of virtually everything that RM proposes. If it didn’t start out compulsory, it would soon get that way.
Ian Reid,
> Murphy reminds me of the famous jibe about Jeffrey Archer, can’t remember who made it.
> “Is there no beginning to his talents”
It was Clive Anderson, and it was actually “There’s no beginning to your talent,” to his face, while interviewing him.
‘He knows where the money is hidden’
Based on his accounting knowledge and experience I very much doubt he has any clue about where the money is beyond assuming if he doesn’t understand then it must be wrong
Someone called Richard complaining about dick jokes, now that’s a surprise
john77…let alone railways….
Matt Usselmann
Not sure what point you are trying to make!
Are you contending we have to follow this imbeciles advice on Hinckley C?
Also – reference your last paragraph – who are these ‘capable managers of the economy’ you refer to? Richard Murphy!?!
As a bit of a capitalist I’m thinking of moving to the Left. It just seems so easy to tell a load of dicks what they want to hear, then sell them books. Murphy is basically the high watermark of your intellectual competition – there’s such a gap in the market.
john77 – “with the sole exceptions of military roads and aqueducts, neither of which are on Osborne’s menu”
Well we will probably need some military roads in Scotland soon. Not to mention Bradford. But perhaps it is time to look at aqueducts? Time for Osborn to fund the Grand Contour Canal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Contour_Canal
Ok, fess up. Who here is also TheLastClassWarrior at CiF.
Matt Usselman is the new Arnald – knows nothing but spends his time cheerleading the Murph.
Cor, the Groaniadistas on that thread are a bunch of vinegar-drinking lemon-sucking sourpusses….
(as an aside, the Dutch equivalent to the Grauniad (de Volkskrant, the people’s paper), which mirrors it in practically every way is often referred to as the Azijnbode, or vinegar-seller in reference to the sour, puckered-lip tone of its articles and behaviour of its readership).
“Not sure what point you are trying to make!”
I was just trying to point out while everybody thinks joking about tax is funny/not funny that the Bullingdon boys are having the real laugh at our expense.
Talking absolutely rubbish with their ideas about “wealth funds”.
Whereas you might not be that much interested, and actually enjoy the spectacle of the government talking rubbish, the journalists should take note and question it.
They, however, HAVE MISSED the point that Owborne/Johnson are talking bollox, and instead cheer them to the rafters as potential leaders of the country.
You might still be of the opinion that their nonsense is better than Murphy’s ideas. Fine. As long as you have thought about it. And not have missed the point that wealth fund = nonsense idea. You might have, had you not read my blog.
So thanks for reading.
Matt
You have a blog?
Of course there’s money to be made investing in Governement infrastructure projects.
With dams you can sell the water and maybe make money out of purification and deliver, sewage treatment and maintenance.
A lease could be charged for building and maybe even maintenance contracts could be set up.
Roads are a bit different as tolls are the 3rd rail of transport.
We could call these Pension Finance Initiatives or PFI for short.
Anyway, don’t pensions already indirectly invest in infrastructure through the requirement to hold a rather large part of their pot in Government bonds?
“You have a blog?”
Click on my name, or
https://radicaleconomicthought.wordpress.com/
@ Matt
Unfortunately I’ve seen your blog and the articles are basically sub-GCSE level nonsense. My favourite is when you declare we can simply print money to pay off debt.
On another note, if the current government backing wealth funds is a nonsense idea, why do you back Richard Murphy’s version of the same thing ?
Matt U,
My position towards Cameron has always been utter derision (with the sole exception of when he said after the expenses scandal that he didn’t care whether claims were technically within the rules, he cared whether they were wrong). The man has few identifiable principles, and I think he’s terrible, long-term, for the Conservative Party and a real British right wing. I’ve said so repeatedly, so am happy to say so again.
But why should I be required to, every time I criticise some left-wing tongue-dragging fuckwit like Murphy? If someone’s talking bollocks, they’re talking bollocks. That someone else might be wrong about something doesn’t change that.
I don’t subscribe to party politics, precisely because it causes this sort of brain-dead team-obsessed thinking — seems to cause a lot of it on the current Front Bench, in fact. Ideas should be assessed on their own merits. Responding to the criticism of Team A’s idea by saying, “Oo! Oo! Look at what Team B did!” is the sort of argument I’ll want my children to have grown out of by the time they’re twelve, at the very latest.
And, you know, credit where it’s due: that was a fucking good joke. Why not just laugh and enjoy it?
Murphy could have made himself look a lot better by openly laughing at it. The man’s too small-minded and narcissistic to understand that, though. Compare with David Beckham, who used to break the ice in interviews by telling David Beckham jokes. Or George W Bush, who gave an entire speech taking the piss out of his own malapropisms (“What this country needs is taller pie”).
S2: “But why should I be required to, every time I criticise some left-wing tongue-dragging fuckwit like Murphy? If someone’s talking bollocks, they’re talking bollocks. That someone else might be wrong about something doesn’t change that.
I don’t subscribe to party politics, precisely because it causes this sort of brain-dead team-obsessed thinking — seems to cause a lot of it on the current Front Bench, in fact. Ideas should be assessed on their own merits. Responding to the criticism of Team A’s idea by saying, “Oo! Oo! Look at what Team B did!” is the sort of argument I’ll want my children to have grown out of by the time they’re twelve, at the very latest.”
Indeed. It is the worst (and most boring) kind of whataboutism, designed to derail any sensible discussion of the merits.
Matthew L,
Wouldn’t know anything about that, and certainly wouldn’t expect to be taken seriously if I used a picture of Kim Il-Sung for an avatar.
RM is getting a good kicking in the comments under his Guardian article from yesterday.
Tyler,
“My favourite is when you declare we can simply print money to pay off debt.”
That is not what I said, and you know that.
I said that we would have a national debt which would be 2/3 smaller if we had done what Milton Friedman advised in 1948, and financed government deficit spending through issuing money into the economy.
So Milton Friedman advice, not sub GCSE level.
But if anyone is interested in the details of the argument:
https://radicaleconomicthought.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/pqe-how-to-cut-the-uks-debt-by-two-thirds/
“Ideas should be assessed on their own merits. Responding to the criticism of Team A’s idea by saying, “Oo! Oo! Look at what Team B did!” is the sort of argument I’ll want my children to have grown out of by the time they’re twelve, at the very latest.”!
