The Jersey Evening post reported today:
A SENIOR MP has dropped the strongest hint yet that changes to Jersey's business tax system have the consent of the UK Treasury.
They then showed a picture of someone they called John Whittingham MP.
There's a slight problem thouygh: there is no one in the House of Commons by that name.
I think they mean John Whittingdale MP, but to call him senior (barring age) is stretching the limits. His career has gone pretty much nowhere in 19 years.
This is really plumbing desperation stakes.
Especially as the decision is not the Treasury's to make. But Jersey probably doesn't know that, and I'm sure John Whittingdale doesn't either.
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Mr Whittingdale doesn’t even have a connection with the Treasury – he chairs the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee. (Amongst other things he has the enviable job of investigating Uncle Rupert’s phone-hacking business at the News of the Screws)
The rest of us understood he was in the island not to talk about tax, but about what is going to happen to the BBC over here: rumour has it they plan to close the TV service in the islands to save costs. You’ll know if this is true when the P in JEP changes from “Post” to “Pravda”… 🙂
In the Avarice-in-Wonderland world inhabited by the Jersey government (and financial services regulator) anything is permitted — providing it benefits the island’s dubious status as an “offshore secrecy jurisdiction”… in combination three of the dirtiest words in the English lexicon.