The Observer covered the Tax Justice Network for Africa conference in Nairobi in yesterday's edition. Nick Mathiason is a better journalist than I'll ever be. Read his story here.

There is one addition that should be made though. TJN does not accept the Treasury's view of this matter. It has, undoubtedly, done good work in tackling UK tax avoidance. But it has not tried to stop Africa's taxation income being plundered by capital flight, and it is not doing enough to tackle offshore activity in the jurisdictions for which the UK government is directly responsible and in which we believe it has a duty to intervene since the UK is completely responsible constitutionally for their foreign affairs. This, of course, covers the Channel Islands, Cayman, the BVI and the Isle of Man amongst others. As such the Treasury response simply fails to recognise the UK's responsibility in this issue and shows how far the UK government has to move to deal with this pressing issue.

If Gordon Brown was serious about development this would be top of his agenda. As it isn't the question has to be, is he serious?