Ministers have identified billions of pounds that Col Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan regime have deposited in London, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The funds are expected to be seized within days. The Treasury is understood to have set up a unit to trace Col Gaddafi’s assets in Britain, which are thought to include billions of dollars in bank accounts, commercial property and a £10 million mansion in London.
In total, the Libyan regime is said to have around £20 billion in liquid assets, mostly in London. These are expected to be frozen as part of an international effort to force the dictator from power. A Whitehall source said: “The first priority is to get British nationals out of Libya. But then we are ready to move in on Gaddafi’s assets, the work is under way. This is definitely on the radar at the highest levels.”
Perhaps it could be donated to the Ordinariate?
Well, whatever we decide to do, no doubt the hundreds of Britons still stuck in Libya, in no small part because of Whitehall incompetence, will be pleased to hear this helpful pronouncement from a “Whitehall source”, much as they will be to hear David Cameron mouthing off today about getting the United Nations to refer the Gaddafi regime to the International Criminal Court. But we live in a little domestic bubble, and think that no one beyond our borders listens to what we are saying.
Oh and our senior military, [sailors, soldiers and airmen] have written a letter explaining why the government should think again whether having no aircraft carriers in operation and no aircraft to go on them for the next 10 years is really such a good idea.
We have a very wierd government at the moment composed of dapper public [private] school bullies, and badly dressed unkempt tree-huggers and they are having more than their fair share of teething problems which the rest of us are having to put up with, and all because they think they know best, when in reality they are very green to government indeed. Few have had any prior experience of senior government decision-making.