The Nobel peace prize never quite won back its kudos after being awarded to President Obama before he’d had time to find the White House fridge.
The Norwegian committee had hoped giving such a prestigious award to a man who had barely started in office would encourage him to do good things.
Instead, it just made them look daft.
Today, the Financial Action Task Force, one of those multinational talking shops that emerge from G7 summits, took a similar decision.
For, despite London being famed by criminals worldwide for being the money-laundering destination of choice, the FATF has given Britain its highest-ever rating.
Given that our own National Crime Agency estimates “hundreds of billions of pounds” of illicit funds are laundered through the UK annually, you can only assume this is in hope of what’s to come.
Britain has started putting in initiatives to clean up its dirty reputation, but spare us the gongs until we know they work.
Take yesterday’s announcement that we’re stopping the “golden visa” regime, where foreigners of dubious repute were getting residency in return for investing a few million; the curb looks great until Global Witness points out they can still get visa-free access via Commonwealth states like St Kitts and Nevis.
Previous initiatives have been so sparsely resourced that they’ve led to little real change. Companies House has improved, but carries out no due diligence on those registering. We recently revealed an alleged mafioso registering his profession, in Italian, as “fraudster”. His address: “Street of the Forty Thieves, Ali Baba.”
Obama had the decency to be embarrassed by the Nobel. I suspect the Government will be less humble about FATF’s naive praise.
