Virtue and reward
VIRGIN may derive its name from some sentimental memory deep in Sir Richard Branson's past, but I have always supposed that his group was named after the group of Caribbean islands best known as a tax haven. This cannot have endeared him to the Inland Revenue and may even have delayed his knighthood. Transparency has never been this Virgin's cardinal virtue. Now the National Lottery Commissioners, whose preferred bidder he is — they seem to have started with the answer and worked back- wards to the question — have given him time to show the financial backing that the lottery would need, and he talks of putting £50 million on the table. I look forward to Virgin's striptease, though experience sug- gests that the tease is better than the strip.
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