The point was NO ONE of the highly paid journalists take arguments apart and look at the merits of policy “wealth fund”. Otherwise I would not have to write my blog and point out the blooming obvious, that it is nonsense. But I would be able to read it in the FT or Guardian.
And the joke was funny, yes. But what is Murphy to do if the Guardian asks him to write a reply?
“And the joke was funny, yes. But what is Murphy to do if the Guardian asks him to write a reply?”
Write a reply but not be such a pompous arse?
Answer to obvious question is obvious…
> what is Murphy to do if the Guardian asks him to write a reply?
Say “What? It was a joke. Lighten up.” Or are you suggesting that it is impossible to turn down media appearances? (I ask as someone who turned down dozens of them last year. It was easy.)
“I ask as someone who turned down dozens of them last year. It was easy.”
If you are famous and your opinion is wanted, great. You might not be famous, sometimes it is enough to be a Russian oligarch supporting the Conservative party, and your opinion will be sought. Which is an interesting perspective on whose opinions are valid, and whose are not.
This particular issue I am going on about, “wealth funds, like Johnson and Osborne want them, are nonsense” should of course be discussed in the media.
Two cabinet members talking rubbish in their speeches at the Tory Conference. That should be NEWS. In truth ALL NEWSPAPERS SHOULD REPORT THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT,.
None of them do. So it is not a media which does its job holding politicians to account. So the public gets the wrong idea here, we can all agree on that.
So Murphy makes the point that tax is not a laughing matter, which after a good joke comes across as a bit puritan. But it is a valid point. Cameron might have tried 64 positions, but he seems to have found one (reducing tax credits) where screwing the public worked. So that is worth pointing out, isn’t it?
@ Matt
In 1948 the US didn’t have a fiat currency. It was locked into Bretton Woods/Gold standard.
Which means that spending money into the economy in 1948 meant running down FED reserves – not printing new fiat currency which printing money means today.
I also asked you to find an example where printing money worked. You came back with the American civil war (where printing money caused serious inflation and currency devaluation) and the Guernsey pound (which wasn’t the only currency used in Guernsey at the time, and also devalued heavily). Both examples weren’t exactly success stories and happened over a hundred years ago.
When it comes to the current, real life examples of money printing going on in the world to day – namely Argentina and Venezuala – you had no real answer.
I think the real, underlying problem, is that you don’t really have any understanding of what you are saying and are really just regurgitating what Richard Murphy says. Which is a bad idea.
> So Murphy makes the point that tax is not a laughing matter, which after a good joke comes across as a bit puritan. But it is a valid point.
Cameron didn’t say tax was a laughing matter; he said Murphy’s book was a laughing matter. Tax does not equal Murphy’s policies. I would suggest that people who want tax reduced want that precisely because they do not think tax is a laughing matter.
> This particular issue I am going on about, “wealth funds, like Johnson and Osborne want them, are nonsense” should of course be discussed in the media.
Yes, you want wealth funds to be discussed in the media. You’ve said. Why are you harranguing us about it? We’re not the media. And if the media did discuss it as much as you want, would Murphy’s errors suddenly turn into wisdom? If so, how?
> Two cabinet members talking rubbish in their speeches at the Tory Conference. That should be NEWS.
“You’re not allowed to criticise Team A because look what Team B did! Look!”
Matt
You are obviously trying to promote your blog and it is becoming boring. There is also no need to lecture us on the shortcomings of the MSM. Why not just allow us to enjoy taking the piss out of the Mr Pooter of our age?
“Yes, you want wealth funds to be discussed in the media. You’ve said. Why are you harranguing us about it? We’re not the media. ”
First, I just wanted some feedback whether I was talking rubbish, which I always what think when I write something which is to me obvious, but completely ignored by everyone else. So nobody said here that I was a “pompous arse” or worse, so I take that that my arguments were valid.
The media will have a look here once every so often, they do change their opinion, sometimes. That is their job, surfing the internet all day, to find something to write about. They will come here, too.
Tyler
“…namely Argentina and Venezuala – you had no real answer”
Answer: tax and raise interest rates, and inflation will disappear. You can still spend money at the same time into the economy, but obviously adjust interest rates and tax rates. That would kill inflation.
“Why not just allow us to enjoy taking the piss out of the Mr Pooter of our age?”
Well there was some 50 comments on this thread doing just that, before I came in. I did not really drown them out. And obviously there will be many more in this blog, going forward.
@ Matt
Argentina is printing about 2.5% of GDP – which is roughly what Murphy wanted to do.
They have interest rates of 22.75% and tax receipts are running around 40% of GDP.
Yet inflation is still climbing and the currency still devaluing.
How much tax would need to be collected and how high should rates go before you “kill” inflation.
You just make an assertion that it can be done, and never look at the actual evidence. Which is why I suppose you couldn’t/wouldn’t answer that question when I posed it to you.
“First, I just wanted some feedback whether I was talking rubbish”
Yes. Yes you are. Happy now?
He is getting slaughtered and given what he and his ilk plan for those of a neoliberal bent it couldn’t happen to a nastier fellow – the article is one of the most nauseating I have ever read.
Do you think Cameron has read it? In enough detail to proclaim every point is wrong in public?
Of course he hasn’t. Still, the title was there to be shot at, but also the joke is there to be shot at.
I thought his speech was ghastly, small-minded gentlemen’s club blustering. Can’t stand the man.
>” Two cabinet members talking rubbish in their speeches at the Tory Conference. That should be NEWS.”
All political shite talk rubbish 24/7/365/From Here To Eternity.
Not just rubbish but often vile, self-serving evil.
Not worth commenting on. If you can come up with some way that every single piece of political pork on the entire planet can get the brutal, agonising death they each richly deserve–and leave the rest of us to bask in the sunlit uplands thereafter–I would be really interested to hear it.
That is what I would call a blog post.
“I thought his speech was ghastly, small-minded gentlemen’s club blustering. Can’t stand the man.”
I’m sure its mutual Arnald. Socialists rarely get on with each other. Esp if one is rich and the other is not.
Matt Usselmann: So nobody said here that I was a “pompous arse” or worse, so I take that that my arguments were valid.
That would be a mistake. You overlook the most likely reason which is that nobody can be bothered.
> nobody said here that I was a “pompous arse” or worse
Really? I said you were repeatedly using an argument a twelve-year-old should have grown out of. Perhaps you’re too intelligent to have noticed.
