Cadbury's Nationalists are far too late

There's a lot of whinging round here about evil multinational Kraft foods taking over cuddly British Cadbury's.

The arguments are threefold: firstly that British companies should stay British, secondly that Kraft will sack lots of people, and thirdly that Cadbury's is a uniquely ethical company that cares for its employees and community more than Kraft or most companies.

Kraft will sack lots of people. That's undeniable and reprehensible. Though I don't hear any whinging at all when British companies do the same to foreign ones.

Cadbury was an ethical, if paternalistic employer, part of the wave of Quaker industrialists of the Victorian period. That stopped a long time ago. The independent Cadbury Foundation does all that stuff now, and won't stop. So no worries there.

Finally, and most importantly, companies don't have nationalities. They have shareholders, who can be from anywhere, and don't give a flying one about anything other than profit. They also have directors and managers, and they don't care about flags either.

In the case of Cadbury, you're a particular fool if you think that it's in any way a 'British' company. If it was, it would pay a substantial amount of tax to the British government. That's how you commit to your community. Cadbury's hasn't done so for many years. It's a tax evader, and a particularly brazen one, having taken the UK government to court in their quest to become Irish.

Yes, you heard me. Cadbury's is an Irish company, amongst other locations: it pays virtually no tax in this country by making it look like it doesn't make any profits here, while making loads in tiny, low-tax Ireland (which is currently reaping the rewards of this shortsighted policy: no tax = bankruptcy).

Meanwhile, you may be surprised to learn that U2 is a Dutch band. Despite being massively wealthy and spending their time telling everyone to behave ethically, they've decided that getting a few more quid in their pockets is far more important than paying their bit to the state that nurtured them, and they've fecked off to Holland in pursuit of lower taxes.

This, my little friends, is why I'm a socialist, and why I see international finance as they enemy. They've dissolved nation states for corporate and mega-rich entities, leaving us to pay for all the things they need. Cadbury's needs literate, educated workers, it needs roads and food safety legislation and all the other things to function: it just doesn't want to pay for them. It wants us to pay for them, because we can't shop around for a lower tax regime.

Cadbury's makes me sick, and it's not just the chocolate.