Here is one sizeable, unbudgeted gap in Britain’s public finances: a potential £1billion loss between now and the next general election.

It is only one of a growing number of such gaps, which together are beginning to resemble a sieve. This particular hole has a name: Chris Rokos.

The 55-year-old hedge fund manager has chosen to leave the UK before the Government unveils any further measures that could increase the tax taken from his wealth.

Some on the tribal Left may respond with cries of “good riddance” and offer Andy Burnham a thumbs-up.

But anyone armed with basic arithmetic will recognise the scale of the problem. This is seriously bad news for the public finances.

Until now, Mr Rokos has regularly featured near the top of the list of Britain’s biggest taxpayers, reportedly paying the Treasury an annual sum of around £330million.

Over the course of this five-year Parliament, that could have amounted to nearly £2billion — enough to fund six Royal Navy frigates, 20 RAF F-35 jets, or the yearly salaries of at least 40,000 nurses. Instead, he has quietly moved to a country that, in his view, does not take him or his fortune for granted.

Indeed, as I discovered this week, his new host country is delighted to welcome this particular economic migrant.

Britain has not just lost Mr Rokos’s whopping contribution to the Treasury coffers. Up to now, he has been a very remarkable philanthropist, funding many scholarships at his alma mater, Oxford University, and handing £190million to its arch rival, Cambridge. 

There is a vital Chris Rokos Fellowship at the London Institute of Cancer Research and similarly important orthopaedic research going on thanks to him at Imperial College, London. Nor is he a transient non-dom, simply shifting from one international jurisdiction to another. He is home-grown.

The former state school whizz-kid from Hammersmith, West London, has also paid millions into a scholarship fund so that, every year, four boys from modest backgrounds, can, as he himself did, enjoy a fully-funded free education at Eton.

At the same time, he has rescued one of the West country’s finest homes from ruin and decay. At the last count, hundreds of local jobs were dependent on restoration work at Tottenham House in Wiltshire.

It is understood Mr Rokos will still complete the project. But what next? Will he continue to pump money into a country which is no longer home? The media-shy father-of-five is not saying.

However, well-placed sources have confirmed that his departure is not some cunning exercise in acrobatic accountancy. Mr Rokos is moving his whole life and his business, too. That means that we will lose a whole cluster of higher-rate taxpayers. This month’s news was swiftly followed by the disclosure that the UK-based senior portfolio manager of global hedge fund giant Millennium and his team will be following suit.

What should (but won’t) give Chancellor John Healey even more food for thought is their destination: Greece. Just ten years ago, Mr Rokos’s new home was an economic basket case run by a bunch of Left-wing loonies lauded by the British Left.

Now, after taking a scythe to a bloated, corrupt public sector, Greece is surging ahead economically. Instead of just talking vaguely about ‘growth’ over pints and pork scratchings, as the Burnham administration prefers, the Greeks are continuing to deliver the real thing.

Last year, the centre-right New Democracy government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis grew the economy by 2.1 per cent (we managed 1.3). While we rack up ever greater national debt, the Greeks are overpaying on the debt schedule to bring theirs down.

It is money owed from the days when the country was haemorrhaging cash through years of socialist incompetence, not least a farcical benefits system (full-salary state pensions for hundreds of jobs ranging from train drivers to hairdressers, with a retirement age of 53).

Greece avoided bankruptcy, if not anarchy, only thanks to vast loans from the EU – in return for draconian cost-cutting.

Fast forward a decade and the country has undergone a Thatcherite process of national rejuvenation while it is Britain which is being dragged down by a benefits behemoth. And that problem is only going to get worse as other wealthy Brits look at ‘doing a Rokos’.

As every day brings word of another Labour tax on wealth, while our £350billion welfare budget goes undisturbed, so more of ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ (as the Left like to call the rich) may think about slinging their bags over those shoulders and looking elsewhere. Greece is now a prime candidate.

As of June, the Greeks have revised an extensive new system of residency arrangements and tax incentives (known as Law 5313) which have propelled Greece to the top of the preferred destinations for expat Brits.

Sir Keir Starmer’s 2024 election win had already triggered a dash for the exit among the super-rich, with four main options: the United Arab Emirates (including Dubai) and Italy, plus those tax-averse stalwarts, Switzerland and Monaco.

Since then, regional war has made the UAE significantly less appealing while Italy has tightened up some of its thresholds. According to the relocation experts Henley & Partners, Greece is now at number one on its list of 2026 global residency destinations. 

UK boss Stuart Wakeling explains to me that every would-be expat has a unique set of requirements, though most are not merely individual but family applications.

And those wanting sea, space, sun plus good schools and good connections with their former homeland are now increasingly plumping for Greece.

A five-year renewable ‘golden visa’ scheme offers residency in exchange for buying a home for more than €250,000. Further up the scale, there is the option of an annual flat tax fee of €100,000 for all global – i.e. non-Greece sourced – income (for up to 15 years). Though you are still liable for Greek income tax on purely Greece-sourced income (plus a 50 per cent discount for the self-employed), the tax on all dividends and bank bonuses is just 5 per cent.

