Our Island Story

I have often wondered what first attracted the Barclay Brothers to Brecqhou near Sark, an island that has no taxes on income, capital gains or inheritances and no company law.

They live in a castle that was designed by Prince Charles's favourite architect, Terry Quinlan, the man who designed Poundbury his new olde-worlde village in Dorset.

Technically of course, purely for health reasons that I am sure have nothing with their tax-status, as residents of Monaco they do not actually “live” on Brecqhou although as Sark has no customs post how will anyone know if they are there or not?

Despite being hidden in their castle the impact of the Brothers on Sark has been felt. Since acquiring the island they have been at war with the local citizens I say citizens but I probably mean serfs. The island was trapped in a medieval Norman time warp but unfortunately for the Barclays the wrong feudal lords where in charge.

Sark has been kept underdeveloped for years partly because it is good for tourism and partly because if you do not collect any tax you cannot tarmac the roads. With a population of just 600 they did not relish the impact the Barclays would have on what they saw as being their islands. Mind having seen the size of their gothic monstrosity who could blame them.

A series of legal battles by the Barclays forced the islands into the twenty first century with their very first elections in 2008. As owners of the Daily Telegraph, they probably thought they knew a thing or two about how to influence the outcome of elections.

Well it did not work. It did not work again in 2010 nor in the most recent ‘elections’ in 2014 when mysteriously 16 people stood for 16 seats – the islanders had tried democracy and did not seem to like it!

So it was back to court and a complex legal battle over the new constitution. After a long trek through the courts that finally ended in the Supreme Court, with the Barclays’ arguing that the “dual role” of the island’s chief judge and de facto president were incompatible with European human rights laws enshrining the independence of the judiciary.

An admirable interest here in European Human Rights law you may think not something one would expect from the owners of the Daily Telegraph. In June the papers editorial said that “The Government is entirely right to seek to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. Britain needs to return some common sense to these vexatious legal proceedings.” Somehow I don’t think this was the case they had in mind.

The Barclays finally lost the case last October (although the roles where split in 2013). In apparent retaliation in November the Barclays closed their four hotels on the island for the 2015 season showing an admirable commitment to the islands economy.

Their patriotism as knights of the realm is unquestionable although they seem to go to inordinate lengths to avoid UK tax their murky tax affairs and the control of their businesses being hidden behind trusts and offshore companies.

The Telegraphs war against Jeremy Corbyn however is all to clear. Unpatriotic Corbyn snubs the Queen screams the front page headline. This was of course just hours after the paper had been found guilty of misleading its readers by the new press regulator.
The Press Gazette reported, “The Daily Telegraph breached the Editors’ Code by inaccurately reporting on its front page an allegation of anti-semitism made against Jeremy Corbyn. It is the fourth Independent Press Standards Organisation ruling against The Daily Telegraph, making it the title with the worst record for upheld complaints since the new regulator opened in September 2014.”
It is not just readers who cannot believe the paper. Last winter their chief political commentator Peter Oborne resigned because he could no longer write for the paper as he felt the advertisers where determining the news content.
He met with the chief executive of the paper Murdoch MacLennan, to air his concerns. Maclennan agreed with him that advertising was allowed to affect editorial, but was unapologetic, according to Oborne , he said that “it was not as bad as all that” adding that there was a long history of this sort of thing at the Telegraph.
Well there you have it. Was there ever a better case for proper media regulation? As Peter Oborne points out, “A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.” Something you are not going to find in the Telegraph.