Forget the billions wiped off the net worth of the world’s wealthiest citizens or the $40 trillion (€29.7 trillion) that UBS estimates has disappeared from the global bank balance in the past year: there will always be wealthy people in search of somewhere exclusive and expensive to spend their time, and if taxes are low, so much the better.

This is the argument of Roger Myers, an entrepreneur and former accountant to rock group the Rolling Stones, who has poured a big chunk of his fortune into a project to turn the Caribbean tax haven of St Lucia into a holiday destination for the ultra wealthy.