When I began tax justice campaigning I was often asked by the curious where I came from. I was often tempted to say ‘from my spare bedroom' but never did so. Having a corporate identity became useful when answering this question.
I was reminded of this when this week the Green Party's deputy leader Zack Polanski referred to me during a meeting as ‘Richard Murphy from Twitter'.
Where is that, I thought?
And is it better than ‘from his spare bedroom', I wondered?
Then I mused on what it must be like to be from a file server.
At that point the spare bedroom won.
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“Richard Murphy from Twitter”. !!
That’s just bloody rude. ‘Ignorant’ they would call it in Cumbria.
Maybe I won’t vote Green either (?).
I think it was quite apt for many people….
well you are tapping away 24/7
I also note you have two names here this morning
Not true
I am good at sleeping
Shouldn’t it be X now? Can a letter be patented?
I asked my son last night if he followed you and he said on twitter. So yes, it doesn’t matter where people follow you as long as they do.
Richard from Twitter? Ha ha. Well, perhaps that reflects Twitter being your primary means of public engagement?
I thought this was going to be about the spare bedroom tax (the reduction in housing benefit if a dwelling is deemed to be “under occupied”). Which, like the benefits cap at two children, is just a weapon to punish poor people for daring to change their family circumstances. The spare bedroom (or rather the desire to punish people for living in more than the minimum possible space) won over human need.
Agreed
I think that the more people read your stuff, the better, no matter where despite the hat-tip to Twitter as the enabler (who behave more like a ‘dis-abler’ every day – I can’t read your Tweets anymore and I’m damned if I’m signing up to that.
Ten years or so ago, I ran courses for MIND with a lady originally from Guyana and I was telling her about my friend who was born in Kenya and who was Head of Education at a well known prison. I remarked how my circle was getting quite diverse compared to the one I had growing up in Christchurch.
Her reply was ‘it’s not where you are from, it’s what you are and do’.
To be fair, he probably meant ‘ Richard Murphy whose work you might know from Twitter’ but was conscious of the need for brevity. And yes, he should pay more attention!
Can I stress, I was amused
Better than ‘Richard Murphy from X’.
I can understands Zack’s difficulty in finding a way to describe who Richard is.
I struggle, and I have been reading reading this blog for many years.
I imagine Zack struggled when you have such a breadth of audience.
Original architect of The Green New Deal?
Professor of Accountancy at Sheffield University?
The man that invented Corbynomics. and who Jeremy Corbyn ran away from because JC didn’t understand it?
Brilliant bloke who talks sense about economics and spots government bull-shit where ever its hidden?
Master of joined-up political thinking?
For years, The Green Party as a whole have shied away from macro-economic policy. Thank goodness it’s moving on.
My children thought I drove a taxi when they were little – because they had no idea what tax was
I’m sure I had that Richard Murphy from Twitter in the back of my cab once. Couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
🙂