This month’s edition of The Oldie (my Grandfather gets it) asks what “a remittance man” was. Nothing to do with the current tax activities of our non-doms but according to the shorter OED “an emigrant who is supported or assisted by remittances from home”.

The Oldie picks up the story of Edward Blake a Victorian dropout whose clerical father also had seven daughters to find dowries for. Edward is shipped off to Australia and is told to appear at the offices of a solicitor every quarter to pick up a modest allowance from pa. “Remittance men could be found in all corners of Empire far enough away to make a return to the bosom of their no-longer loving family all but impossible”.

The 2010 non-dom remittance men are now in all corners of the UK ensuring the payments out of their global coffers are as low as possible. Apparently the Victorian practice disappeared with the youth of World War One. I’m sure nothing drastic is being planned in the 2010 budget for the non-doms in general or Lord Ashcroft in particular.