Undertaxed and over here: why the UK welcomes US mega firms | Phillip Inman

Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden: whichever administration is pulling the levers, presidents pay lip service to a special relationship with the UK.

Each one makes sure US companies leverage Washington’s power to gain entry, kill off local competition, secure monopoly control and run off with the profits largely tax-free.

And Keir Starmer shows every sign of rushing to Washington should he be elected, even if Trump is in charge – much as Theresa May did in 2017, before a humiliating return visit two years later.

Our data is collected by them as we buy stuff on Amazon or use Google Maps The new book is not an anti-American leftist call to arms of the kind published in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher’s admiration for Ronald Reagan generated tomes about the UK being the 51st state of America.

Hanton, a London-based entrepreneur who co-founded the Intergenerational Foundation charity, documents their rise, but also that of less well-known firms which have acquired the UK’s financial and physical plumbing.

Google’s soon-to-be-opened monster HQ in London’s King’s Cross is emblematic of the way the UK’s red-carpet treatment for investors has profited US companies and offset the threat of an exodus after Brexit.