I missed this announcement on 23 December:
These are the places applying to be cities in 2022:
Peel, Isle of Man; Douglas, Isle of Man; Georgetown, Cayman Islands and Gibraltar are on the list.
Each likes to claim it is quite independent of the UK, except when it suits them of course. Then they are tax havens doing their utmost to undermine the UK tax system and the rule of law in this country.
If confirmation was required that the best sign that a place is a tax haven is having the Queen's head on its stamps this surely is all that is required.
The hypocrisy on all parts, from the monarch, to the government, to these places, is quite staggering.
I think it’s always been the case but now there is no pretence at all about any of it – this is definitely a country governed by wealth now and its not so much a democracy as result.
I’m afraid ‘civil society’ is that wealth in action now.
This has come about because we’ve tolerated and encouraged wealth to prosper in the belief of trickle down etc., and a lack of belief in anything else.
I suspect there is a fair chance of Gibraltar receiving this accolade, for what it is worth.
Also pre-Christmas, I noticed the Orwellian-sounding “Department for Levelling Up” announced the UK’s second freeport. Near London, naturally. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boost-for-thames-estuary-as-freeport-opens-for-business
The Peel application is curious. Peel, known locally as Sunset City, has always been considered to be a city by the normal people. It has the only cathedral on the Isle of Man (technically it has 2 cathedrals). Somewhere, somehow it seems to have lost its its status. Personally I don’t give a monkeys one way or the other.
The Isle of Man, memorably described by a coaster skiper as 70000 alcoholics clinging to a rock
weirder still is Stanley – Falkland Islands although may be just to coincide with 40th Anniversary of Falklands War