Lawrence
The mention of the Joy of Tax was one of the highlights (purely for the response I knew it would generate from Murphy) However, the rest of the speech was nothing to write home about I agree – ghastly might be a little strong but uninspiring certainly……
The Meissen Bison
Got it in one!
Matt Usselmann
So people’s failure to acknowledge your argument is taken as proof of its validity? You will definitely be right at home at TRUK.
However I think it was Squander Two who pointed out the comments section here is more interesting partly because it allows pretty much anything to come on uncensored so feel free to keep giving us the benefit of your opinion (even if its ‘greatness’ will remain unacknowledged)
From the comments sections – Mass murder advocate Ivan Horrocks:
‘Some people never get past undergraduate level humour do they,’
And the slaughter of class enemies is such a jape, eh? Judge a man by the company he keeps…..
VP, it might not have been inspiring but it was a clear attempt to push Corbyn into the far left ghetto corner and woo the centre left vote. I don’t approve as I would prefer a smaller state party to a broad-based social democrat party. However it was an interesting approach to the fact that the parliamentary labour party don’t seem to like their leader very much.
Meissen & Patten
Nobody can be bothered is not quite true.
At least some people read the stuff I wrote (if you have a blog, you can see the traffic, and where it comes from)
Now people here are not afraid to criticise stuff, especially if written by Mr. Murphy. So it could be possible that they are also critical of other stuff, like mine.
So if you want criticism, this is the place to come to.
Hmmm
rather does confirm
“diogenes – You are obviously trying to promote your blog and…”
Well clearly, there is not much point writing a blog, if you do not try to get people to read it..
This blog is quite good,generated a lot of traffic, a lot better than posting some stuff on the FT, for example. Where it gets completely ignored.
Or sending tweets to journalists (same reaction, IGNORANCE, they do not even read it, unless the traffic-counter on my blog is wrong)
Best is posting the blog in a Guardian discussion, but there it will get taken down by moderators, as too many people click on it, and the Guardiaan does not want to lose any traffic.
So that’s your motivation for coming on here and posting?
Let me complete diogenes comment for you!
Matt
No sorry, I won’t be clicking on your blog. Life is just too short to bother reading the thoughts of sad cases who come on other peoples’ blogs to say “read my blog”; smacks of desperation.
“So that’s your motivation for coming on here”
I did not know that it would generate a bit of traffic, did I?
I am just reporting what happened.
My motivation was to check whether I could get an opinion about what I had written. Whether there was things wrong with my argument.
Ironman: “sad cases”
LOL, spending each day attacking Richard Murphy is of course, a noble venture, which does not smack of desperation.
Hey guys, if some of you prefer to spend their time doing that, each to their own.
I appreciate the comments I got on the piece I had written on my blog. and some of you reading it, and that is why it is worth for me coming here.
Matt Usselmann
I did drop by after you gave your blog a puff and that’s why, when you wrote:
People can do what they like on their blogs, I have not blocked anybody on mine, but I have been blocked by others on theirs.
I wrote:
You can’t block tumbleweed
meaning it was a bit of a desert. You must get lonely there – I certainly won’t be going back.
But here’s a positive suggestion: go and talk to some Norwegians about wealth funds.
Ironman,
> Life is just too short to bother reading the thoughts of sad cases who come on other peoples’ blogs to say “read my blog”; smacks of desperation.
Unless you have a fight with a celebrity, of course.
Yes, I’m still going on about it.
@celebrity
Where did I read that before?
“Not everyone on the New Left lives permanently in the Lefty Echo Chamber, thank fuck. ”
There you go, now I am trying to engage with the Hard Right Echo chamber for a change, and they complain about haranguing them.
WTF?
Matt
This is hardly an echo chamber. About the only things we agree on are that Murph is a pompous fool and that you are a childish attention-seeker.
Diogenes
not quite, we are also in agreement now, that Messrs Osborne and Johnson are fools, as far as the “Wealth Funds” are concerned.
And people rather complain about Mr Murphy, then worrying being taken by the Bullingdon boys for a ride.
Matt,
Engage away and see if you can educate this “hard right echo chamber” – no one is stopping you…
And no one is complaining of being harangued either. It’s just that your tactic (“read my blog, that’s really why I’m here – to get traffic”?) is perhaps even less subtle when you spell it out quite so blatantly.
Anyway, best of luck all the same!
Matt, I would be more likely to bother to read your comments, were they less full of SJW markers such as “Bullingdon boys”.
As it is, I’ll probably just skim over them in the same manner as I skim DBCR’s and Arnald’s.
Just a bit of constructive criticism, letting you know.
S2
It is one thing to have your blog highlighted for you after you have made headlines in the Daily Mail ( did he ever meet you for lunch?) and quite another to pop up on somone else’s blog and shout “come read my blog, it’s got ‘Radical’ in the title”.
@BiW – you’ll note ‘Bullingdon Boys’ repeatedly from Uselessman and “gentlemen’s club blustering” from Arsenald; i.e.: “They’re evil cos they’re posh”.
I’ve read a few interview with the ‘Tory scum’ shouters and the spitters recently; that’s their main argument too.
Plenty of better anti-Tory arguments to be read on here every day. Not bad for the echo chamber.
Hard right echo chamber, here? You must be reading a different comments section, sunshine. We slag each other off all the time. There’s pretty much every axis of non-Leftist thought exhibited here, with a lot of Hayek groupies like me, to Outraged of Tunbridge Wells at one end and hang-the-last-diversity-coordinator-with-the-guts-of-the-last-corporatist at the other (you know who you both are).
““They’re evil cos they’re posh”.”
No, they are useless. And that is the complaint. And I build up a whole blog post to make that point.
The Bullingdon boys have a choice, to belong to the Bullingdon Club, if they want to prance around and pursue the aims of the club. They are adults when they join, and old enough to know that it will have consequences.
Now, I am now to FORGET the fact that they belonged to that rather exclusive gathering, as otherwise someone might not read my blog, or mioght think I am a socialist.
Bollox to that, the Bullingdon boys will feature as the Bullingdon boys. It is a handy acronym for the 3 most powerful people in the country. And a rather apt metaphor. Bullingdon boys love smashing up restaurants, and, when older, the country.
“No, they are useless. And that is the complaint.”
