Downing Street has spent the past 24 hours trying to clarify David Cameron’s links to an offshore fund set up by his late father, which never paid tax in Britain. Initially, Downing Street said this was a ‘private matter’, Cameron was then asked about the matter, and said ‘I own no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And, so that, I think, is a very clear description.’ Then Downing Street issued a statement saying ‘to be clear, the Prime Minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds’. And today Number 10 had to clarify further: ‘There are no offshore funds/trusts which the prime minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in future.’
These awkward questions about the links between the Prime Minister and the tax avoidance and evasion schemes revealed in the Panama Papers couldn’t have come at a worse time, given the government is still recovering from the row about cuts to disability benefits, is still trying to deal with the threat to the Port Talbot steelworks, and is in the middle of the EU referendum campaign.
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