A few comments about the Panama Papers

You have been warned: immoderate rant alert. And before you ask, no, I haven't got any money tied up in an off-shore account. Never have and never will.

We’re supposed to believe that our government is going to be the most transparent ever, that it’s going to crack down on tax avoidance by big corporations and rich individuals, whilst the head of that government has himself been a beneficiary of tax avoidance schemes set up offshore by his dad, and most probably will be a beneficiary in the future. Asked a carefully worded question about whether his family had benefited in the past or will benefit in the future from his father’s offshore holdings, Posh Dave obfuscated and answered a different question that he wasn’t asked. He smiles and waves and tells reporters his father’s Panamanian dealings are a private family matter. And he’ll get away with it too, because this is Britain.

And because this is Britain, the ones who will be condemned, the ones who will be called haters and extremists, are those who point out the avarice and greed of the rich and the powerful. That’s because screwing over the little guy is central to the way that the UK works and the economy is structured. In the land of the robber the honest are despised.

None of this is new. None of this should surprise us. None of this should make us raise our hands in astonishment. We’ve all known for years that the powerful elite enrich themselves on the back of the poor and the marginalised.

British governments both Tory and Labour have bowed down before the might of the robber barons of the City of London and the Panama papers aren’t a story of the dirty dealings of foreigners, of bribery in far off places or of corruption in distant lands. They’re the story of how the British economy works, drawing in the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt and the dishonest and hiding it in British overseas territories that Whitehall doesn’t supervise. They’re the story of how Britain has become the money launderer to the world’s despoilers. They could be called the Square Mile Papers.

All over the UK people are as repulsed as the Icelanders about the rules for the rich that don’t apply to the poor, but unlike in Reykjavik there will be no political consequences for the British hypocrites who tell us that we’re all in this together. And there’s nothing we can do about it within the British state.
 
I don't want much. I just want to live in a land where the rich abide by the same rules as the rest of us. I just want to live in a country where politicians have to resign for hypocrisy and telling lies. I just want to live in a country where the voices of ordinary people are heard and the rich don't get even richer while blaming the poor for their poverty. I just want to live in a country where the super rich sheep are penned and shorn instead of the people getting fleeced.

That’s not going to happen in the UK, because the UK’s raison d’etre, as personified by Cameron and Osbourne, is robbing the poor to pay the rich. It’s only going to happen in a country where the government is close enough to the people so that it can be truly held to account. A country where, to repeat myself, it’s the sheep that get shorn and the people don’t allow themselves to get fleeced. Baa!