TMP saves the UK, and the world...

The recent elections on Sark have drawn the attention of sections of the world's press (especially the sanctimonious "we know better than you" Guardianistas and their ilk) to the morality of tax havens, a large number of which are UK protectorates of one sort or another - despite the fact that tiny Sark is barely involved any longer in what was always a device of Guernsey accountants anyway - or so m'learned friend advises us.

Tax havens are undoubtedly used to shelter funds from activities such as drugs and extortion (the stock in trade of most banana republic despots) , so this seems to be a handy hook upon which to hang a noble crusade; but the absolute inescapable truth is that no government spends any money a fraction as wisely as those that earned it in the first place, It never ever - in the history of history - has ever happened even once. Not even slightly.

So here's an idea. Broon has seen to it that the UK is financially fooked for a generation or two (please don't anyone with the intelligence to work out how to post here kid me that they believe an iota of his present blather - he's lying his - sorry - our socks off. Goebbels would have been immensely proud of such a massive show of brass neck).

We need a really bold and massive agenda to sort this out. We have to start from the position of "put on your oxygen mask first before you start worrying about the rest of the passengers"; and that means not worrying about the EU, and especially the sanctimonious (but depressingly correct) Germans.

So we re-engineer the decaying London City as the biggest "business haven" on planet on the basis that we charge 10% flat rate across the board on all taxable profits - income or capital - with a vast range of write-offs to encourage innovation and proper risk taking, then - after careful preparation on a "Mission Impossible" scale of cunningness - we will move in and shut down all the offshore havens, and compensate the natives to enable them to adjust their economies to tourism, call centres - whatever.

If there is indeed $25 trillion sloshing around in these havens, it will come here and be put to good use. What is found to be the proceeds of international crime will be "frozen", and we will "look after it" on behalf of the democratically elected governments of the territories of origin. If there are no democratically elected governments, we will let the population be aware that $x trillion is waiting in their name, the moment they manage to get an elected government in place (and keep it there for at least 2 years?)

Mostly though, we can let those that earned it keep most of it and use it - whether it goes back into the economy as investment in green technologies, employing households of butlers and gardeners or to purchase mink-plated stretched limos, isn't the business of government.

It's plain we have to devise employment for the 5m or so not otherwise gainfully employed in saviour Broon's fairyland. These people are never going to get work in the anal corporations/councils of process-crazed utopia, and there are plenty of less fulfilling ways to eke out an existence than doing the gardening for some delightful stately home, or cooking for some rich bastards that can't be bothered to microwave a ready meal. Instead, our present regime has condemned all such folks to the margins of daytime TV and other forms of zero self-esteem.

If other governments found themselves forced to follow suit and compete with our business-friendly environment, wouldn't it be terrible that countries like the US and Russia would no longer be able to afford colossally costly military exploits and over-bloated governments?

discuss...