If you have ever visited London, you may agree with me that the foreigner's eye is pleasurably overwhelmed by monuments, statuary and buildings with impressive architecture, including, of course, the Marble Arch, Saint Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace.
But in Westminster, near the houses of parliament, bordering on Downing Street, (where the prime minister lives at No. 10), there is the ornate Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Built in 1860-1868 its style is Italianate. Initially envisaged as a Gothic design, then Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, (below) later prime minister, insisted on a classical style.
The offices became increasingly cramped and much of the fine Victorian interior was covered over, especially during and after World War II. In the 1960s, so demolition was proposed as part of a redevelopment plan. Fortunately, a loud public outcry saved this venerable building.
Colonials Are Restless
Today I suspect there might be strong support in many of the 14 British colonies, (now known as the more politically correct "Overseas Territories") (OSTs) for demolition of, if not the building, the wrong headed Labour Party policy makers who dominated the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and who manage and control the OSTs.
This same anti-London, anti-Labour attitude prevails in Jersey and Guernsey (the Channel Islands), and the Isle of Man, all under the sovereignty of the British Crown, but with a unique constitutional relationship classed as Crown Dependencies.
Brown Hypocrisy
This deserved anti-London wrath among the colonials is a reaction to the hostility towards "tax havens" on the part of Labour's failing prime minister, the hapless Gordon Brown.
Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy scream for tough international sanctions on all tax havens beginning in March 2010, including punishing recalcitrant havens by withdrawing government financial aid, forbidding people to invest there and imposing taxes on tax haven- based banks, mutual and hedge funds.
Under pressure from labor unions and a nose diving British economy, Brown is willing to throw to the left-wing wolves Her Majesty, Queen Elisabeth's colonies.
The supreme irony (and Brown's blatant hypocrisy) is underscored by the fact that many of the OSTs are leading jurisdictions created and nurtured as tax havens by governments in London for the last half century, (and by Brown himself, in a decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer).
For a detailed discussion of the situation in the British Overseas Territories, see my blog entry, Second Dissolution of the British Empire (What's Left)
OSTs Bankruptcy Looms
A few weeks ago The Guardian published the leaked news that Labour government could be forced to bail out one or more of its offshore tax havens at huge cost, according to a Treasury report, because the global economic crisis has wrecked their finances.
(More irony here, since Brown, Sarkosy and Obama all speciously claim that tax havens caused the world recession!)
The newspaper said that offshore expert Michael Foot soon will suggest options to government ministers as anxiety grows within Whitehall over the health of Britain’s OSTs and crown dependencies. The Guardian claimed Foot’s report suggests that the failure of a major tax haven could potentially cost the U.K. tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds.
Kick "Em When They're Down
Instead of policies that would help the OST tax havens, Brown and Labour want, in effect, to abolish them by curtailing their major sources of income gleaned from foreign deposits, investments and hedge funds.
Yet another irony is that, at London's behest, all of these OSTs have adopted major regulatory and anti-money laundering reforms in recent years. This year all OSTs have waived their financial privacy laws and agreed to exchange tax information with other governments in appropriate cases.
Caymans Broke?
The Sunday New York Times reports on the dire financial situation in one of the leading British OSTs, the Cayman Islands, one of the largest financial centers in the world.
Caught between shrinking revenue and high public spending, the Caymans avoided a fiscal crisis last week with a $60 million overseas loan. But the Foreign Office that can veto foreign lending requests delivered an ultimatum: the rest of the $284 million the Cayman government needs wont be forthcoming from London until the islands impose spending cuts and adopt some form of direct taxation on businesses and its 57,000 residents.
Rumors are that London is also demanding more changes in Cayman laws that will weaken the islands' appeal as one of the world's leading tax havens.
More irony; compare London's refusal of Cayman's financial aid to Brown's bank bailouts. An estimated £1.2 trillion (US$1.7 trillion) has already been spent (with no end in sight) on the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS, Lloyds, and Northern Rock, all of which the U.K. government now controls.
Damnation
The Book of Job 1:21 tells us that "...the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
I doubt few folks in the British OSTs will be asking God to bless Gordon Brown and his leftist Labourites. They may offer up a decidedly different prayer.
Might Makes Wrong
Face it, dear readers, this isn't about cost savings, colonial budgets or even tax transparency.
This is about destroying global tax competition and the eventual forced exaction of confiscatory taxes internationally without regard for your individual rights. It is about powerful nations' using that power to crush defenseless smaller jurisdictions. Napoleon, Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin understood that concept.
The destruction of British and other tax havens is part of a calculated, inter-governmental plan to limit, if not abolish, taxpayers' financial options -- and to keep cash and assets at home where the IRS and other welfare state tax collectors can get their hands on that which you have worked so hard for, for so long.
The Passport Book - 7th Edition
If you you are looking for a new, freedom loving place in which to pitch your tent, deposit your cash or protect your assets, the seventh edition of my best-selling publication, The Passport Book, is now available. You can get your copy now. Here's a sample of the contents.
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Will The Passport Book - 7th Edition be available as an eBook/PDF for download after purchase?
Posted by: Jeff | October 05, 2009 at 05:31 PM
The passport book can be made available via pdf download upon request. You can email info@sovereignsociety.com or contact our customer service reps at 1-866-584-4096 for assistance.
Posted by: Rodney Anonymous | October 06, 2009 at 01:47 PM
What an excellent post. I have been trying long and hard to expose the lies and dirty tricks being used by the UK with regard to places like Cayman, based as they are on their obsequious and toadying attitudes to curry favor with the puppet currently in situ across the Atlantic.
The real possibility of a world bank controlling everything and everyone, one of the the globalists' aims of course, gets closer and closer and the apathetic sheep on both sides of the Pond seem oblivious to it all.
What else should we expect from one of the most reviled governments in the world? The insulting move of allowing the elected leader of the Cayman Islands to deal only with a junior civil servant typifies colonial attitudes to which the UK long since ceased to have any rights.
The Cayman Islands have never asked for money from the UK taxpayer and are certainly not asking for a penny now. Even after the devastation of hurricane Ivan on 2004 they did not go cap in hand to the UK whose aid was, quite frankly, insulting, and demonstrated quite clearly how little concern the crown and its government have for their citizens.
However, lies, hypocrisy and dirty deeds are something for which the FCO has a long and distinguished record, along with its appalling treatment of British subjects and dependent territories, so none of this should really come as any surprise.
It all makes me rather ashamed to be English and that is an uncomfortable place to be, even though I left for a far better society some years ago.
Posted by: Maurice | October 06, 2009 at 09:02 PM