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Not that I control or direct any of you but….

Ragging on Ritchie is, of course, a grand spectator sport. However:

Richard Murphy says:
October 16 2020 at 9:26 am
Let me provide a provide summary answer to this.

In 2013 my wife was diagnosed with cancer. I am pleased to say she is now in remission.

However, when being treated she had chemotherapy, as well as surgery and radiotherapy. One of the advised side effects of chemo, with maybe a 1 in 10,000 risk, was serious mental ill health. She was the 1 in 10,000, and an extreme case at that. She had never suffered mental ill health before then.

For five years she could do very little, including parenting, which fell to me. Her condition was so bad that we lived apart from 2015. We still do. But I maintained my commitment to care for her, and have. We remain married. The arrangement may be unusual. We have not changed it, for many reasons. That’s our business.

Perhaps – and again I point out that you are not my charges nor can I, or even would I, direct you – some things might not be ragged upon?

So, such things as minimal salaries, zero national insurance taxation, profits paid out as dividends, from a limited company when raging that such was tax abuse is fair game. Bits about wife – well, you don’t need me to tell you this – are perhaps not.

there’s a certain hostage to fortune in my saying this as of course some will possibly use it as proof that I control some pack of feral commentators. Which, of course, I don’t, but it still seems worth saying. It is my opinion that certain things about Snippa should be ragged upon and others not.

37 thoughts on “Not that I control or direct any of you but….”

  1. “For five years she could do very little”

    Except be an active and fully legitimate (according to Spud) member of an LLP.

  2. She remains an officer of Tax Research LLP.

    Richie bangs on about limited liability and the responsibilities that entails. Fair enough.

    But he is happy for someone to remain an officer of this LLP who (according to him) is not medically fit to do so.

    I don’t wish ill on Jacqueline Murphy, but he again shows his opinions only apply to other people.

  3. On a personal level the Murphys get my sympathy and best wishes but he has not dealt with the real issue, that they might have been avoiding tax. He really is an objectionable piece of sh1t to deploy the argument from incurable illness in this case

  4. I’m with Diogenes. The man is deplorable and knows no shame. I find it difficult to believe a word he says.

  5. “One of the advised side effects of chemo, with maybe a 1 in 10,000 risk, was serious mental ill health. She was the 1 in 10,000, and an extreme case at that. She had never suffered mental ill health before then.”

    So it had nothing to with the fact that the poor woman had been living with a deluded, irascible and mentally ill husband. That’s a relief.

  6. UK LLP’s are tax transparent i.e. the tax treatment is the same as if the partners received the income directly. The only tax advantage of having Murphy’s wife as a partner is if she pays tax at a lower rate than him. When she was working as a GP there was no advantage as they would both have been higher rate taxpayers. Now she is retired (presumably with a NHS pension) she may be a basic rate taxpayer but the tax saving on 1% of the LLP’s profits will be minimal.

    The real scandal here is that the LLP enables Murphy to get substantial grants from charitable trusts that don’t give grants to individuals. It is exactly the sort of artificial structure that he would condemn if anyone used it. I wonder if the charitable trusts know the full facts about the LLP.

    Murphy’s blog is published in the name of the LLP, but when Ashcroft sued for libel regarding comments on the blog there was no reference to this in the LLP accounts. Presumably he paid the damages and costs personally to avoid disclosure. This supports the view that the LLP is a sham.

  7. He remains stupid, ignorant, and lazy. If he were American he would probably be a candidate for President.

  8. “We have not changed it, for many reasons. That’s our business.”

    “That’s our business”: subtle stuff?

  9. Is it fair to accuse someone of laziness who produces such an endless stream of verbal sewage. That sh1t doesn’t write or tweet itself

  10. I agree with the comments above re the LLP. It may be a sham LLP given the possible mental incompetence of one of its 2 members.

    That, if true, would be an abusive arrangement, allowing limited liability where none should be available.

  11. @ Kjerulf

    In footer terms: play the ball, not the man.

