Comments on: Ritchie Babbie!

By: Paul Coyle

Paul Coyle — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:12:03 +0000

I cannot believe this clown is given the oxygen of publicity – which firm was he a “senior partner” in exactly, and why did they get rid of him? The man is dazzled by his own self-importance, and appears to have become a self-appointed arbiter of right and wrong . He brooks no criticism on his blog (only right-wing bigots could ever be criticising him or his views), and is about as smug, sanctimonious and patronising as can be imagined. That said, he appears to have found himself a little niche -copying and pasting other peoples work into his blog, and passing inane comment on it for the benefit of one or two of his fellow-travellers. And what is TaxResearchNetwork/LLP – is it just him in his back bedroom, or are there more like him out there??

By: David Gillies

David Gillies — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:57:25 +0000

The man used a smiley in his rejoinder. ‘Nuff said.

By: Ralf

Ralf — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:39:35 +0000

Hmm… I have been known to read Mr Murphy’s work and, as a chartered accountant with a post-graduate degree in Economics, all that I can say is that he appears to be a completely misguided idiot.

By: diogenes1960

diogenes1960 — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:14:26 +0000

not to mention the unbelievably patronising way in which he responds to people, when he doesn’t just ban them for being, in his opinion, right-wing.

By: Mark Wadsworth

Mark Wadsworth — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:29:06 +0000

Slightly o/t, but I wonder what Murphy thinks of Labour’s 2005 accounts, in which they buried £1m interest expense under ‘IT and admin costs’ in the notes to the accounts, rather than as a separate item in the main P&L (which only showed £300,000 interest)?

These figures from memory, can’t vouch for 100% accuracy.

And Murphy admitted to another cock-up on this very blog recently (gains on sale of disposal of trading subsidiary do not have to be reinvested to qualify for SSR). So there.

By: diogenes1960

diogenes1960 — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:23:01 +0000

And you mustn’t forget that it is impossible for Mr Murphy to be wrong. If you try to enter into debate with him on his website and uphold another point of view, then he labels you a right-wing bigot (regardless of what you are arguing) and bans you from his site. No wonder he has never made a mistake – although it appears he has forgotten a mistake he made recently about a particular tax relief (SSR) from which the Guardian benefited. and of course it is fine for the Guardian to avoid tax despite the fact that Mr Murphy hates the very idea of other people doing the same.

By: diogenes

diogenes — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:26:55 +0000

One problem with Mr Murphy is that if you do disagree with him on his blog or point out errors, he will call you a right-wing bigot and erase your comments. Therefore, he is by definition never in error. Only people who argue with him are wrong.

By: Taddy

Taddy — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:38:33 +0000

As an example –

I used the Dell case

The questions were generic

By: devilskitchen

devilskitchen — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:14:06 +0000

Dear Richard “evil moron” Murphy,

One minor cock up? Timmy has constantly picked up what we shall generously call your “errors”.

For fuck’s sake, you even have your own titled section on my blog: Murphy’s Law.

Your stupidity and state-supporting evil is legendary…

By: Kay Tie

Kay Tie — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:13:34 +0000

The reason Dell doesn’t pay a dividend is that dividend income in the US is double taxed (corporate profits, then taxed as income by the recipient). Most US corporations return cash via share buy backs.

Of course, Richard no doubt thinks that double taxing is double plus good, because it gives more money to the Government to do plus good things with it.

By: Georges

Georges — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:11:58 +0000

Richard,

Since you are in a generic mood, the following are considered by a great many people as cock-ups, yet thoroughly embraced by TR-UK:

1) More taxes, good
2) More government, good
3) More socialisation of (insert any topic here), good
4) Individualism, bad
5) Lawfully obtained profits, bad (note, the Guardian-exception only switches this to ‘good’)
6) Polly, brilliant
7) Collectivisation, great!
Individualism, very bad actually
9) Private sector, deplorable and the cause of all problems known to man
10) Dell pays a dividend
11) New Green Deal, both in general and in particular – all aspects

By: Richard Murphy

Richard Murphy — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:59:41 +0000

Tim and Georges

I used the Dell case as an example

The questions were generic

Perhaps you didn’t spot that

But don’t you think your answer really does prove my point?

As for the high cock up rate: you’ve spotted one minor one in 2000 blogs, so far

You’ve really got to do better than that!

By: Georges

Georges — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:55:22 +0000

Given the high cock-up rate exhibited by the folks over at Tax Research UK, it might be time to revisit the concept of Murphy’s Law.

A quick rule-of-thumb is to take the opposite-side of any “claim” made on TR-UK’s blog, chances are you will be on the correct/logical/reasonable/rational side of the argument.