No! You included ‘Bullingdon’ in your name-calling to highlight their background. But top marks for effort, trying to deny the undeniable.
Matt U
Your use of capitals in your posts here merely says ‘fruitcake obsessive’ to me. I suggest you return to brown-nosing the Murphatollah.
Muscleman: “the Bullingdon boys will feature as the Bullingdon boys. It is a handy acronym for the 3 most powerful people in the country.”
You mean synonym. Even that’s not quite right but it’s better than acronym. An acronym is a word comprised of the initial letters from a longer name. “NATO” is the oft-quoted example*. For the Bullingdon boys to be an acronym, you’d have to be using TBB as a word, which it isn’t.
It’s probably a synecdoche, more than a synonyn.
*technically the acronym also has to be a proper word, and NATO isn’t. So really NATO is an initialism, like BBC, just easier to say. A better example of an acronym is AIDS which stands for acquied immune etc. but is also a real word.
Strictly speaking, an acronym is an abbreviation, frequently although not always formed from the initial letters of the abbreviated phrase, that is pronounced as a single word, so RADAR, Ofcom and AWOL and are acronyms while BBC and HTML are not. It doesn’t have to be a real word, just pronounceable as a single unit without explicitly sounding out the letters. There are hybrids, like JPEG which are generally considered to be acronyms.
Matt Usselmann: Now, I am now to FORGET the fact that they belonged to that rather exclusive gathering, as otherwise someone might not read my blog
Look, you’re making the same, sorry, SAME mistake again:
the risk of people reading your blog is vanishingly small and until you have something interesting to say and can frame that something in terms which are original, interesting and amusing you ought to resign yourself to the sound of an eerie wind moaning through your lonely and unloved pixels.
As a non-native speaker of English, you at least write reasonably well but you need to work on the content more.
As for the “Bullingdon Boys” label: that’s just a lazy signalling mechanism of your right-on credentials. It’s not intended to enlighten or inform but to obscure. It’s no more sophisticated a term of political analysis than standing outside the conference hall in Manchester shouting “fucking Tory scum”. It is intended to evoke a reflex, not describe anything meaningful (it’s also a metonym proper, rather than its subclass synecdoche, since I have my pendant’s hat on at the moment).
Similarly, “radical” economics sends a signal, where “radical” can be fairly easily interchanged with “stupid”. I’m not sure what genuinely radical economics would look like (using radical in its sense of a return to roots) but it would probably have a lot more Smith and a lot less Piketty.
The Bullingdon Boys bit is not apt. As others say it lines you up with SJW scum and it is unoriginal and not relevant.
You could improve it by referring to the BullingDumb Boys and after folks get used to that you could vary it –say the FuckingDumb Boys (or even Boyz if you can’t completely shake trendy leftist dickheadery).
As for relevance? OK the Three (Dodgy QE) Tenners you refer to were indeed jumped up B-Club members and teen-shites who reeked of snobbery and “better–than” arrogance and who spent their time smashing up restaurants when they weren’t out Pig Fucking. Very similar to lots of middle-class leftist pricks who blight the scene today.
That is all of little consequence ( other than as useful wells of insult) next to their present activities:
*Economic Bungling–ie massive debt and recycling dead-tired ZaNu’s dead-tired economic policy cockwaffle. And exulting as if they have triumphed over anything other than plain sense.
*EU-sucking treason
*Peddling cultural fucking Marxism and sucking up to feminist scum
* Kissing Obamas arse and helping in the process of ruining other countries and facilitating-
* Turning the British into a despised minority in their own land. For which many of our Fathers died to save already.
So however obnoxious their antics in their greener days they are nothing to those they master now.
Forget Bullingscum and focus on that present evil which is more than sufficient to the day thereof.
St. Pancras is a temple to conspicuous recycling and free entertainment, actually. Very creative use of beaten-up old pianos.
Ooh, the “Bullingdon Boys” dog whistle. Posh boys being twats.
I’d better clutch my pearls, and immediately change my political positions to better match those of a bunch of people who were supporters/members of various groups supported by Sovblock intelligence services, who took money from the USSR and DDR to further their aims against the West, and start reading a newspaper edited by a former Soviet agent of influence.
Or maybe not. Cos frankly, the fake cameron pig story that the loonies are *still* clinging to like their favourite bottle of fluorescent hair dye could be true and he’d still be a million times preferable to the loony trots. And I don’t even really like him much….
Well, humdrum response if government proposed “wealth funds” do not make any sense, but all hell will brake out on this blog, should somebody mix up his acronyms with his metonyms. Thanks, I will try to be a bit more careful next time.
As far as the B-word is concerned. I have previously said “wrecker of restaurants = wrecker of country” is the metaphor which springs to my mind, should most of you think it is the same as “Tory scum”, not really.
Bullingdon Club is the same as any other undemocratic club which seems to have far too much power in the UK, House of Lords, Privy council, Black Rod with his ridiculous tights, royalty and knighthoods, Eton, etc. I understand the point of leaving it out, why trying to fight windmills in Spain?
But, once every so often it is good to remind ourselves that these ridiculous institutions still exist – and have real power. If you do not mention the Bullingdon Club, people tend to forget.
Now fair enough, it is Britain. The French sorted out their land-owning classes and aristocracy in 1789, and the Germans were forced to send the Kaiser into exile after WW1 and the rest of the Prussian aristocracy was expropriated after WW2 when their estates became East Germany or West Poland. Here in the UK they still send their off-spring to the Bullingdon Club.
Just in case anybody gets the wrong idea, I am not proposing guillotining the current triumvirate of the Conservative Party, or in fact anyone else. Even sending them into exile to Holland seems a bit harsh.
There is also nothing wrong with 20-year olds thinking they will run the country one day. However, it seems a bit unfair that the Brits get stuck with the Bullingdon Club boys. Of all students in Britain thinking they will run the country, as some of them must, we get stuck with the ones which are the richest and most priviliged. They get elected, aided and abetted by the media, as if we were living in the 18th or 19th century.
Even the Greeks can do better, at least they had the President of the Black Student Society of Essex University running the finance ministry for six months. Just to remind everyone that there is not a binary choice between “Bullingdon Boys” and “Trots with fluorescent hair”.
Just to remind everyone that there is not a binary choice between “Bullingdon Boys” and “Trots with fluorescent hair”.
You know, the funny thing is that if Call me Dave doesn’t feck it up, the next election will indeed be a binary choice between “Bullingdon Boys” (whether CMD, Boris, George or someone else) and Call me Comrade.
Fun times!
In any case, the country had a period of being run by ex-Grammar school kids. That wouldn’t do, so the grammars had to be destroyed. By the class warriors, not by the poshos. Let us not forget that the best post-war PM was a shopkeeper’s daughter, went to a grammar school, studied in a male-dominated field at a top university when that was highly unusal, and was the only female PM to date, and probably for a long time to come.
So shut up about poshos, it’s predictable and boring.
Matt
Be careful you don’t develop a limp.
Wow, someone even more deranged than DBCR. Let’s think this through. British PMs since 1970: Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron. That makes 8. 7 men and 1 woman. 6 went to Oxbridge. 1 was a member of the Bullingdon Club. The other 7 came from relative or total obscurity. In terms of diversity, it is better than any other nation I can think of. And yet here we are with some ignoramus claiming that the country is ruled by the Bullingdon Club.
@Diogenes,
BUT TEH BULLINGDON CLUB (garble garble, warble warble, dribble, Nurse! My pipe and slippers! The Bullingdonian lizards are out to run the country again and are chasing me around the room!)
@MattU: now you are sounding just like a cardboard cut out SJW. You better look in the mirror – the people who have the express aim of smashing up the country are the ones who joined the Labour party to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. We have seen their intent, recently at the Tory conference, and immediately after the election in the riot that took place in Whitehall. I haven’t seen any ‘Bullingdon’ boys or their supporters (whoever they might be) out in public smashing things up recently. Have you?
“So shut up about poshos, it’s predictable and boring.”
I did not bring it up, other than make a passing reference to Bullingdon boys in my blog and once here. You guys got all excited about it, which makes me indeed go around in circles.
That then is predictable and boring. That is strange, because I bet, given the choice, contributors of this blog would also like to modernise Britain a bit.
Get rid of the House of Patronage, for example, which is the laughing stock all the way to Beijing, where even they elect their People’s Congress with arguably more democratic choice than the UK exercises when nominating members of the House of Lords.
BICR,
> to Outraged of Tunbridge Wells at one end and hang-the-last-diversity-coordinator-with-the-guts-of-the-last-corporatist at the other (you know who you both are).
I recognised them both immediately from those descriptions. Well done.
BICR,
> to Outraged of Tunbridge Wells at one end and hang-the-last-diversity-coordinator-with-the-guts-of-the-last-corporatist at the other (you know who you both are).
I recognised them both immediately from those descriptions. Well done.
> There you go, now I am trying to engage with the Hard Right Echo chamber for a change, and they complain about haranguing them.
> WTF?
Don’t quote people out of context; it makes you look as dishonest as you are.
I used the word “harranguing” specifically to refer to your shouting at us about the media not covering whatever-the-fuck-it-was: not a criticism of any of our political positions, for which we are responsible, but a complaint about what’s in the news and what isn’t, for which we aren’t.
But you knew that.
> Bullingdon Club is the same as any other undemocratic club which seems to have far too much power in the UK, House of Lords, Privy council, Black Rod with his ridiculous tights, royalty and knighthoods, Eton, etc.
OK, explain how much constitutional power Black Rod has, and how much less power he’d have in different tights. Explain how much power knights have. Explain how much power royalty has. And then explain how much power the Bullingdon Club has. Here’s a clue: being a powerful organisation is not the same thing as having a couple of ex-members who go on to be powerful people in other organisations.
And, if you are going to use that criterion, why not attack working men’s clubs and trades unions? How many powerful politicians have started out in them? Come to that, why not attack the PPE course at Oxford? You want to see undue influence on the country, they’re exhibit A, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people here would agree with you (I would). One small group of lecturers who all know each other are teaching the ideology that shapes all three of our main political parties. Hardly good for democratic choice, is it? If you were really upset about undue influence, that’d be a much bigger deal than some bloody drinks-and-dinners club. But you’re not: you’re angry about posh people.
> “wrecker of restaurants = wrecker of country” is the metaphor which springs to my mind
Did Cameron wreck a restaurant? If so, did he pay for the damage? Was he prosecuted? Or is this just that Cameron was in the Bullingdon Club and some people in the Bullingdon Club once wrecked a restaurant?
Anyway, I take it you don’t believe in redemption, then. Or that people can change.
This obsession with what someone did in their late teens, early twenties is odd. I had a couple of friends at university who had to spend a night in the cells for some drunken antics. Knew a guy who would have been arrested for vandalism if the vandalistic act hadn’t nearly killed him so he ended up in hospital instead. And as for the medical students…. Can’t see that it should matter if any of them ever stand for election.
What about someone who did drugs at university? Are they unsuitable for office? I mean, anyone who does cocaine is financially supporting the cartels responsible for the highest murder rates in the world. That’s a bit worse than a bit of localised vandalism, surely?
I didn’t do anything particularly illegal in my student days, but I was left-wing. If I were to stand for election, what would be more important? That I’m a Libertarian now or that I was a Socialist twenty years ago?
> Well, humdrum response if government proposed “wealth funds” do not make any sense …
I don’t think you understand how this works. Tim posts about a number of different things. Under each post, we discuss THAT THING. Sure, the conversation can go off at tangents, but it happens naturally, in the nature of conversations.
Your complaint is that, when you’ve come on here and demanded “Everyone stop talking about that thing! Talk about this thing I want to talk about instead! Now!” the fact that we haven’t all immediately done so proves that we’re huge supporters of the thing because we’re all Tory cheerleaders.
Personally, believe it or not, I avoid following party politics because it’s so fucking depressing. So I have no idea what the wealth funds you’re obsessed with even are. Hadn’t heard of them. So not about to criticise them. That would be ignorant. I think it’s stretching things a bit to interpret that as active support.
> Get rid of the House of Patronage, for example, which is the laughing stock all the way to Beijing, where even they elect their People’s Congress with arguably more democratic choice than the UK exercises when nominating members of the House of Lords.
And tell me who you would rather live under. The non-laughing-stock incredibly democratic Chinese Congress that runs tanks over protestors?
Oops. Duplicated a bit of comment. Apologies. Obviously, the non-duplicate bit isn’t aimed at BICR.
“And yet here we are with some ignoramus claiming that the country is ruled by the Bullingdon Club.”
