As many will know, trolling has reached new lows this weekend.
I make no comparison between the abuse of feminist campaigners on twitter and what happens here. I am not. No one should think I am.
But like many men who consider themselves feminists (and I see no contradiction in that statement - but in saying it again make clear I do not have a woman's insight on the issues) I have wondered what can be done in some small way to evidence support for those suffering from Internet trolling - and not just in its worst forms but also what I know from many accounts to be commonplace in the way of misogynist bullying that is suffered by so many women on all forms of social media. That bullying is very real and if abusive traffic in this blog is any measure to go by then it has probably increased in the last few days.
I do, of course, delete such comments but I admit I have not enforced my comment policy as strongly as I might of late. So, many who comment here also comment, I know, favourably on other sites where abuse is normal and seemingly encouraged and where aggression is accepted as appropriate towards all who disagree with stated positions, often using language and symbolism that is profoundly offensive to feminist thinking. Those people, and those who control such sites will now have their comments routinely deleted - even if they appear seemingly innocuous when presented here. Zero tolerance of abuse is the only appropriate response to it and I wish others -like the Guardian - would adopt the same approach.
Those commenting anonymously will suffer the same fate. Those whose identity I recognise will be published even if a real name is not used - but they may well be a selected few. Free speech is a right that has to be accounted for in normal circumstances in my opinion - and I cannot yet think of an abnormal one that has arisen on this blog.
So there may be fewer comments here. Well, so be it. It's my gesture against abuse and the best one I can think I can personally initiate right now. I believe in the importance of transparency and accountability. To comment here you'll have to accept that standard now - and not implicitly or directly endorse alternatives elsewhere.
The bonus that will arise is that those comments that remain will be all the more valuable.
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That is quite a quote.
The key to the success of the tax justice movement has been not just to shine a light on the problem but to offer solutions. Without the latter it would just have been a lot of hot air which wouldn’t have got any traction at all.
I know you are the first to acknowledge, as you have above, that you have not fought this battle alone, but for now Richard, WELL DONE!
Thanks Richard
You played a part
Richard M, you are right to credit many others with the change in public awareness over this matter – many have been involved. But the other Richard and Sir Peter are also right about your truly heroic and significant role in promoting the cause of tax justice, so I offer my thanks & congratulations also.
But turning to Peter Bottomley, I’ve long thought he was in the wrong Party, so often does he sign liberal EDM’s and the like – and then I realized he IS in the wrong Party, since he belongs to the Macmillan/Heath Conservative Party, as existed before it was hijacked and taken over by entryists from the Hayekian-Friedmanite Tendency. Everyone had their eyes on the Trotskyite Left, and so didn’t see the growing power of the Maoist Right – to everyone’s discomfiture, except the Thatcherite vanguard 1%.
Thanks Andrew
And you may well be right about Peter Bottomley too
One Nation Tories were a very different breed
He’ll fit nicely into the anti-neoliberal party when it comes along then 🙂
To back up my point, take a look at the EDM’s he has signed
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/4087/peter-bottomley
Not only has he signed 199 of them, he is also often in the company of Labour signatories – e.g. (at random) Number 393, on solitary confinement in US Prisons, where he is one of 2 Conservatives to sign, or Number 322 on PUPIL PREMIUM ELIGIBILITY AND FREE SCHOOL MEALS, where again he is one of only 2 Conservative signatories on an EDM Caroline Lucas signed.
I do indeed suspect he would belong to an anti-neo-liberal Party, should one emerge.
My exact thoughts, Bill.
Full employment of everyone who want’s to work is extremely ambitious and perhaps the enormity of that task puts most MP’s and most people off even contemplating it .
As the American’s would say it’s a hand-up rather than a hand-out so should please everyone .
As technology advances and the bar is raised less and less people will have the special skills needed for the specialised jobs of the future .
Surely this should make more and more people amenable to the need to collectively carry greater inefficiency to enable full employment to happen .
If nothing else they should want it for their children or other people children .
The prospects for especially the slow kids when they leave school have never been worse . They’ve been abandoned and the current deficient society doesn’t have anything to offer most of them .
I agree
We have simply got our view of work wrong
“I would like to thank all our distinguished speakers and add that I know some like to ridicule Richard Murphy and his work but he has done more on this issue than the other three put together.”
Sir Peter Bottomley is quite right.
Well done Richard. I too would like to extend my congratulations to you and all at the Tax Justice, it is truly a superhuman effort to take on the significant and entrenched vested interests.
I would also like to recognise UK Uncut too for their sterling efforts too.
All of you have enormous courage to carry on and make headway in a decidedly unfair fight.
You are also quite right to take comfort that the arrogant, hectoring and quibbling responses on your earlier blog demonstrate that you are making significant progress. First they ignore you…….
Apologies for coming to this a little late, Richard, but I’d also like to add my voice to those above.
I think I’ve been a reader of this blog for over two years now and have to say that on the basis of what I’ve seen and heard on the issue of tax abuse, tax havens and related issues during that period Sir Peter Bottomley is spot on. You’ve been instrumental in raising the visibility and tone of a debate that needed to be had.
That’s not to say that the broader TJN, or people like Prem Sikka, Nick Shaxson and Richard Brooks don’t also make important contributions – they do – but for me there’s a very important feature of your work that distinguishes it from the others. That is, its breadth and depth – by which I mean the range of issues you choose to analyse and critique, and, very importantly, your ability to explain most of them in a straightforward but highly engaging way. The name of your blog – Tax Research UK – certainly doesn’t do justice to what actually appears here, though I appreciate, of course, that pretty much everything that does has a tax related dimension, even if it may not initially be obvious.
There’s also one other point I’d like to make, having just read through the 49 comments from your previous blog about appearing before the APPG Social Science and Policy. I’m sure I’m not alone in recognising this blog as a valuable resource for research and learning, whether through what you write or the comments that that attracts. I’ve certainly made use of stuff I’ve learnt about here in my own work. And speaking personally, I also find your commitment and determination inspirational, given that you are battling against some of the most powerful, influential and resource-rich organisations in the world. For that reason alone it may be that Peter Bottomley’s thanks are, in fact, something of an understatement.
Best as always.
Ivan
Thanks Ivan
Good to see a Conservative MP saying something that isn’t straight out of “swivel-eyed loonyville” for once… I looked up Sir Peter Bottomley on Wikipedia and he will be 69 this month which sums it up really – there are very few ‘wets’ and a lot of ‘bone dries’ in the new intake of Tories. Give it 10 more years and the parliamentary Tory party will be entirely composed of right-wing extremists. Given the Lib Dems’ lurch to the right, the same may well be true of them by then as well.
I’m not sure I can add much to what’s already been said other than to say that I join wholeheartedly with the tributes paid to you. You’ve not only opened a lot of eyes, mine included, but achieved something no current politician could have achieved, namely helping many people re-engage with politics.
You have every right to be mightily proud, in the most positive way, of what you have both done and achieved.
Thanks