16 November 2017

Sexing Up Paradise

An exclusive exposé.

By Chin Chin

It’s a Brave New World and a cold one.  Demoted from weekly to occasional columnist by the editors of the Shaw Sheet, how on earth am I going to get my articles accepted?  Something spectacular is needed.  Rebranding, yes, that’s the thing.  I’ll reinvent myself, focus on an area which will make me an invaluable asset of the magazine.  What is it to be?  War correspondent? – Too risky.  Food & Drink? – My waistline will not allow.  Theatre and film? – Full of North London types talking about themselves.  I know!  I’ll be an investigative reporter!  Slouch hat, dirty raincoat, all the doings.  After all, is there a better time to enter investigative journalism than following the release of more of those Paradise papers?

I’ve seen it done on Panorama and it doesn’t look too difficult. You walk around with an enquiring and mildly shocked expression, like a slightly goofy oyster which has just been opened.  Then you stick a microphone up someone’s nose as they get into their car and leap out of the way as they roar off.  Another dose of the oyster expression, a couple of breathless references to “offshore” and the case is made, even though no one understands quite what it is.

Okay, Panorama is different.  The Shaw Sheet is in print so, unless they include a good photo, nobody will actually see me.  What a waste of my oyster impression.  Still, there is no harm in practising it in the mirror to get in the mood.  Let’s get the breathing right: in, out, in, and then “offshore”.

To be a successful investigative reporter you have to reveal something sensational.  What is it going to be?  There’s not much point in investigating American companies.  There any rolling up of profits offshore would be between them and the US Revenue, hardly of interest to British readers.  Then there are structures set up by media stars to avoid tax on their earnings.  Not much surprising there and anyway there are far juicier stories about the media going the rounds at the moment.  No, I need a story which strikes at the very fabric of society.  Tell you what, I’ll write about the offshore investments of the Duchy of Lancaster, a portfolio of assets run by the great and good on behalf of the Queen.  We know there is something fishy there.  After all Frank Field, Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee of the House of Commons (a double brainer by any measure), has called for the board controlling the investments to be replaced.

Right, here is the plan.  Find out where the Duchy of Lancaster invests its money and turn up on the doorstep.  Stick a microphone in someone’s face and jump out of the path of their car.  Then make the oyster face.  Get a friend to take a couple of photographs and Bob’s your uncle.  Facebook, fame and fortune in that order.

The difficult question, of course, is just where to do the doorstepping, but luckily last week’s Times comes to the rescue.  The Dutchy invested in the Dover Street VI Cayman Fund LP.  Right, pack the swimsuit and off we go.  Hold on a minute, I had better get the address.  Yes, here it is on Google.  It seems that the fund is run from, er… Boston, Massachusetts.

Oh dear, that isn’t what I’d hoped for at all, so let’s try another one, the Jubilee Absolute Return Fund.  According to Google its address is in Guernsey, not the sun-drenched Cayman Islands I grant you, but tax haven enough for me to write “offshore” in a wink, wink, nudge, nudge sort of way.  Now what is this fund?  Some sort of tax avoidance vehicle, I hope, or at the very least a way of hiding assets kept available for the bribing of foreign officials?  Oops no, it’s rather a respectable hedge fund, and the running of hedge funds offshore is well recognised as legit by the Treasury.  So much so indeed that parliament has enacted special rules to allow the investments of foreign hedge funds to be managed from the UK.  Worse still, any profits made by investors will be taxed in full under our offshore funds regime.  Not much scandal about that one then.

It was at this point that a horrid thought struck me.  Suppose that all of the Duchy’s overseas investments were in perfectly respectable funds that didn’t give investors any tax advantage?  What would happen to my story?  How could I launch my new career as an investigative reporter?

Luckily there is one big thing on my side.  The tax laws are too complicated for most people to understand and there clearly is lots of naughty avoidance offshore by big corporations, media stars and the like.  If I mixed the topics up a bit and used the word “offshore” in the right way, I should be able to smear the Duchy’s investments quite successfully.  What did you say?  Not quite respectable to mislead the public?  Well, that’s an out-of-date attitude if you like.  Both sides did it royally in the lead up to the Brexit referendum.  It’s perfectly usual nowadays.

 

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