Britain, when it was Great Britain, had an empire that spanned the world. The sun, for a while, literally never set on the British Empire. You could travel on trains from Cape Town to Cairo and always be on a pink bit in the Atlas.
But the Isle of Man - a funny little rock in the bit between Morecambe and Belfast - remains, enigmatically, part of the Empire but never wholly conquered by it. Given that it would take probably just one of our battleships to turn up at one of its fishing ports and threaten to bomb the hell out of the homosexual-birching, three-legged-flag-waving, wicker-man-burning islanders, and make the Isle of Man as constitutionally different to England as the Isle of Wight or the Isle of Dogs, one wonders why this has never happened. Especially in the context of Parliamentary time being required to discuss how the Finance and Welfare Bills will be enacted on the Island.
Could it be because it's a tax haven?
But the Isle of Man - a funny little rock in the bit between Morecambe and Belfast - remains, enigmatically, part of the Empire but never wholly conquered by it. Given that it would take probably just one of our battleships to turn up at one of its fishing ports and threaten to bomb the hell out of the homosexual-birching, three-legged-flag-waving, wicker-man-burning islanders, and make the Isle of Man as constitutionally different to England as the Isle of Wight or the Isle of Dogs, one wonders why this has never happened. Especially in the context of Parliamentary time being required to discuss how the Finance and Welfare Bills will be enacted on the Island.
Could it be because it's a tax haven?
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