The British taxman, that grim reaper of earthly delights, has set his sights on a quarry far removed from the usual suspects of plumbers and publicans. The quarry? A former Prime Minister of Spain.
The alleged loot? A “haul” of jewellery valued at a tidy €1.2 million.
One must applaud the audacity. It smacks of a Victorian melodrama where the villain, having salted his colonial spoils under a floorboard, is undone by a single stray accounting slip. The Spanish gentleman, one Mariano Rajoy by name, is said to have failed to declare this glittering collection to the authorities in his own country.
And now, in a twist that would make a Gilbert and Sullivan libretto blush, the British tax office – that bastion of order in a world of fiscal chaos – has taken an interest. Because nothing says “global cooperation” like two sovereign states bickering over the provenance of a diamond necklace. The story reeks of the decadence that heralded the Fall.
Rome had its Neros fiddling; modern Europe has its ex-premiers hoarding Cartier. We are assured that the probe is at a “preliminary stage.” Prelude to what?
A charge of tax evasion? A diplomatic incident? Or merely a sternly worded letter from a functionary in Croydon?
One shudders to think of the paperwork. For the rest of us, who fret over the cost of petrol and the price of a pint, this affair offers a delicious irony: the very people who craft the laws so often fancy themselves above them. The British tax authorities, to be fair, are an equal opportunity predator.
They do not distinguish between a bankrupt novelist and a former head of government. They merely follow the scent of unreported wealth. And if, in doing so, they expose a former European leader as a man with a taste for trinkets and a lapse in fiscal memory, then so be it.
It is a grotesque ballet of entitlement and oversight. One can almost hear the ghost of Adam Smith tutting. The jewels themselves: what are they?
Emeralds from a fallen empire? Gold from the New World? Or simply the baubles of a man who believed his station exempted him from the tedium of forms and declarations.
The British tax office, in its glacial wisdom, will presumably find out. In an age of crumbling empires and collapsing states, it is reassuring that the Inland Revenue retains its vigour. They are the last bulwark against chaos, the auditors of the elite.
Let the Spanish press rage. Let the former Premier protest his innocence. The truth will out, as it always does, usually in a letter with a stern typeface and a demand for payment.
And when the dust settles, we will look back on this as a quaint scandal: a former leader, a pile of jewels, and the British taxman. It is almost too perfect. Almost.
