Sweet God, can Britain be trusted with anything these days?
Britain is facing a revolt against its rule of a group of Caribbean islands, amidst a gathering political and economic crisis in the country. The Foreign Office suspended parliamentary democracy in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) last August after a group of visiting MPs uncovered evidence of widespread corruption in the territory, one of 14 colonial outposts for which the UK still has responsibility.
But an investigation by The Independent has found that the economic situation in the country has deteriorated sharply since then, and islanders are demanding a financial bailout of tens of millions of dollars. Problems facing the British-appointed governor, Gordon Wetherell, include:
- Debts of tens of millions of dollars, which have left the TCI government unable to pay its bills and trying to impose swingeing cuts;
- The collapse of one of the country’s leading locally owned banks, which wiped out the savings of thousands of depositors and businesses;
- Doubts over the future of a legal investigation set up last year to prosecute former ministers accused of taking bribes.
Now, this is bad. Happily, the genius of British politics offers a solution: David Laws.
(Spoiler alert: what follows is not entirely unserious in intent.)
Mr Laws has, readers will be aware, had to resign as Chief Secretary of the Treasury for reasons that need not (and, I think, should not) concern us. This is a pity, as everyone seems to agree that he is the only person alive capable of reducing the British budget deficit in a competent fashion. Since he resigned, pretty much all of Whitehall and Fleet Street has concluded that they’d like him back sharpish.
There is a simple and happy solution here. Governor Wetherell of Turks and Caicos, who also seems to be a perfectly decent fellow, should be moved to some more fiscally sound speck of our imperial residue. Mr Laws should take his place, with a mandate to fix TCI’s budget in short order. Everyone would agree that he has then paid his penance – and then some – so we could have him back in government pronto.
That would still leave us with BP on our roster on national shame, but whatever.
