David Cameron is not personally corrupt but he is certainly guilty of epic hypocrisy - UK Guardian writes

The UK Guardian has written an editorial in
reaction to the UK Prime Minister, David
Cameron saying that Nigeria and Afghanistan
were possibly the two most corrupt countries in
the world.
According to the UK Guardian, Cameron might
not be personally corrupt but they say he is
certainly guilty of epic hypocrisy. According to
the editorial, under successive UK governments,
from Thatcher to Blair to Cameron, London has
become the financial centre for the world’s dirty
money. Read the editorial after the cut...
There are times when a manual earth-
restructuring implement is best referred to as a
spade, so let us speak plainly. A summit on
corruption will be held on Thursday in a city that
is internationally recognised (by the IMF, among
others) as a tax haven. It is being hosted by a
politician who admitted last month that he has
personally profited from offshore finance and
whose party is bankrolled by an industry that
makes extravagant use of those same tax
havens.
Not only that, he has intervened to aid tax
avoiders. That’s right, David Cameron is holding
a meeting on corruption. The prime minister is
not personally corrupt – but he is certainly
guilty of epic hypocrisy. So, for that matter, are
Britain and the west. They have spent decades
ordering poor countries and failed states to sort
out their problems with dodgy money, even while
taking much of that dodgy money and ploughing
it through their banks, their ritzy stores, their
estate agents, and their offshore tax havens –
with barely any questions asked or eyebrows
raised.
When Mr Cameron was caught on camera on
Tuesday boasting to the Queen of the
“fantastically corrupt countries” turning up at
Lancaster House this week, he might have
mentioned that Afghanistan is a failed state that
did not get any less failed over 13 years of
British intervention. And he should certainly have
mentioned that the president of Nigeria,
Muhammadu Buhari, is coming to London to
lobby it to sort out the tax havens in its own
backyard.
Indeed, Mr Cameron might have quoted a letter
sent to him a fortnight ago by campaigners in
Nigeria. “We are embarked on a nationwide anti-
corruption campaign,” the letter said. “But these
efforts are sadly undermined if countries such
as your own are welcoming our corrupt to hide
their ill-gotten gains in your luxury homes,
department stores, car dealerships, private
schools and anywhere else that will accept their
cash with no questions asked.
The role of London’s property market as vessels
to conceal stolen wealth has been exposed in
court documents, reports, documentaries and
more.” So the president of the Nigerian senate,
Bukola Saraki, currently facing allegations that
he failed to declare his assets, owns a property
in London’s Belgravia in his own name.
But last month’sPanama Papers revealed that
the £5.7m property next door is owned by
companies incorporated in the Seychelles and
British Virgin Islands, whose respective
shareholders are Saraki’s wife and former
special assistant.
And a £1.65m townhouse in Kensington is
shown as belonging to a BVI company whose
sole shareholder is Folorunsho Coker, former
head of the number plate production authority of
the state of Lagos and currently business
adviser to the governor of Lagos. None of these
individuals may have done anything wrong, but
the charge from those campaigners is hard to
duck. Under successive governments, from
Thatcher to Blair to Cameron, London has
become the financial centre for the world’s dirty
money.
A third of all the trillions hiding offshore are
sitting in tax havens linked to the UK, according
to Oxfam. These havens rely on Britain for
security and protection. The Jersey pound note
features the Queen. On the Caymans, they sing
as the national anthem God Save the Queen. Yet
Whitehall persists in pretending they are
autonomous – even though London has
overridden them before, on the abolition of
capital punishment, say, or the decriminalising
of homosexual acts. It will not do so on shady
finance, however.
The result is that Britain will soon bring in a
public register of who ultimately owns the
companies listed here – even while its overseas
territories won’t. The Caymans and the rest
claim that this is because they are home to
perfectly legitimate operations – in which case,
what have they got to hide? This fudge suits
both the City and the havens.
The accountancy firms and tax lawyers and
wealth managers in London will continue to reap
fat fees by using their branch offices scattered
across offshore Britain to look after clients
seeking low tax and secrecy – even while the UK
can claim that its domestic financial industry is
as clean as can be. Few will call this corruption
or hypocrisy, as it wears a sharp suit and talks
so nicely. In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of
Being Earnest, Cecily implores Gwendolen: “This
is no time for wearing the shallow mask of
manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.”
The reply comes: “I am glad to say that I have
never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social
spheres have been widely different.”