    It’s a regrettable fact, however, that such sporting aims have long departed from political if not much other discourse. Play the man & what ball was that? is more the vogue

  12. @Diogenes
    That sh1t doesn’t write or tweet itself

    amanfromMars demonstrates that you can automate the production of more interesting and relevant verbiage.

  13. Well, in happier news, MrsBud and DocBud have celebrated their Ruby Wedding Anniversary with friends and family (actually 18 October). There was much hugging, hand shaking and kissing. I’d better not disclose the venue as I’m guessing we breached COVID-19 protocols, but we are in a town that never had a single case of community transmission and had its last active case at the beginning of May.

  14. “Her condition was so bad that we lived apart from 2015”

    You can only wonder what lies behind that rather strange statement

  15. I suspect “Lived apart” simply means that she was in some form of residential care, and regardless of his economic illiteracy I feel sory for him and his wife in such a situation that could happen to any married couple

  16. DocBud

    Many congratulations and I hope you celebrated in suitable defiance of the current illiberal farrago of restrictions

    Tim

    I take your point and God forbid he should use this to get your blog shut down but lest we forget (for example) he outed FCAblog’s true identity in revenge for being exposed as a moron. He also remains the closest thing to pure evil seen in the Blogosphere – looking to turn the U.K. into North Korea on steroids. But out of deference to you and his wife I will refrain from commenting

  17. You can only select from the options available. Jacinda Ardern was a shoe-in. The National Party were so bad that a lot of their core voted further right or left just to get rid of them.

    Furthermore, for those outside NZ, don’t project your politics here. Jacinda is to the right of Boris Johnson in all the areas that matter, specifically economics. The NZ Labour Party believe in surpluses and prudent management. They talk up a storm on global warming, but we don’t have a Net Zero Act. We actually send back fake refugees.

    Sort your own house out first.

  18. Bloke in Nort Dorset

    DocBud,

    I’d like to add my congratulations, if you can’t have friends and family help celebrate milestones like that life isn’t worth living.

  19. Bloke in Nort Dorset

    Chester,

    “Furthermore, for those outside NZ, don’t project your politics here. Jacinda is to the right of Boris Johnson in all the areas that matter”

    The problem with that comparison is that Jeremy Corbyn is starting to look to the right of Boris on the economy.

  20. “Furthermore, for those outside NZ, don’t project your politics here.”

    OK

    “Jacinda is to the right of Boris Johnson in all the areas that matter, specifically economics.”

    OK; but so is David Cameron…

    “The NZ Labour Party believe in surpluses and prudent management.”

    So did David Cameron – in theory.

    “They talk up a storm on global warming…”

    So did David Cameron, while regarding it as green crap.

    “…but we don’t have a Net Zero Act.”

    True!

    “We actually send back fake refugees”.

    Excellent!

    Yet Jacinda comes over as a ghastly I-feel-your-pain, multi-culti, PC feminazi. Funny that.

  21. Thanks for all the congratulations, everyone.

    No, I’m not from NZ, Mr Ecks. I’m originally from Surrey and MrsBud is a natural redhead from West Yorkshire. She pronounces some words incorrectly, but not with a strong accent.

  22. As long as she thinks that Middlesbrough and Scarborough have the same number of syllables, she sounds like a good ‘un.

  23. Fair enough. Even grotty little fascists are human beings with human concerns. For all his talk, I can’t say he deserves this to happen to him. No one does and he has my sympathies.

  24. It occurred to me that divorce wouldn’t absolve a husband of any duty/commitment to care for a wife or exwife. It would free him to marry again and that’s about it. Does she need care? yes- then ok the courts would take that into account when dividing the assets, and setting alimony.

  25. Belated congrats, DocBud. My turn in a year and 10 days, so I hope the Covid crap is out of the way by then.

    Speaking of which:
    https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/coronavirus/exclusive-nhs-in-discussions-with-bma-and-others-around-december-covid-vaccine-programme/
    This is in the GPs’ ‘comic’, and I’ve spotted some large-scale injection sites (tent-based) going up locally (SE). Ostensibly for flu jabs, but I wonder if somebody’s thinking ahead for once.

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