After the Income Tax kerfuffle, it's on the cards that Britain will suspend our Constitution and impose direct rule for a while. That happened in Turks & Caicos (also a British colony) during the past couple of years. There is no room in this forum for a detailed summary, but anybody who is interested in the subject should pull up my blogpost of 7th September, titled "A day late and a dollar short (the FCO and Cayman)". Some August posts about our fiscal mess are also relevant.

One doesn't expect tax-haven governments to mismanage their finances so badly! Serious times are coming soon, unless somehow we get lucky.

 

I have just posted on my blog, an item that should be of interest to those interested in Cayman's politics. The title is "Cayman's political impasse". Comments welcome!
http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com

 

I'll remember that rule for next time, Cyril. Tell me what your preferred word-limit is please. What I've done now is reduce my blog-post to a third the size of the whole blog-post - from 600+ words to 200. Here it is below in italics. It reads a bit jerkily now, of course, but you're right in principle: anybody who wants to know more will go to my blog; those who don't want to know more, won't bother.

There is a strong desire here to vote out all the present MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly) at the next general election. It won’t happen, of course, but it makes for some interesting speculations. They are all fiscally incompetent, and in thrall to Cayman’s special-interest lobbies – the beneficiaries of our protectionist and indentured-labour system, and the beneficiaries of our ever-expanding central government.
There are regular calls for independent candidates, not members of the usual gangs of egotists. Those of us with Cayman’s best long-term interests at heart are desperate to persuade businessmen of proven ability and trustworthiness to do their civic duty.
The problem is this. The people best qualified to run our Islands’ government are expatriates. Yet the thought of having expats in the Legislature and on Statutory Boards is abhorrent to the bulk of the electorate. But if we rule out all expats as inherently untrustworthy, and all bloodline-Caymanians as already compromised by their service on politically appointed committees, who is left? Nobody.

Only the British FCO can help us out of this mess, though I doubt if it will make the effort. Two years of direct rule from London would allow our system of parliamentary representation to be re-set.

 

Well, facilitating tax-minimisation efforts is pretty much what Cayman is all about, Cyril. Our official sponsor in such matters is the British FCO (Foreign & Commonwealth Office), which has the Constitutional duty to approve all our local laws. But you knew that, right?

In August I wrote a blog-post called "In defence of Offshore tax havens". It's an interesting post, and somewhat provocative to those who believe that taxing incomes is a good thing. It ends something like this: "We believe that Income Tax is theft. Well, isn't it?"

Regrettably, Easy Expat's rules don't allow me to give a link to the post, so I will have to do a summary of it when I have the time. Soon come.