“A shining piece of film-making
on the darkness at the heart of
the City … this is a film no one
should avoid”

DAILY MIRROR

“The City of London’s murky tax
avoidance all wrapped up with
Queen and Empire”

THOM YORKE

Wednesday, 29th January, was Third Space film night at Designate. Although the evening was cold and wet the film was shown before a packed room. “The UK Gold” is fronted by a very impressive and gallant East London vicar, the Rev William Taylor. This is the kind of film that gets you hot under the collar, it is a very clear expose of the UK’s lamentable record of turning a blind eye to tax avoidance by the very rich and by multinational companies and it homes in on the unsavoury role played by the City  of London. The British Government does not come out of the film very well, you could say that it does not walk the talk! Barack Obama does rather better, he calls arrangements in UK overseas territories a “scam”.

The major features of tax avoidance are clearly explained – crown dependencies, tax havens, tax lawyers, accountants, phantom companies etc. But the tax avoiders’ best weapon is silence – at the end of the film there is a long list of people from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour Parties, plus people from the City of London who declined to be interviewed. It spoke volumes!

This is a documentary film to cause outrage and anger, do go and see it and be outraged! If the film does not manage to bring about change then at least it has brought into the open the scams and dodgy deals carried out by the City of London, the mega rich, the multinational corporates, and their tax lawyers and accountants.