I’ll be spending much of today at the funeral of my oldest friend.

I mean oldest because Jack Ray was 95 when he died, and I don’t know anyone older than that right now.

But oldest too because I have known Jack for over 40 years, and there aren’t many people, family apart, I’ve engaged with for that long.

Jack was a very powerful influence in my life. We met because he built an amazing model railway, and he needed people to run it. I went along out of curiosity and he gave me a hobby for life: I still read railway history and build model railways.

My interest in business started because I read those railway histories. They opened a curiosity about what business does, how and why that continues to this day. I wouldn’t do what I do but for Jack.

But he was so much more important than that. When I was 14 he told me to write. In fact he told me writers change the world.

Jack wrote. He changed many people’s lives as a result. He coached, inspired and encouraged me. No one had believed in me like that before he did. No one had bothered about what I thought and wrote as he did. And no one corrected, challenged and demanded better like Jack did – almost without his realising it.

And he was also quite simply a friend – someone to call on, whose advice was worth heeding, and who always had time for a story, a laugh and a shared appreciation of life.

I’ll miss Jack.

Farewell my friend.

 

I make a point of trying to disclose conflicts of interest, sources of funding, potential bias and so on on this blog since you can hardly argue for transparency and not do so.

So in that spirit I should disclose that I learned today that my application to formally rejoin the Quakers has been accepted. It’s material to me, so I disclose it in case it is material to anyone else’s understanding of what I write.

Nov 122011
 

See you there tomorrow! 1pm.

And for those interested I am on Radio Norfolk at 8am in the morning too.

 

Just noticed this on Facebook…

Me and John Christensen together.

Enough to cause considerable distress in Jersey!

 

I was amused by Salman Shaheen’s review of the debate I took part in at the Front Line Club last week, to be found here.

The debate was on the #occupy movement and he said :

It fell to Murphy to give the most passionate defence of the movement, offering a rare charisma I had thought was bred out of accountants at playschool.

I’ve got news for Salman: I didn’t go to playschool.

Maybe that explains a lot.

 

I resigned from the electoral register of the Church of England this morning.

It’s hardly a big deal for them.

But it was the only way I could find to register a personal protest at the failure of St Paul’s.

 

It’s half term, so my son Thomas set out to use his time creatively, drawing a cartoon of his father talking at #occupylondon on Sunday:

Ouch!

I should clearly have paid more attention to shaving.

 

Someone has just drawn my attention to Accountancy Age’s Financial Power List for 2009. Of this it says:

In a year that will shape the future of the global economy, we look at the names to watch in 2009

And at number 25?:

Richard Murphy, tax campaigner, Tax Research Network

The public face of tax campaigning is often criticised for his controversial approach to tax issues. Of particular importance to Murphy is a globally recognised crackdown on low-tax jurisdictions, and his efforts in highlighting the issue have arguably lifted its importance on the government’s agenda.

Looks like they can’t decide if I’m Tax Research or Tax Justice Network on this occasion, but either way I make the customary, but totally appropriate point that this reflects the work of an awful lot of other people too, not least John Christensen and Prem Sikka. And my wife too – easily one of the most important but wholly unacknowledged people in this campaign.

It would also be good if they stopped referring to tax havens as low tax jurisdictions. They’re not. They’re promoters of regulatory abuse behind a veil of secrecy – which is something quite different – and tax is just one of the areas in which they undermine democratic governments in fulfilling their mandates.

Jul 242008
 

I’ve been remiss in drawing attention to a new column I am writing elsewhere, on TaxationWeb.

The column will have a different tone to the blog style used here, and be more discursive in nature.

My first entry is here, and gives an idea where this feature should be going. I will link to future columns as they appear.