Since 2010, two ex-members of the Bullingdon club ran the country and still currently do. Another has recently joined the cabinet.
Even if you completely ignore it, that is a fact.
OK you think you are making a serious point. Carry on with your delusions of intellectual prowess.
“I did not bring it up, other than make a passing reference to Bullingdon boys in my blog and once here. You guys got all excited about it, which makes me indeed go around in circles.”
Because actually the Bullingdon Club really is not relevant to anything except for a bit of anti-posh chortling, and as a virtue-signalling dog whistle. The fact the the Left obsesses about it is baffling, particularly when they have their little cliques and clubs too, and like to go around throwing fire extinguishers off buildings and smashing up John Lewis. And who all help each other when they get into politics.
To be honest, after spending 4 years at Oxford I had never even heard of the Bullingdon. A bunch of other dining societies, yes, but them, never. That’s how much influence and notoriety they have in their own environment – zero.
“Come to that, why not attack the PPE course at Oxford? “
Oh yes, indeedy. Amongst those of us studying proper, hard subjects, PPE was a bit of a laughing stock – a course for people bright enough to get in, but not knowing what they wanted to do afterwards other than work in the nebulous blob of management consultancy / finance / “consulting” / politics / making mummy and daddy happy.
Since 2010, two ex-members of the Bullingdon club ran the country and still currently do. Another has recently joined the cabinet.
Even if you completely ignore it, that is a fact.
And how many members of rowing clubs, the Rugby club, or any other number of clubs are there in similar positions?
And how many of the current Labour cabinet were in or actively supported CND, which was a Stasi front organisation for much of its existance?
Hmm… A posho drinking society or a Stasi front organisation. Let me think which is more worth worrying about…
Oh really? So let’s have a look at just this thread then…
All of that was before I mentioned it might be counter-productive to getting people to read what you write:
@BiW,
At least give him credit for having avoided the mot d’haine du jour “neoliberal” to describe anything insufficiently left-wing.
“Everyone stop talking about that thing! Talk about this thing I want to talk about instead! Now!”
Well, as I said, the taking the Micky out of Mr Murphy thread had 50+ comments, and there will probably another new blog post along in a minute or two about the same subject, knowing Tim Worstall.
My original intevention here was really about the fact that I found it a joke what the Bullingdon Boys were proposing, about “wealth funds” which I thought was slightly more hilarious than Mr Cameron’s jibe about his 64 positions.
You do not like the fact that I try to get this debated, but some people gave me same valuable comments, and I think on the whole I think they agree with the points I make in my blog post.
“So I have no idea what the wealth funds you’re obsessed with even are. Hadn’t heard of them. So not about to criticise them. That would be ignorant. I think it’s stretching things a bit to interpret that as active support.”
Well, that of course is the whole point of my post. My interpretation of what they are. It is clearly only my impression, that people support my point of view, when not criticising, but I fully accept that this might be wrong.
Now, your defense of the Disney World of palaces, Black Rods in tights, and Privy Councils, which do not have any real power. That is true. So what is this charade about then, time to get rid of it, surely.
But the House of Lords has real power, and I guess here (maybe you have not made your mind up about this either) we are in agreement that this could be run much more democratically and efficiently as a second chamber of parliament. Elected by proportional representation perhaps, and cut down from 800 to about 150?
Should we attack PPE lecturers and working men’s clubs?
I think there should indeed be review what gets taught in this PPE course, I would be very interested. As that where the mindset of our politicians is formed, and that is where the power lies.
There should be a review of powerful instituions, ie, media, not working man’s clubs.
Now that all was not in the news, Osborne’s and Johnson’s speech was, and that is why I picked on that, as it mentioned wealth funds.
And no, people should not be held fully responsible what they have done 20 years ago when being students. But it should not be ignored either, so we all pretend the Bullingdon club does not exist. And we should not trivialize the fact either, that there is a club, which rightly or wrongly has reputation for wrecking restaurants, and by that fact alone has a certain pulling power for students to join.
Only the ones which have the means to pay for their clobber and potential bills for wrecking places, mind you.
heh.
Oh Noes, Bullingdonians under the Bed!
Better Bullingdonian than Dead, eh?
😉
Bloke in Wales
Thank goodness for word search – I had used the term twice more than I thought.
abacab
“The fact the the Left obsesses about it is baffling, particularly when they have their little cliques and clubs too, and like to go around throwing fire extinguishers off buildings and smashing up John Lewis.”
I do not think there is a student club at Oxford, which actually proposes doing these things. That is the difference.
I accept that you did not know of the Bullingdon club whilst there, but how come that the people who joined it knew about it? And which, funnily enough, all came from some privileged background. They knew about it, and they thought it was worthwhile to join, for whatever reason.
Why get so hung up about it, using the term Bullingdon boy?
This is politics, Corbyn is characterised as “hard left” the Tories go on how he is a threat to “security and prosperity and our virgin daughters”, that is all short hand to make a political point.
Bullingdon boy is the same.
mu–“But the House of Lords has real power, and I guess here (maybe you have not made your mind up about this either) we are in agreement that this could be run much more democratically and efficiently as a second chamber of parliament. Elected by proportional representation perhaps, and cut down from 800 to about 150?”
The eviillleee of the House of Lords is the ne plus ultra of tired old leftist shite.
It’ll be homilies against blokes in top hats next.
The HoL has done its best to put the boot into endless statist and socialistic shite bubbling up from the scummy vermin who fill the HoC. The Lords have been by far the better of the 2 these last 20 years or so. All the appointed stooges will change that prob.
As for an elected “Upper House” –stuff it. A moratorium on all new laws for 200 years and the repeal of 99% of the shite we have is more like it.
This is politics, Corbyn is characterised as “hard left” the Tories go on how he is a threat to “security and prosperity and our virgin daughters”, that is all short hand to make a political point.
Bullingdon boy is the same.
Not the same at all. One is a pretty objectively-established fact that he is “hard left”, which unlike “hard right” actually has a fairly precise meaning which accurately describes the man’s politics, whereas the other one is a reference to a stupid dining club designed to dog-whistle to twats.
“and I think on the whole I think they agree with the points I make in my blog post.”
You are right Matt. Everyone here agrees with you – and thinks you’re the dog’s bollocks… Well done.
