The files released from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) may finally put faces to the offshore accounts scandal whose numbers are quite astounding.
A recent report by the Tax Justice Network found that the equivalent to the total combined GDP of U.S. and Japan is being hidden away by those rich enough to use offshore accounts.
Of all the decisions the chancellor has made, the one he may be regret the most is making the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) independent.
What this Budget has done is entrench this chancellor’s misguided policy and has squandered the opportunity of the last three years to significantly invest in UK infrastructure to make the country fit to compete in the 21st century.
We must be watchful of a spinning of facts by this government to justify its policies. Nowhere has this been more apparent than when Cameron and co talk about government borrowing.
With evidence overwhelmingly pointing to the need for demand boosting measures to kick-start the economy, we need to ask City economists the same question that John Maynard Keynes asked when challenged about his change in economic policy to tackle the Great Depression in the 1930s:
“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”
