Football Fans Don’t Care Where The Money Comes From

What’s the difference between ‘dirty’ money and the stuff the authorities consider to be ‘clean’? And does the government approved good stuff build better starter homes or pay for better life-saving medicines than the so-called ‘filthy lucre’ that might be in some way associated with criminal activity?

If you’re desperate for a decent place to live or a loved-one’s life depends on expensive medicines, well-trained staff and access to high-tech equipment ,I reckon most people would take the win and worry about the ethics later. And if you don’t believe me, ask a Man City or Chelsea fan.

Returning to the house building problem in the UK. To meet current demand for housing 340,000 new homes a year need to spring up from somewhere just to tread water. Successive governments have set targets (usually 300,000 new-builds per year) and none of them have got close.

Anyone who’s bought a house knows too well what a bizarre, old-fashioned and completely unfit for purpose the UK’s system for buying and selling private homes is. I’d bet there’s not a person alive whose been through this expensive dance with solicitors, surveyors, banks, brokers and estate agents, all getting a slice of the action, who didn’t end up feeling completely shafted.

Like many things in life the problem is the parasites syphoning off your hard-earned cash whenever you buy or sell property are never going to abandon their gravy train. In fact, since about 2016 anti-money-laundering laws (AML) have made property deals even more complicated (and expensive). You now need to prove to a new breed of property-parasite that your deposit money is clean.

If you ask me by the time your savings pot gets to buying your house, it’s been raped and pillaged by so many leches it’s not just depleted but feels as dirty as a wad of tenners in a brown paper bag.

Oh, and it turns out that while law-abiding sorts are trying to explain where granny’s £10k in cash came from, the real criminals are rinsing their dirty-dosh by buying up ‘off-plan’ flats to bypass AML checks. You couldn’t make it up, but when the financial-crime police tried to stop money-laundering in real estate they left the back door wide open, and in piled an estimated £2.2 billion in dirty money (since 2016).

Criminals don’t pay tax but need a stash-house for their filthy lucre; the property industry is already a den of thieves; football fans don’t care where the money comes from as long as their team wins, and the UK government hasn’t got a Scooby how to build millions of houses.

It seems to me the answer is staring us in the face. The villains have a load of cash they can’t easily use; the government is skint and needs billions for social housing; the property market is already bent, and the people don’t care as long as they get a result!

The idea here would be like when the police have an amnesty on guns and knives. You can surrender illegal weapons, no questions asked. The cops don’t stop trying to get violent criminals off the street, but they do give out passes for surrendered blades and shooters. In the same way flush villains could get an AML pass, as long as they channel their money into social housing. Genius or what?

It’s a win-win thing. Nothing actually changes, except the dirty money ends up in social housing ,not high-end developments.

Clearly, I’m " taking the Michael,"  but my point is we need to figure out better ways of funding people’s basic needs. Somewhere to live; enough food to eat, and a decent health service. All of these things are not happening at the moment and, as a country, we’re borrowing more and more to keep our heads above water.

Absolutely I realise the Doctor Evil Construction Company is not a thing that’s going to happen in the real world. But think about it. Who do you think would run a better social housing scheme, if properly incentivised – the UK Labour Party or the Mafia? I know which horse my money would be on. Speaking of ‘fixing’ things I’d wager a bunch of crime Dons would sort out the UK’s skilled labour problem in double quick time if it was causing their business a problem.

Unfortunately, I think football is safe as the premier receptacle for questionable investors and their money. It’s probably also the case that politicians are too untrustworthy to convince any self-respecting criminal to play ball. But the question of how to pay for housing and other public services won’t go away, and the government can’t keep borrowing billions and heaping more and more tax on success.

Already tens of thousands of wealthy tax-targets have evacuated UK PLC with their bodies, their business-brains and their capital. It’s so obvious, just like opening up a state-run money laundering scheme, make doing business attractive and people will invest. Plenty of countries are already offering attractive incentives for foreign investment. Why can’t the UK government do the same before we join North Korea as a siege economy?

Don’t laugh, plenty of senior Labour ministers were in favour of taking that path in 1976!