I don't think the onus is on @graceblakeley.substack.com at all.

@richardjmurphy.bsky.social started this by making a series of unsourced claims about her views of MMT. Despite her denial of these views, he's doubled down with half a dozen hostile blogposts
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11...

Good advice.

For me, his inability to engage in thoughtful discussion without fury and insults is a red flag, but it would be good to read an accessible critique at some point, and a discussion of whether any of his policy suggestions have value.

A key question for those of us (like Polanski) who aren't economists is whether there are viable alternatives to the spending constraints of the last 15 years.

Prof Murphy appears to offer one. But he declaims critics as liars & fools; they say MMT is a cult.

What to do?
bsky.app/profile/lonw...

I don't believe she called MMT either.

She's questioning what vision those who condemn her for rejecting it (which she doesn't) have for taking advantage of MMT.

Yes and sometimes I forget that, because I came across good policy ideas in Richard Murphy's blog and they get filed in my brain next to "MMT".

So I think you're right, and Grace Blakeley is making this case well.

Winning the next election crucially depends not on purity of thought, energising the base, or word-based triangulation; but on bringing as many people from the left and centre as possible on board a shared policy platform.

But Polanski has wisely not adopted their cult-like tone, nor attempted to use the scarce seconds of soundbites journalists give him to try to overturn mainstream economics.

But all it will take is a careless "taxpayers' money" or a "using the money from X to pay for Y" and they will turn on him

However, there's a bigger lesson here than just one man's psychological idiosyncrasies.

At the moment, Zack Polanski is in favour with Murphy's crowd, not least because he's been using many of their arguments in interviews.

Murphy provoked hostilities with obvious ally Blakeley by, out of the blue, grossly misrepresenting her views. He has never retracted his claims, in fact doubling down and laughably portraying himself as a victim of physical intimidation.

This is a guy who would create enemies in an empty room.

This is a particularly good paragraph

Let's say though that a socialist government wished to increase the salaries of all public servants by 20% to start to redress the ravages of austerity.

All else being equal, taxes would have to rise to prevent inflation. Isn't this a constraint on spending money?

Even those on the left who don't accept either MMT or your characterisation of their views might still agree with you that taxation serves inter alia to redistribute wealth, reshape society through incentives & disincentives, and to help control inflation.

Again, Murphy misunderstands Blakeley's points and makes heated strawman arguments.

He has interesting things to say about how money works; she has interesting things to say about how power works.

It's a shame Murphy's personality is getting in the way of thoughtful development of these ideas.

Now Murphy has launched an unpleasant personal attack on the thoughtful @graceblakeley.substack.com, firstly misrepresenting her views on MMT and then (when she points this out), doubling down and saying she has exposed her "prejudice" & "irrationality"

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11...

Let's hope the quality of the journalism returns to normal and we don't have to start using that acronym! 😂

Agreed: WATO has historically been one of the more serious-minded (less attention-seeking) news programmes.

So I hope BBC News isn't doubling-down on its flawed contemporary model of impartiality (reporting opposing attack lines).