Tory and Blairite cuts are both brutal and unnecessary, photo Tony Fischer (Creative Commons)

Tory and Blairite cuts are both brutal and unnecessary, photo Tony Fischer (Creative Commons)   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Dave Carr

The Panama Papers reveal a financial parallel world in which the ‘masters of the universe’ keep their ill-gotten gains. The scale of this wealth hoarding is astonishing.

According to researcher Ben Judah, one-third of the estimated $21 trillion in tax havens worldwide falls within British sovereign territory. There is more money in British sovereign tax havens then there is in the UK’s GDP (total output of goods and services) this year!

So when George Osborne imposes austerity on Britain’s lowest income earners to plug the government’s budget deficit, he’s clearly ignoring the piles of cash sitting in the British Virgin Islands, et al.

And it’s not only the working and middle classes of this country being needlessly screwed by the Tory chancellor. It’s estimated that if money siphoned off to tax havens from ex-colonial countries was instead spend on health and other vital public services, 3.6 million lives could be saved every year.