Matt must be happy now. We have shown beyond reasonable doubt that he is more pompous and more stupid than Murph. Take a bow!
Mr Ecks
“The HoL has done its best to put the boot into endless statist and socialistic shite bubbling up from the scummy vermin who fill the HoC. The Lords have been by far the better of the 2 these last 20 years or so.”
You will not be surprised that is not new thinking.
Edmund Burke, the father of conservatism, in the 18th century: (For some reason I think Burke will feature prominently in the PPE course)
Burke was a leading sceptic with respect to democracy. While admitting that theoretically, in some cases it might be desirable, he insisted a democratic government in Britain in his day would not only be inept, but also oppressive. He opposed democracy for three basic reasons. First, government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that occurred rarely among the common people. Second, he thought that if they had the vote, common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be aroused easily by demagogues; he feared that the authoritarian impulses that could be empowered by these passions would undermine cherished traditions and established religion, leading to violence and confiscation of property. Third, Burke warned that democracy would create a tyranny over unpopular minorities, who needed the protection of the upper classes
abacab:
I thought when you mentioned four years at Oxford, that you might be a modern linguist but when you wrote “ mot d’haine du jour “, I realised that it must have been some other more worthwhile subject because that’s an aspirate H on Haine. 🙂
Like you, I never came across the Bullingdon club either. The Grid, yes, but that was rather a sedate affair with its own un-trashed premises.
And yes, I agree, PPE, was perceived as being a bit of a hybrid course for the intellectually unambitious.
@Bison,
Not around here it’s not an aspirate H. And nor does the MS Word grammar checker – that I use all day every day to write French – balk at d’haine. And ce monsieur drops the “h”, commilfau: http://fr.forvo.com/word/haine/#fr
And indeed, I studied a hard subject, not modern languages.
And yes, I agree, PPE, was perceived as being a bit of a hybrid course for the intellectually unambitious.
I’d perhaps add bright enough but intellectually unambitious. One of my school colleagues who ended up at the same college as me but a year behind (gap yah) was no slouch academically and, frankly, could have studied pretty much what he wanted. But chose PPE…..
MU: Thanks for the history lesson.
Edmund was exactly right then and now. I want freedom–you can stuff democracy. Even if the average idiot had a box/button to vote about everything it would still be the tyranny of a thick mob. Let alone the system we have where you get a choice between two labels on the same brand of ever more oppressive, controlling (and bungling) corporate-socialist shite. Who get voted in and then do whatever the fuck they feel like for the next five years. Not to mention selling us down the river to international scum who don’t even maintain the pretense of giving a shit about what anybody wants except themselves and their gang.
My life belongs to me not the state and I want freedom not a vox pop for morons.
Tim
Thanks to the interesting (To use a neutral term) Matt Usselmann you have more than 160 comments – can you please write a pompous self-regarding follow-up where you say how important you are and how the government of the day needs to listen to what you say…..
Jesus, is this still going? I admit, I was hoping to prolong the thread by using grammar pendantry (and props to BiCR for playing along), but lord: is it really worth a hundred posts examining musclemann’s conspiracy fantasy (it’s not coherent enough to be a conspiracy theory) that an obscure dining club somehow rules this country, despite all evidence to the contrary?
One of the great things about having Bozo the Clown aboard is that eventually you start to check things out.
So, of the 22 members of the current cabinet, how many went to Eton? 2 – Letwin and Cameron
How many read PPE at Oxford? 4
How many others went to Oxford? 4
How many to Cambridge? 3
How many have no degree? 3
How many were members of the Bullingdon Club? 2
The fact that half the Cabinet went to Oxford might be a concern but there appears to be a lot of diversity of background. There are 7 women, including one in one of the great Offices of State.
I wonder what Bozo the Clown makes of that?
> is it really worth a hundred posts
Nope.
In my defence, I was bored.
And it was easy.
I guess abacab must have read Chemistry.
Half went to “Oxbridge” – and 8 to others and 3 not. Interesting, it could easily have been higher than 50% in this age?
@diogenes
I guess abacab must have read Chemistry.
Nope. This is somewhat fun though, so have another go 🙂
Whoops, I meant to type Oxbridge. Interestingly, at a quick glance, the social mix of the Shadow Cabinet is probably not much different. But then, the Labour Party always used to be dominated by Oxbridge, didn’t it?
“I wonder what Bozo the Clown makes of that?”
He is not chuffed if you leave him out of the cabinet rankings.
The Mayor of London is of course a member of the cabinet (no portfolio at the moment). So that makes it now 3 in the Bullingdon Club, and 3 in the Eton category.
So we have 23 members of cabinet, of more than half went to Oxbridge (12).
Johnson will, I guess get a senior proper cabinet post once he stops being mayor, so then the three Bullingdon boys will run the country.
> so then the three Bullingdon boys will run the country.
Just like they always do! Er, hang on, no. … Just like they often have! Er, still no. … Just like they will have done since the moment they started!
What a strange obsession.
I founded my university’s juggling society. True story.
“I founded my university’s juggling society.”
To be fair, I would make similar jibes about them trying to juggle the economy, if 3 of them were to end up in the senior cabinet.
Bullingdon boys are a fact. Live with it.
Bullingdon boys are a fact. Live with it.
So what?
It seems to be you that has a massive issue with them. Not us. We couldn’t give a flying one if they were in the tiddlywinks society (a lady who read the same subject with me was captain, by the way – noduff).
How the Tories try to move to the left, apparently being vacated by Labour:
“When Michael Ashcroft’s biography of David Cameron hit the news, I read up on the culture of dining societies, which the prime minister is said to have been part of. Forget pigs. To me the real obscenity was the Bullingdon Club’s apparent initiation rite of burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person.”
just now from the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/09/why-protested-tory-party-conference-homeless-cuts-services
2 out of 22
For Bozo’s information, not that he is capable of comprehending it, Johnson is part of the political cabinet, which deals with party political issues rather than matters of state.
2/22 is hard to define as a controlling influence. 3/23 would also not be a controlling influence. The 2 Cabinet members who went to Bristol or the 2 who went to Edinburgh have just as much say/influence/control. Why not just get over your obsession with the antics of 20 year old men? It is getting creepy. Did you watch them in action? Did you stalk them?
Did you track that back? It’s one bloke makes the claim to a student newspaper (you know, rigorously fact checked etc), the Mirror picks it up and by the time you read it in The G it’s the standard initiation ceremony is it?
