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 orthodox thinking is innate in rather too many people.
There is, of course, such a thing. With regard to this blog, it is run by a man called Tim Worstall:
He began his blog in 2007, a year after I did.
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:
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.
In that case, I should explain who this Tim Worstall, whom I have never met, is. His Wikipedia entry says:
Tim Worstall (born 27 March 1963, Torquay) is a British-born writer and blogger and Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute.[1] He writes on the subjects of environmentalism and economics, particularly corporate tax, his contributions having appeared in the business press. In 2010 his blog was listed as one of the top 100 UK political blogs by Total Politics.[2]
Worstall was educated at the London School of Economics. He worked in the Soviet Union, and became a trader in rare elements such as scandium and zirconium.[3]
Worstall is a regular contributor to CapX.[4] He has also written for The Guardian,[5] The New York Times,[6] PandoDaily,[7] Forbes,[8] The Register,[9] The Daily Telegraph blogs,[10] The Times,[11] and The Wall Street Journal.[12] In 2010 his blog was listed as one of the top 100 UK political blogs by Total Politics.[2]
Worstall is a supporter of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), stood as a candidate for London in the European Parliament election, 2009,[13] and acted as the party’s press officer.[14]
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.
But he churns out the trolling material, day in and day out.
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.
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