Maximising Microstates

Someone called Charles Walker, who is apparently a Conservative MP but not as good as a Lib Dem when it comes to being made a Minister, has just been on PM. Indicating where and how he, entirely typically, spends most of his time and acquires most of his money, all of it from the public teat, he claimed that "the United Kingdom" would pay 80 per cent of the cost of a transaction tax.

Utter rubbish. It would be paid by Europe's last great Medieval oligarchy, which the Queen may not enter without special permission, where the laws enacted by Parliament do not apply, and where the resident population of British Citizens is denied democratic representation both by that means and by means of municipal arrangements which grant far more votes to foreign companies than to British human beings.

Walker's objection, worthy of our dear friend below the line, Tom The Teenage Trot (Retired), is to the idea that those companies might have to pay any tax at all, like the human beings whose votes count for so much less than theirs. The American military-industrial complex does not occupy Ascension Island so that the British population can have democratic representation. The American military-industrial complex does not occupy Diego Garcia so that the British population can so much as set foot there. And Wall Street does not occupy the Square Mile, either to pay tax, or to grant representative democracy to the nine thousand or so British people there who do. Not that I want the EU to reform the City. That is what we have the Parliament of the United Kingdom for.

Walker was also rude about the everlasting Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Junker, in office since 1995. As President of the Euro Group (the only one ever, since 2005), he has dared to point out that the economic shambles under David Cameron and George Osborne makes the Eurozone look relatively healthy. "Who cares what he thinks?" asked Walker, presumably rhetorically. After all, Luxembourg is a tiny little place. Well, dear, Luxembourg is a lot bigger than the City, and with the parliamentary and municipal democracy that the City noticeably lacks.

Furthermore, the 17 NATO AWACS aeroplanes are registered as aircraft of Luxembourg. Purely a matter of convenience? Those days are gone, sweetie. Those days are gone. Never mind the coups in Greece and Italy. The City of London might be made to pay some tax and keep some laws. If that can happen, then absolutely anything could happen.