@Matt,
My word, you’re credulous when you want to be.
Do you also still believe that the pig story is true?
Remember, the Grauniad is the Daily Mail for people who’ve convinced themselves it’s not.
abacab:
Bachelors degree in medicine?
@Meissen –
Nope, I’m not alcoholic enough.
Think of something that is proper hard science, and more concrete.
abacab
Concretologist?
Civil engineering?
Laurence,
You almost got there. You cannot study “civil engineering” per se at Oxford or Cambridge as an undergrad.
One studies an Engineering Science 4-year direct masters. Mine did include modules in civil, but calculations on concrete blew spicy monkey chunks, so I didn’t specialise in that direction.
Tim,
nobody can confirm it, but nobody is there to deny something either.
It has been around a while, that allegation, so presumably cannot be too hard to track down someone. If somebody really wanted to.
Now we know that some of the cabinet members who were part of that exclusive club have now said it was a mistake to have been part. Why?
What did they do, why do they now think they have to explain themselves?
Neither the jugglers not the tiddlywinks club members feel the need here to justify themselves? But the Bullingdon Boys do.
That by itself tells us something.
“It has been around a while, that allegation, so presumably cannot be too hard to track down someone. If somebody really wanted to.”
And yet – despite that quite a lot of people would very much have liked to have found something – no one has been able to..;)
Matt,
I’m curious – who is it that you think has felt the need to explain or justify themselves? I obviously missed that in the news?
Johnson
“a truly shameful vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and twittishness.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21836935
Cameron:
Of course, we all know our own home-grown Prime Minister was a member of the Bullingdon Club. David Cameron told Andrew Marr in 2009: “We do things when we are young that we deeply regret,” adding that he was “Of course, desperately, very embarrassed” about the 1987 photograph – featuring himself as well as Boris Johnson.
http://versanews.co.uk/2015/05/05/new-bullingdon-photographs/
If only the Hard Left would be half as embarrased by their youthful dalliances with the Soviet Block and other totalitarian régimes.
Give me a trashed restaurant over the Holodomor any day of the week.
Another one for the record.
We now have 4 Etonians, 4 Bullingdon Boys in the Cabinet!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Johnson
Thanks Matt,
You know, I feel absolutely sick to the core reading that, I hadn’t seen either of those articles before.
And you are right, 4 is just too many.
But hang on a second? Haven’t you missed something even more important? I’ve only just spotted this now that you mention it.
There are actually TWO Johnsons in the that bloody cabinet, if your information is accurate? And which really is completely outrageous – let’s face it, one is two too many – how on earth was that allowed to happen?
And in the Shadow Cabinet there are two people who went on a motorcycle trip to the DDR. Together.
I mean, really, motorcycles?
Motorcyclists are a reality – best get used to it.
MU: AbaCab nails you above.
As some sort of peddler of socialism you have no comment about the 200 million human beings so far murdered by the creed you support or the millions of more lives not lost but ruined by the same crew.
You are willing to go on for ever about Camorgureon burning a fifty pound note in front of some homeless bloke–IF it ever happened–as if that makes him the Supreme Dalek of all time. This itself suggest that you are short of a few cans for your six-pack. Mass murder/torture/evil on a cosmic scale vs a teen-twat who might have upset a homeless person–if it actually happened . What can any person of sense say? Pig Fucking Deal.
@S2
“And it was easy”
I’m gunning for 200.
John,
I believe that the next post up will be 200.
Hence, if I was a betting man..:)
It should be a clear choice, if we did not know anything else about the candidates.
Should I vote for vote
(a) for the ones going on a motorcycle trip to Eastern Europe, some kind of field trip to check out the comrades behind the iron curtain, or
(b) for the ones who have not got anything better to do with their parents money than burn it in front of homeless people (allegedly) or pay for renovations of restaurant (ruined by pre-meditated, organised, thuggish behaviour)
Now, there might be the one or other person here, who might think that better to vote for (b) as the next thing which might happen, if (a) comes to power, we have 200m dead in the UK, too.
Based on a motor cycle trip to East Germany, which firmly seems to put (a) into the mass-murderer psychopath category, same as Stalin or Pol Pot.
I might just put my cross next to the (a) if the question comes up 2020, I think, and take my chances.
Eckzoid
“Pig Fucking Deal” That’s funny! Bless your feet.
It’s 200 million now, is it? At this rate we should be hitting Peak Socialist Murder by 2019, approximately 2.5bn women and children at current rates of inflation.
Arnald: As a funny guy yourself glad you appreciate the humour.
My hope is that peak socialist death will be measured in the deaths OF socialists rather than the ever growing numbers of those killed BY socialists. It is long past time.
When your turn arrives Arnie–best think that you are requiting the evil you and your comrades have done.
I’ll send a bouquet of weeds. Russian victims will probably have sent all the available barbed wire.
MU: Given the child-like nature of your thought processes you should never be in any way able to impose your idiot ideas on others using of state coercion via the ballot box or any other method.
Your middle-class, sanctimony-spewing, sack of shit motorcycling hero Corbyn is an anti-British traitor, a brazen admirer of soviet tyranny and bum chums with every Islamic death group going. As well as advocating a return to the nationalised mass failure and waste of times past plus every extra green freak-show poverty-boosting measure he can sign up to he is also a self-hating anti-white turd who esp despises the white working class like so many middle-class leftist scumbags. His first action on getting the bastard job was to call for more measures to ensure that native whites will end up a despised minority in what used to be our country. He gathers around him a spectacular group of CSMF control freaks and dictatorial arseholes who think –to give just one example out of many–stopping people eating meat is any of their business.
My almost-equal hatred for the Blulabour pig fucker is that he peddles exactly the same set of vile agendas only slightly watered down with bullshit rhetoric. The day when he and Corbyn stand blubbering side-by-side on the same scaffold waiting for the drop cannot come soon enough.
Should I vote for vote
(a) for the ones going on a motorcycle trip to Eastern Europe, some kind of field trip to check out the comrades behind the iron curtain, or
(b) for the ones who have not got anything better to do with their parents money than burn it in front of homeless people (allegedly) or pay for renovations of restaurant (ruined by pre-meditated, organised, thuggish behaviour)
Aah, the simple decision-making processes that are informed by infinite benefit-of-the-doubt vs. infinite cynicism.