Golden Duck
Madeleine and I visit Richmond Park this morning to feed the ducks (or "the quackers" or "quacky quacks" as she once called them). This one smart enough to be away from the badelynge and I reward her with bread for being an entrepreneur. We do not have enough of these birds in our country and soon it may get worse as taxes go up and people bail. Jim Ratcliffe, for instance, the UK's most successful post-war entrepreneur is moving to Switzerland to escape Gordon Brown; Ratcliffe founded Britain's largest private company -- chemicals group Ineos in 1998 -- and is taking 20 of his execs with him. This will save him, and cost us, over £100MM but worse (for us) he will not try another company in Britain, taking his potential with him.
No doubt I hear rumblings of re-location from my group and this year we will see a number of our best friends leave London. For most ex-pats, there is an exodus after a couple of years when a rotation is up and before strong networks established; then again (we found) between five and seven years as permanency looms. Following seven the die usually cast: passports, property ownership, kids in Brit schools and, generally, a sense of citizenship. That is us, anyway.
Now we all do the math: 50% top-tax rate, (from April 6) £30,000 levy on non-domiciled tax payers and the cut in pension tax relief for those making more than £130K. HM Revenue and Customs threatens to tax more of our income earned over seas. Once, smart people came here because they trusted Britain's stability and relied on her promise not to soak the wealth from the economy's earners. This is by no means an inexpensive place to do business - London ranked 16th costliest in the world in '09 by Forbes, down from #3 due to Stirling's depreciation - yet there are many reasons to be here starting with a density of educated, specialist people in media, finance, arts and banking. They are also the most fluid and likely to leave. Will we bugger the Golden Goose?
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
--William Butler Yeats
