As Governor Stuart Jack himself acknowledges in his most recent blog posting, many people in the Cayman Islands, including some of the most influential individuals in government and the private sector, appear to subscribe to the view that Britain has some sort of malevolent hidden agenda in its dealings with its offshore territory financial centres so, it is usually alleged, it may protect the pre-eminent position of the City of London of Mother England in financial affairs.

In our view, such accusations are sheer poppycock -- misguided and serve only to obscure the real economic problems we are currently facing.

Much of the finger pointing by other countries, blaming the Cayman Islands and other so called tax havens for the world’s economic ills, has been dismissed by our own politicians as mere political rhetoric. This may be so, but for the same length of time this newspaper has been warning that it should not be ignored, for the simple reasons that, not only will politicians everywhere seek someone else to blame for their own failings, they must also be seen to be taking remedial steps and, in this respect, the Cayman Islands especially has always been an easy target.

As we have remarked before, our own politicians of all people should have understood this and taken steps years ago to pre-empt the predictable results.

However, even while now engaging in the same process of blaming someone else for their own failings – in this case the ‘evil’ British Empire – officials from successive governments continue to miss the point.

Yes, Britain will always act in its own best interest rather than that of any other country – even its own territories – but that interest in this particular situation is more likely to be its own financial liability and exposure should any of its overseas territories fail economically and need to be bailed out by the mother country.

Such an event is quite possibly the worst nightmare of the British government – to be forced to use British taxpayers’ money to rescue an overseas territory that has for years profited by facilitating the rich to avoid contributing to the UK Exchequer.

Thus, Britain’s current, albeit belated, insistence that the Cayman Islands must put its financial house in order on a far more sustainable footing is not only understandable but should be welcomed by one and all here rather than projected as the scapegoat for our own government’s failings in the past, which are even now being compounded by its continuing failure to address the real issues.

We, along with other commentators, have said on many occasions that the world is changing and the public and private sectors in the Cayman Islands need to recognise this if we are to move forward economically.

The Governor, Mr Stuart Jack has also previously echoed these sentiments and did so again last week: “For Cayman to remain both prosperous and a pleasant place to live it needs to adapt to changing circumstances… Change is often painful but necessary.”

Regrettably, there seems to be considerable resistance to the notion that our core industries must adapt in order to survive, and to justify and camouflage this unwillingness to act responsibly someone else must be found – in this case Britain – to blame for the situation.

As things currently stand, therefore, not only have successive Cayman governments ignored the many warning signs in the past, those responsible are continuing to overlook for whatever reason what urgently needs to be addressed in order to start getting things on the right track.

As Mr Jack says, “It is for a country’s elected leaders to point the way and take difficult decisions based on careful consideration of the policy options and a long term vision.”

Regrettably, no one seems to want to take the “difficult decisions”, presumably for political reasons and no doubt out of fear of upsetting many of the high net worth people who have already made their fortunes through the Cayman System; if there has been “careful consideration of the policy options”, this has not been apparent in the disappointing inaction to date; and there is apparently precious little “long term vision”, with everyone involved seemingly insistent on clinging to an obsolete and unsustainable past.

A good starting point for moving ahead along the lines outlined by Mr Jack would be to stop blaming Britain for the problems we are currently facing and instead come up with some concrete action based upon a long-term plan for our national development and progress.