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Although he might have tried to brush it aside as merely a “private matter,” British Prime Minister, David Cameron's involvement in the Panama Papers leak seems unlikely to go away quickly. Adding fuel to the fire is ostracised whistle blower, Edward Snowden, who has now started poking the PM over the matter, wondering aloud, why he's suddenly interested in privacy.
The whole Panama Papers leak, which is linked with Cameron because his father benefited from offshore tax avoidance for decades, comes at a terrible time for the PM. He's spent the last six months railing against personal privacy and encryption, demanding that people's online activity be tracked, that encryption be banned and that filters be put in place to censor big swathes of the internet.
Oh, now he's interested in privacy. https://t.co/jfCSYgensb
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 4, 2016
Despite that, “It's a private matter,” was the response given by Cameron when initially asked about his father's use of offshore firms to avoid tax. He has since clarified that he doesn't own any shares in any offshore companies or benefit from them in any way. It has however been confirmed that in 2010, when David Cameron became the UK's Prime Minister, ownership of his father's company, Blairmore Holdings Inc was moved to Ireland.
Some are now suggesting that this may have allowed Cameron to safely say that he did not benefit from offshore companies.
Resignation of Iceland's PM may explain why the UK PM is so insistent public has no right to know a PM's "private" finances. #PanamaPapers
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 5, 2016
While Snowden pokes fun of the PM though, his interest is backed by calls from officials and press in the UK, which are hounding Cameron and many top-tier Conservative politicians for more information. Chancellor George Osbourne left an interview with the BBC after being pressed over whether he benefited from offshore funds (as per the Telegraph).
The government is also being asked to take territories like the Virgin Islands in hand and add more regulation, especially considering the UK is set to host an international anti-corruption summit in just over a month's time.
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KitGuru Says: Snowden's comments really highlight the hypocrisy of this whole thing and show that either, the government doesn't care about personal privacy unless it applies to politicians, or it doesn't understand that the measures it wants implemented via the Investigatory Powers Bill would work. Either way, this isn't good enough.
Fire the lot and lts get some genuine people in Parliament.
Offshore Trusts are set up by a Settlor (the guy/doll with the cash) and are held by Trustees. The Trustees have to abide by the wishes of the Settlor. In Cameron’s case his father could have set up the Trust and given the Trustee wishes on how the Trust is to devolve. So, even if DC says he is not a Beneficiary or Trustee of a Trust technically he may be correct but in reality not as he coud still be named in the wishes of the Settlor.
So the secret is to obtain the wishes of his fathers Trust. DC should be made to disclose those wishes. In other words, the full extent of his father’s Trust should be made public. The Trust was set up to avoid tax so it should be in the public domain and not allowed to pass by with a few comments by DC. He has a public duty to disclose in full.
The Panama Leaks saga is going to last for a while now. Sit back and enjoy how things unfold. I hope thought this is not another Psy-Ops like the NSA Scandal.
Isn’t the problem that none of this is illegal? It might be unethical, but would you expect anything less from politicians and people in power?
The sooner that all of the tax law is changed so that everyone, businesses included that lives or works here pays a flat rate of tax, with no exceptions, the better.
Cameron is of course being “economical with the verite”.
Every PM has to offload their investments when taking office so as to avoid conflict of interest.
But off-loading does not mean losing the investment. It just means not having any say or knowledge of what has happened to those investments for the duration of the premiership.
In Cameron’s case, his Blairmore investment has been feeding pennies into his piggy bank for years. The dosh may well have made it easier for his dad to pay those pesky membership subscriptions for the Bullingdon Club.
I seem to remember that Cameron didn’t think Jimmy Carr’s tax arrangements were a private matter…
Cameron is the equivalent of a donkey and a twonk!.
As somebody who thinks the fault lies in the tax laws rather than individuals legally avoiding tax I suppose so far I have to side with Cameron, that doesn’t stop him being a shitbag though
This is nobody’s fault other than the lawmakers and, unfortunately for them, things are much more transparent nowadays. The so called elite would like to keep these tax havens intact for understandable reasons. This new transparency may well be the salvation of us, the huddled masses, in the future as things that the elite would like hidden cannot be hidden. The hypocrisy is quite stunning but they have never been short of brass neck. One question would need to be answered, ‘who would want to be a politician’ under these circumstances? I imagine there is an endless supply of fools, knaves and people who want to tell others what to do – take the like of Juncker, Schultz and Rumpy Pumpy as instances. We need to leave.
Like anything else that involves the top elite of society nothing major is coming out of this, it will all blow over soon the news doesnt get their questions answered and some committee will be placed to “investigate” things for the next 5 years and all will be forgotten by then.
Does people of this country know that a majority of UK citizens can place a mistrust in the government and remove them, plus stop laws being formed, why do u think there is no interest in making it easy for people to state their views and vote online. (the system could be made safe rather simply in a closed network)