The Guardian reports that:

Gordon Brown plans to harness at least 20 of the world's biggest multinational companies, including Google and Vodafone, to tackle a "development emergency" in the world's poorest countries and put the international community back on course to achieve seven UN development goals by 2015.

Google are on the list.

But they're tax avoiders. Big time tax avoiders. It's why they also have their European HQ in Ireland, so they don't pay tax in the UK; tax the UK could use to honour its development commitments.

I'm not saying business is not part of the development solution: it is. But tax avoidance is not. Why can't Brown see that? And why does he keep applauding those who are making the plight of the developing world, not better as a result? Because that's exactly what those who use tax havens do. All of them, without exception.