Kevin Cahill (author)

Kevin James Cahill FRSA (born October 1944) is an England-based Irish author and investigative journalist.

Early career

Cahill was educated at Rockwell College, Cashel, County Tipperary, in Ireland, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned in July 1965 and served as a platoon commander in Aden, Bahrain, and Northern Ireland, leaving the army in 1968. He attended the (new) University of Ulster as a mature student from 1972-75. He was Chairman of the Union and left with an honours degree (BA) in English Literature. At university he won (with Michael Hughes) the Irish Times National Debating Championship. Cahill later worked as a systems analyst at Farrington Data, Rank Xerox, Glaxo Ltd, Gulf Oil UK, and Singer & Friedlander merchant bank. He finished his professional career in computers as a project manager at International Computers Limited.^{[citation needed]}

Journalism

In 1979, he became a full-time journalist. Starting with Computer Weekly as International and Finance Editor, then went to Computer News as Deputy Editor. He was associated with various other computer magazines including Nikkei Computer and Asia Computer Monthly. In 1988, he moved to work on the Sunday Times Rich List with Dr Philip Beresford and stayed at the Sunday Times in various capacities, including a major stint on Insight, until 1990. He has written for the New Statesman and Country Life, has appeared on Despatches for Channel 4, and is Bureau Chief at the Global & Western News Bureau in Exeter, Devon.

Politics

Cahill was a part-time Research Assistant to Paddy Ashdown in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He also worked for the Chairman of the Parliamentary All Party Human Rights Committee in the House of Lords. He is now a special advisor to Professor the Lord Laird of Artigarvan in the House of Lords.

He has advised many politicians including:

• Hon Richard Burke former European Commission Vice President
• Gordon Brown on offshore taxation in 1993
• Robin Cook on the Scott Inquiry in 1995.

Writing

He has written several books on differing topics:

• Trade Wars, WH Allen (hardback 1986, paperback 1987) – the book investigated illegal U.S. Government interference in the UK and worldwide high technology industry in the 1980s and was widely reviewed.^{[citation needed]}

The book includes admissions by the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, that what the US was doing was illegal, but that she could not do anything to stop it. The most important historical fact in the book was a note by a British Civil Servant (T. W. Garvey, later Sir T. W. Garvey) in 1954 that the UK had, because of the 'special relationship' "the Loan, the lion's share of Marshall Aid, comparative immunity from forcible federalisation and so on."^{[citation needed]}

Technology and business

• The Principles of Business Systems (1970)
• Trade Wars (1986/87)

Land and property

• Who Owns Britain (2001/2002)
• Who Owns The World (2006, 2nd printing 2007.US edition 2009)

Who Owns the World

In his 2006 book, Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership, Kevin Cahill notes that Queen Elizabeth II is the legal owner of one sixth of the land on the Earth's surface, more than any other individual or nation. This amounts to a total of 6,600 million acres (2.7×10¹³ m²) in 32 countries. For those unfamiliar with royalty, the Crown is never separate from the individual who holds it but is as one with them. Her Majesty the Queen is the Crown while she is Queen, and she loses neither her personality nor her individuality while she is monarch. In all territories owned by the Crown, including Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the governments of those countries do not own the land of the country, but may and frequently do administer it on behalf of its owner, HM Elizabeth II. More significantly all forms of land possession in those territories are based, formally and in law, on the Crown's superior ownership. This is why the Land Registry in places like the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia cannot register land ownership, only tenure. This is also why freehold and leasehold are defined in law as forms of tenure, not ownership.^{[citation needed]}

Cahill also noted that of all the countries in the world that he looked at over a several year period, the only major country in which ownership of land was clearly defined as belonging to the citizens who had paid for it was the United States This is sometimes called 'allodial' ownership but is a changed meaning of that word. Originally 'allodial' meant land that could not be bought or sold or have a debt attached to it. Countries which have a form of direct ownership, even if it is not clear in their respective constitutions, include Germany, Switzerland, France, possibly Spain and in the future, Russia. In the United States the Federal Government owns about one third of the land of the country. But it does so as a landowner on a legal par with any other landowner and without a superior right to any land other than that endorsed on deeds as the property of the Federal Government. As a government the Federal Authorities and other public bodies do possess the right, sometimes called 'eminent domain', to acquire privately owned land for public purposes.^{[citation needed]}

Business Age Magazine, 2001

In the October 2001 Business Age Magazine (p18), Kevin Cahill wrote about the economy of Cornwall. In "The Killing of Cornwall", he notes that HM Treasury in London extracted £1.95 billion in taxes out of Cornwall's GDP of £3.6 billion. The Treasury returned less than £1.65 billion, so there was a net loss to Cornwall of 300 million pounds, where the total earnings figure is 24% below the national average. Cornwall was getting poorer by the day, with Cahill offering this explanation: "One very simple and easily provable answer is because the Government in London is raping Cornwall fiscally. The fiscal deficit of over £300 million all but completely explains the increasing pace of impoverishment in Cornwall." Cahill concludes his Business Age article with the lament that Cornwall will not recover until the gap between the tax take and the exchequer give is at least neutralised and better still, reversed. The magazine ceased publication in 2002, having gone bankrupt for the second time.