FASCINATING though it is to hear that politicians from other countries are as bent as a clockwork orange, it beggars belief that a BBC TV programme on tax havens ignored Britain’s central role in this financial abuse.

The so-called Panama Papers leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca look like a huge deal, but they are the tip of the iceberg.

There are around 28 tax havens around the world under British legal jurisdiction and no-one denies that the justification for their existence is, as the name suggests, to enable big business and rich individuals to reduce the amount of tax they pay.