By: Ed West at May 13, 2009

With the economy in such tip-top condition, it's reassuring to know that the money owed to the British taxpayer is safe and sound.

David Alton, one of the few good men left in SW1 (and if he's on the fiddle I'll put a Luger to my head), recently submitted a question to "Lord" Myners of Bermuda: "How much debt is owed to the United Kingdom by developing countries; and which are the ten most indebted nations?" The answer came back last week. Britain is owed £2,813,000,000 and the top ten debtors are, from 1 to 10:

Indonesia
Sudan
Iraq
Serbia
Zimbabwe
Cuba
Egypt
Republic of Congo

Democratic Republic of Congo

Somalia

What are we going to do? Send a couple of Glaswegian heavies out to Mogadishu? I pity the poor debt collector who turns up in Harare asking if we can have our money back, kindly explaining that we'd rather not accept repayment in Zimbabwe dollars. 

Meanwhile borrowing money from the West is an almost guaranteed way of a country staying poor, corrupt and tyrannical. It is no coincidence that the one success story in sub-Saharan Africa, Somaliland, is the one country unable to acquire loans because it is unrecognized by the rest of the world, and so the one country not ruled by a warmongering kleptocracy. 

Ed West is a journalist and social commentator who specializes in politics, religion and low culture. Embarrassingly, he once wrote a book entitled How To Pull Women.
Telegraph.co.uk

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