CONFIRMATION from the chief minister that Guernsey had, indeed, been made aware in advance that the UK Government intended announcing a review of Britain’s offshore centres will provide some reassurance that Alistair Darling’s Commons statement was not an Edwards mark II act of hostility towards these islands.

So too will the Policy Council’s statement that the purpose of the review is to look at financial supervision and international cooperation by the Crown Dependencies and offshore territories.

After all, these have been looked at before and given a clean bill of health and are due to be re-examined by the IMF in January.

And at that point the ‘benign intent’ theory starts to look rather shaky.

Since these islands have been so comprehensively scrutinised already, what’s the point of another review, especially one that is supposed to complement that by the IMF in the new year?

In addition, it is not clear from what the UK Chancellor said exactly what sort of probe is to be launched here.

After criticising these islands for offering lower taxes and not making a contribution to the UK exchequer, he said, ‘so I have asked for a review of these regulatory arrangements…’.

According to the Policy Council, it will centre on supervision and cooperation but the Treasury press office said that it would look at ‘the long term opportunities and challenges for the UK’s Crown Dependencies and overseas territories as financial centres’.

So while there is not exactly clarity about this – and in any event the terms of reference apparently still have to be drafted – the Chancellor made his attitude towards the Crown Dependencies abundantly clear when he referred to the Isle of Man as a tax haven sitting in the Irish Sea.

He also said that there needed to be a long, hard look at the relationship between the island and Britain (not least because of the Landsbanki affair) and that statement now looks like a statement of intent for the review just announced.

While Guernsey will help negotiate the terms of reference they are, ultimately, just a steer. What is vitally important is the Treasury’s intent in this, something the chief minister will discover later this week.