The anti-corruption lobby want to revive colonialism

I am no tax expert, but when 300 economists, particularly if led by Jeffrey Sachs and Thomas Piketty, all agree about something — as 364 did that Mrs Thatcher, in 1981, was messing things up — one can be confident they are mistaken. The 300 want this week’s global anti-corruption meeting to clamp down on tax havens. This is, among other things, an attack on Britain, because they call on us and the United States to deal with ‘all countries for which they are responsible’. This ignores the fact that some such places — Jersey and Guernsey, for example — are not governed by Britain, though they share the same Queen; and that others, such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands or the Caymans, though colonies, have systems of self-government.

In any other context, a British attempt to overthrow these systems would be regarded as gross colonial interference.