Now, Germans are notoriously obsessed with paying taxes. The Protestant sentiment that it is good for the Sozialstaat to have as many contribute to it as possible is affronted by any state with little or no taxation. Recent steps by the UK to discourage contractors from using offshore banks  couldn't really do much to change that perception or went unnoticed: as did the fact that HM Revenue and Customs had just announced the launch of an offshore unit for tax fraud.

Surely the structures that allow for these kinds of business — whether you call them an invitation to fraud or common practice among the world's biggest companies — will be reduced and perhaps closed down altogether as soon as the European Union can no longer afford to have taxes go anywhere but to the respective state the company is based in.

But should the line between legal and illegal — and moral and immoral — be redrawn in the current climate of postmodern Robin Hood-ism? To me, it seems as if the old claim "marginality is a site of resistance" which theorists of postcolonialism have mulled over for so long is facing a new test. Europe thinks it can no longer afford to exclude these ungoverned spaces — even if they are just a few small islands scattered in the Caribbean. Why? Not because of outrage or a feeling of moral guilt in the West, but because of sheer economic necessity. This means a change of mindset and rhetoric too: "offshore" no longer means "off limits".