Posts tagged ‘Richard Murphy’

What’s in a word?

Nothing, it seems, if you are Richard Murphy. Always looking to attack those of us who believe in a smaller state and lower taxes, Murphy sent these tweets which purport to show that the think tank The Adam Smith Institute is government funded:

Which, to anyone who knows even a little about the ASI, seems odd… especially given that they don’t disclose where their money comes from.

If we read the (Gruniad) article to which Ritchie links we find this (my emphasis):

Attention has focused on the activities of Adam Smith International (ASI), a “leading international advisory firm” that is dedicated to promoting the “benefits of competition, good government and individual liberty”. Over 70% of ASI’s income now comes from the Department for International Development. The ASI’s managing director, William Morrison, received £1.3m in total pay and dividends in 2010.

Would it be libel to accuse him of deliberately lying to his followers?

Murphy’s law

Richard Murphy, the former tax account and practising tax avoider whose Damascene conversion to the idea of ‘tax justice’ means that he now spends his time pontificating that tax avoidance is immoral and should be illegal, has apparently decided that, against all logic, the time has come to open a new front in his never ending campaign:

That’s right, because something isn’t codified in law it can’t – in Murphyworld – be legal.

Sorry Ritchie but in this country we follow something called ‘Common Law’. You may have heard of it. The general principle is everything is legal unless it has specifically been legislated against.

If you want a legal code in which anything which hasn’t been declared legal is automatically deemed to be illegal then can I suggest you move to mainland Europe and live under the Napoleonic Code?