I’m often taken back to the scene in Casablanca (kids etc) where Claud Rains’ corrupt policeman says he’s ‘Shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here’, as he collects his winnings. Rich people with money offshore? Quelle surprise and, as the many articles are careful to say, ‘the vast majority of transactions involve no wrongdoing’. It’s an open secret that if you want to find the end destination of piles of this money which of course isn’t dodgy, you need look no further than our own capital city, where you’ll find most of the estimated £200bn of UK property owned by offshore, tax-haven companies. So at least some of it’s coming back from our colonies and protectorates, to support our service industries. Like estate agents.
