[elemenopy]

Per the Guardian[1]:

> Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets.

I expect we'll hear more about this in coming days and weeks.

I don't really understand this line of thinking. Big leak + "fancy website graphics" = vast Western conspiracy? Sounds less like insightful analysis and more like the kind of denial I'd expect from RT.

1. http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-paper...

[TheOtherHobbes]

The reason I'm thinking "vast Western conspiracy" is that you would think, as a common sense point, that when something like this appears Western journalists would be more interested in Western politicians first.

But apparently not. I find that strange.

I also find it strange that more people don't find it strange - because it's always been obvious to me that Putin is a completely generic oligarch crook, and I really don't understand why anyone would be surprised that he acts like one.

But here's an interesting fact - public opinion management has a long history in the West, just as it does in all other big states. It's been tracked by journalists and academics, discussed in Senate committees, and explored in books. It's a long way from being either hostile state propaganda or weirdo conspiracy nonsense.

I'm quite prepared to believe that a lot of HN readers haven't taken the time to familiarise themselves with that history, but that doesn't change the historical record.

And if absolutely no US pols are implicated in this leak, I'll continue to find that curious and strange, no matter how many downvotes I get here.

As for UK pols - we'll see exactly what that means in practice. Most people here know that Cameron's father made his money as a tax consultant to the privileged, and that our beloved Chancellor's family business never pays tax.

It would certainly be interesting, timely, and welcome if other members of the government were outed as avoiding significant sums. But until more facts appear, it's too early to tell how this will play out.

[lazaroclapp]

> And if absolutely no US pols are implicated in this leak, I'll continue to find that curious and strange, no matter how many downvotes I get here.

Agreed. But I do fully expect to see those revealed as soon as the journalists have made sure that their case against them is watertight. Meanwhile, I'll be taking a look at the Mexican ones myself. Since there is still a difference between knowing that most of our politicians and corporate owners are corrupt in the abstract and knowing the details. In fact, I'll check that even if this turns out to be an actual geopolitical conspiracy, so long as the data is truthful (even if partial).

[moosey]

I would surmise that they are holding off on Western Pols because they want to keep eyes as long as possible on this. For these organizations, eyeballs are money.

If they released a huge set of people on day one and didn't have much to show on day two, this would fall off the news cycle really quickly. I think that with the US political climate, they'll focus there soon, but they want a lot of people paying attention first.

This is just a guess, but it seems logical. We've seen this kind of slow-drip journalism with big data dumps in the past.