The Guernsey Press - and the Guernsey establishment - have not always been big fans of mine. I did my utmost to change the tax haven laws of Jersey and Guernsey over a period of about a decade, at around the time I began writing this blog, and as a result, helped impose massive change on those places. I was pretty much treated as an enemy of the state in both as a result. I was therefore surprised to see a lot of favourable comment about me in that newspaper in an article published yesterday that was headlined as follows:
As far as I can recall, I have never spoken to Andy Sloan, but I approve of what he had to say:
IT TURNS out the Bank of England is an equal-opportunity wrecking ball when it comes to politicians. First, Liz Truss took the fall for the Bank's LDI supervisory scandal. Now, Rachel Reeves is feeling the heat, thanks to an appallingly timed QT programme. Just to catch everyone up, QT – quantitative tightening – is the Bank's effort to unwind a decade of QE by selling bonds back to the market. The result? Increasing supply that depresses prices, hikes yields, and makes borrowing more expensive – just as the UK government needs to borrow more.
Then he added:
Big shout-out to Richard Murphy for bringing that one to my attention. I remember when I joined Guernsey Finance, I was told that tax haven critic Richard Murphy wasn't very influential because he only had a few hundred YouTube subscribers. Clearly they didn't have a scooby-do who Richard Murphy was. In those days, he was pretty niche, but today, he has around 110,000 subscribers – not quite the 13.4 million of Flamingo, the kids' entertainer, but enough to suggest he's going mainstream. I've kept abreast of his musings, as it's useful to know what the other side is saying. It's why I'm an avid reader of Thomas Piketty, whom I regularly refer to in these pages. I recommend a visit to Murphy's channel. It's not all hogwash – if you had been a regular visitor, you'd have been aware of the criticism of the Bank of England's quantitative tightening programme weeks before readers of The Times, The Telegraph, or even The Financial Times.
I agree; it's not all hogwash. More importantly, people are noticing, even if it takes The Guernsey Press to admit that is the case.
And a personal note from me in response: I love Guernsey. It's beautiful. It would still be so much better without its abusive tax haven laws, though.
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Great news.
Mainstream eh?
Congratulations, they are well deserved.
Last night – omnibus conversation, got the response, “oh yes, I know who Richard Murphy is…”
KUTGW!
Brilliant stuff Richard, yes brilliant.
(And I thought your video about trump and Chaos was excellent too).
Thank you again to you and your contributors.
Thanks
All I can say is ‘Well Done’.
Thomas Kuhn who popularised the term ‘paradigm’ said paradigms shift, less by people changing their minds, as by ‘the “Old Guard” retiring or dying.
Probably what happened here.
It’s good to know there are still at least a few open and fair-minded journalists in the world.
I note that the article has comments: “I love Guernsey. It’s beautiful. It would still be so much better without its abusive tax haven laws, though.” You should thank, then do some polite hogwashing.
If economics is the creation of hogwash and politics is doing the impossible act then political economy is to separate what is from what is not hogwash. A Heculean task but someone has to do it.
I admit to being one of those that were critical of Sir Alistair Darling when he introduced QE. That was because I didn’t understand it. I assumed it would lead to hyperinflation which never happened.
All thanks to Prof Murphy for enlightening lesser mortals such as myself.
Well done Richard it’s great to be recognised by people who know. But – and yes there is a big ‘but’, the great ignorant masses, fed by failure orientated daytime TV are the people we need to get through to. Every day they sit down and watch Antiques Roadshow or Bargain Hunt where so called ‘experts’ giggle and spoof their way through programmes where their ‘EXPERTISE’ fails time after time to provide their every day clients or their C/D rated ‘celebrities – a profit. This failure, time after time, must have a powerful underlying affect on viewers, who are told day after day failure is an acceptable state of affairs.
It’s no different with the big mainstream shows like The Apprentice where I’m sure the central theme is not about success but Alan Sugar’s continual denigration and ridicule of the contestants. Again a programme addicting its audience to failure and disrespect.
This programme narrative is subliminally incorporated in many mainstream programmes – especially this in the ‘reality’ sector, Big Brother, Strictly, Jungle – they are all fed by audiences calling out failure rather than success. Voting people out, not proposing a positive spin on individual performance.
When you start to think in these terms you start to realise what a herculean task we have ahead of us to persuade the electorate and their representatives to engage in progressive thinking, progressive politics, progressive policies.
Agreed
Sisyphus had it easy
I’m not altogether sure change does come from reaching the masses. Surveys show most British people already know the game is rigged in favour of the very wealthy. That study in the US showed the electorate over there were consistently ignored on every topic.
Actual radical change usually comes a circulation of elites. It’s clear that the economics elite have failed but they together with the political elite cling on.
I read an article in the Guardian which presented another perspective: where we’re really at is a certain point in our civilisation’s life cycle – extremes of wealth and poverty together with environmental crises often mark the winter of civilisation. The challenge is to get through to the spring of a new civilisation without too much harm being done.
I’ve made this point before Trevor, but we have two popular Lewis’s Martin and Paul who have the ear of the media with regard to explaining consumer finances, and Evan Davis – a great communicator of complex economic issues. I don’t know if Richard has ever been in contact with them, but they are just three individuals who at a stroke could convey the narrative of MMT to millions of the MMT ignorant. There is a serious need to convey hope and a real way out of the financial chaos that neo liberalism and unbounded capitalism has wrought on us, that has led so many (especially under 40s) down a path of political hopelessness and apathy. The time is right to present the positive impact of the paradigm shift that MMT augurs. A shift that enables us to attack the cost of oversupply of consumer goods and services, a road to degrowth that could actually make our lives better, simpler, less stressful and cheaper! It could be the key to unlocking the threshold “to the spring of a new civilisation without too much harm being done”.
Evan Davis is very pro-Tory and economically orthodox. I made. Programme with him once and it was clear there was no liking fur my position.
The other two sY they do micro and will not discuss anything else. I have tried.
On tax havens – have you seen this?
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/02/06/un-tax-haven-crackdown-labour/
The UK Labour Gov votes against a global crackdown on tax havens.
Of course it does.
Tax Justice UK, like the TJN, is talking total nonsense. If only they understood tax it would help.
Could you expand a little on the actual motion at the UN, as I wanted to hear what you thought about the UN vote & the UK gov position? Thx.
The UN goal is to take over world wide tax and replace the OECD
This is seen as fairer to developing countries
There are many problems:
1) The UN has almost no tax experience and no staff to do this. The OECD has both.
2) There is no evidence of the OECD process being corrupt. It is biased and could be reformed but it is not corrupt. I am not convimnced a UN would be, as many tax havens would then be represented in the process.
3) There is no hope of the G20 agreeing to this.
4) All progress on global tax refirm is stalled indefinitely as a result.
5) The NGOs who promoted this did so in my opinion to perpetuate their own existence – they do not want a cure (like drug companies) as that would do them out of business. The OCED was moving in that direction. They saw this as a threat to me. I think they are corrupt as a result, and are playing left wing identity politics but without any knowledge of tax or what is required to make the global tax sytyem wiork. It is why John Christensen and I walked away from the movement we founded.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/02/06/its-not-all-hogwash/comment-page-1/#comment-1005746
Re: Tax Justice Network & UN vote on tax havens.
Thank you for that Richard,
that’s why I come here!