{"id":85152,"date":"2025-08-18T09:10:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=85152"},"modified":"2025-08-18T09:10:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:10:27","slug":"the-troll-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/08\/18\/the-troll-club\/","title":{"rendered":"The troll club"},"content":{"rendered":"

A commentator here this morning<\/a> said:<\/p>\n

I think there must either be a troll club somewhere where trolls share ideas, or the unwillingness to challenge orthodox thinking is innate in rather too many people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is, of course, such a thing. With regard to this blog, it is run by a man called Tim Worstall:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He began his blog in 2007, <\/a>a year after I did.<\/p>\n

He categorises each post on his blog, as I still do, and by far the biggest group is called Ragging on Ritchie, and every single one of them is about me:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He has been publishing for around 6,600 days. So, on most days for 18 years, he has written an abusive post about me for his trolling audience, every single one of them, as far as I can work out, abusive, with crude comments appearing to be the order of the day.<\/p>\n

In that case, I should explain who this Tim Worstall, whom I have never met, is. His Wikipedia entry says:<\/p>\n

Tim Worstall<\/b>\u00a0(born 27 March 1963,\u00a0Torquay<\/a>) is a British-born writer and blogger and Senior Fellow of the\u00a0Adam Smith Institute<\/a>.[<\/span>1]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He writes on the subjects of\u00a0environmentalism<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0economics<\/a>, particularly\u00a0corporate tax<\/a>, his contributions having appeared in the business press. In 2010 his blog was listed as one of the top 100 UK political blogs by\u00a0Total Politics<\/a><\/i>.[<\/span>2]<\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n

Early life<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Worstall was educated at the\u00a0London School of Economics<\/a>. He worked in the\u00a0Soviet Union<\/a>, and became a trader in rare elements such as\u00a0scandium<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0zirconium<\/a>.[<\/span>3]<\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n

Career<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Worstall is a regular contributor to\u00a0CapX<\/a>.[<\/span>4]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He has also written for\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>5]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>6]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0PandoDaily<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>7]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Forbes<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>8]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The Register<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>9]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The Daily Telegraph<\/a><\/i>\u00a0blogs,[<\/span>10]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The Times<\/a><\/i>,[<\/span>11]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/i>.[<\/span>12]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In 2010 his blog was listed as one of the top 100 UK political blogs by\u00a0Total Politics<\/a>.[<\/span>2]<\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Worstall is a supporter of the\u00a0UK Independence Party<\/a>\u00a0(UKIP), stood as a candidate for London in the\u00a0European Parliament election, 2009<\/a>,[<\/span>13]<\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and acted as the party's press officer.[<\/span>14]<\/span><\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I should add that as far as I can see, all the references, except for his links with Tufton Street, should be in the past tense: he is no longer involved in UKIP, and nor does he write for anyone noted anymore, as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n

But he churns out the trolling material, day in and day out.<\/p>\n

It's a very sad way to live, but that's his choice. And it answers the question about troll clubs, because yes, they really do exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A commentator here this morning said: I think there must either be a troll club somewhere where trolls share ideas, or the unwillingness to challenge
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85157,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85152\/revisions\/85157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}