Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Who said that? Well not David Cameron. Who, even in my cynical mind, is in no way ‘corrupt’. Just a bit of a nob. An upper-class rich kid who’s never had a proper job in his life.

He didn’t need to. He had a very rich daddy. Who I’ll call ‘Mr Cameron’, to protect the innocent. Yet the recent leak of 11 million documents from a Panamanian law firm has revealed that Cameron senior may be ‘innocent’ but was far from squeaky clean. Because he chose to keep his money in an offshore tax haven. Hmmmmm.

When questioned Cameron the Dave said yesterday: ‘his family’s tax affairs were a private matter’.

Which is the namby-pamby Western, democratic version of what they’re doing in China. Which is removing all access to details from the internet and banning it in the press. Cameron obfuscates while Xi Jinping will lock you up, remove your testicles and make you ‘disappear’ for even mentioning it.

Of course tax affairs are private. Unless you’re the prime minister and implicated in the biggest tax scandal of the century (so far; I’m not writing off further revelations) and part of a government obsessed with ‘transparency’. You can’t choose selective opaqueness. Even for your dead dad.

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about Cameron’s dad. He had an ‘offshore company’ in name at least. Who fucking cares? He left a ‘fortune’ of 2.74 million quid. An amount known in the posher parts of London as ‘a small house’. Its a lot of money but a fortune it ain’t. And even if it was, I still don’t care.

I care about corruption. By state leaders. I care about money laundering, because its evil and sustains the drug trade and the criminals, allowing them an appearance of legitimacy that they shouldn’t have.

Mossack Fonseca arranged for bogus ‘offshore companies’ to protect funds from the tax systems of the world. Fine. Such things are not illegal; they’re a moral issue. Especially if you happen to be a prime minister, like Cameron. Or like Sigmundur Gunlaugsson of Iceland who, it would appear, did the modern take of Nero and fiddled funds whilst the Bank of Iceland burned. But in his wife’s name, so that’s fine. According to him.

This Panamanian law firm also allegedly handled the stolen ‘Brinks Matt’ gold bullion, with full knowledge of where it was from. They hid money for Putin, for Xi, for Assad; safe to say, they weren’t fussy.

All the ‘Red Aristocracy’ of China seem to have hidden quite vast fortunes, whilst most of China starves. I’ve never been a fan of hypocrisy. And these are times of ‘anti-corruption’ in that fine nation.

I don’t really need an offshore trust, so I have a canoe anchored just off the coast at Brighton with a 50 pound note hidden in it. Its the best I can do.

More to follow… lots and lots and lots more.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx