Tim Walker

Mandrake

Sunshine State Benefits

When the Daily Mail claimed that millionaires were fleeing London as a result of the Starmer Government’s tax increases – including the abolition of the non-dom status that exempted non-UK income from being taxed – no mention was made of the whereabouts of the newspaper’s proprietor, Lord Rothermere.

Mandrake has already disclosed that Rothermere, who himself enjoyed non-dom tax status, has been spending increasing amounts of time in Florida, an American state that is especially lightly taxed, and has followed the example of his star columnist Richard Littlejohn in acquiring a property there. Rothermere’s wife, Claudia, has also been accompanying him to the States, where she is taking an interest in breeding horses in North Carolina.

Rothermere’s lieutenants deny that he regards his Florida property as anything more than another of his holiday homes or that he has any intention of applying for American citizenship, but it has not been lost on others the coincidence of the protracted periods he has been spending on the other side of the Atlantic – Florida requires residency as a prerequisite to citizenship – and the non-dom tax status being abolished in the UK.

Rothermere would no doubt be welcomed as a US citizen – as his fellow press proprietor Rupert Murdoch was – and his online operation, and even his UK-based newspapers, have been broadly supportive of Donald Trump, before and after his re-election. Ted Verity, the Daily Mail’s Editor, is an out-and-proud Trump supporter.