British Government In Secret Talks With Tax Havens - Presumably Not Those Owned By British Government

Don't worry, Lord Ashcroft, it's not your money they're after

The government is today refusing to identify the three tax havens with which it is negotiating in efforts to claw back £10bn from individual tax evaders, but it is thought unlikely that any of them are among the 18 notoriously lax regimes which it runs itself via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“If the British government really wants an end to the secretive financial practices of Crown dependencies like Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenadines, and the Turks & Caicos Islands,” explained City analyst Rob Blind, “All it has to do is order their governors to tell the locals to commit economic suicide.”

“Of course, if they try to put out feelers via the Commonwealth to former Imperial possessions with a relaxed attitude to financial transparency - like Barbados, Belize, Brunei, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Nauru, Seychelles, Singapore and Vanuatu - they will be politely told where to put the flag they ran down the pole for the last time years ago,” he added with a smile. “As for the rest of the dodgy banking world, well, they’ll just make the usual jokes about pots and kettles.”