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There is also a deal for UK pensioners, who can stay for up to 15 years and just pay a flat tax rate of seven per cent on all income. Even what we might call the ‘entry-level’ wealthy are doing their sums. For someone earning upwards of £250,000, already clobbered on their second home and facing a mansion tax on the main home, then a diet of olive, feta and calamari starts to appeal.

‘Let’s be realistic. We are not about to see the entire hedge fund community move from London,’ says Thanassis Drogossis of Pantelakis Securities, a leading Athens stockbroker. ‘But Chris Rokos has stirred a lot of interest and it is a signal that there are great opportunities.’

He points to a conference of institutional investors earlier this month here in Athens. Many were traders from London. ‘They were cheering what Chris Rokos has done and talking about doing the same.’

Mr Drogossis explains Greece has undergone a remarkable recovery in the past seven years, to the point where the country’s stock market has seen a ten-fold rise in daily trading. 

Previously stagnating banks now have billions to invest. The national economic crisis – which followed the global banking crisis of 2009 – has seen a wholesale change in Greek attitudes. People no longer expect the state to provide everything, nor does it offer comfy non-jobs for life.

Vassilis Karatzas, senior adviser to finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis – who was in direct contact with the Rokos team prior to his move here – emphasises that this is not about wooing gazillionaires for show.

‘It’s about jobs. We want to create high-level jobs. We want the well-schooled graduate of the Athens School of Economics to stay and work in Greece. These new investors will want to employ local talent and that talent is being under-utilised,’ he says.

The other priority, he adds, is reassuring would-be investors that Greece is not going to return to its old ways. ‘We have a sound macro-economic regime with a clear path. It’s about ability and predictability.’

I well remember reporting from Athens in the dark days of the recent past – the furious protests descending into riots; the graffiti; the filthy streets and restaurant owners desperate for cash rather than risk money in a bank which might go under at any minute.

It’s a very different Greece which I encounter when I go in search of the sort of life Mr Rokos and fellow expats will now enjoy.

Take the vast Flisvos Marina on the southern end of the Athenian riviera. Ten years ago, most of these quaysides were empty, many foreign yacht-owners having moved their vessels to other jurisdictions.

Today, it is absolutely packed with some of the grandest superyachts I have ever seen. There are 300 in total, with a combined value of £2.5billion. What’s more, there is a waiting list of 60 owners wanting to berth a yacht here (average price; £1,000-a-night, not including electricity – which can top £15,000 a month if all the lights and air conditioning are running).

There is no shortage of people, either, wanting to spend £50million on buying one of these things, or anywhere between £300,000 and £1million a week chartering one for a holiday plus the mandatory 15 per cent tip for the crew.

‘Many of our clients are British and, in the last couple of years, that number has gone up from 20 to 30 per cent,’ says Dimitris Angelakos who has just placed a £250million order for three new yachts, each of them well over 200ft in length.

He and his brothers are the fifth generation of a prominent Greek shipping family. Until five years ago, they focused entirely on merchant shipping, but now Mr Angelakos, 43, has started two new companies, Angel Yachts and Angel Development, devoted to superyachts and real estate.

‘Greece is rebranding itself. Our people have evolved,’ he explains over gourmet sushi at the Matsuhisa restaurant, looking down on half a dozen superyachts out at anchor in the bay at Vouliagmeni.

‘The levels of service and efficiency you used to see in the UK and Germany and the US – well now people are finding that here. We call it ‘philoxenia’, friendship towards foreigners. The difference here is that they can jump on a yacht and be within one hour of 20 islands and two hours of 40.’ With us at dinner is his real estate consultant, Christoforos Christofidis of CCRE, a leading Athens estate agency, which has seen a surge in interest from British wealth creators.

One prime destination is the new Ellinikon development, a £9billion Dubai-style waterside mix of villas and apartments rapidly taking shape on the site of the former Athens airport.

It includes the tallest building in Greece, the 48-floor Riviera Tower. Mr Angelakos has already bought the penthouse apartment – ‘it has to belong to a Greek,’ he laughs.

Many of those Brits who are ‘doing a Rokos’ are looking at the various options in what is being marketed as an entire new city. Ellinikon will have 10,000 separate residential units, ranging from £500,000 to £70 million in price.

Mr Christofidis points out that others are looking to quiet, discreet northern suburbs of Athens like Ekali, to be close to the top schools, including St Catherine’s. Otherwise known as ‘the British school’, it has now expanded to accommodate 1,300 pupils.

I drop in at the ultra-chic Ekali Club, with its huge pool and tennis courts. Another attraction up here, among the trees and low-lying villas, is that the temperature is on average four degrees lower than in the city centre.

CCRE’s Stelios Kallioras shows me round a typical Ekali residence, a sprawling, angular modern villa with indoor and outdoor pool, gym, cinema, office wing, double-height library and staff quarters. Currently rented out at £15,000 a month, it is on the market for £7million.

The one downside, it must be said, is the traffic. Getting around Athens is dreadful. From this leafy suburb to the city centre or the mighty Acropolis is only ten miles, but it is an hour’s drive at rush hour.

Other factors which account for the rise in British interest are relatively simple paperwork and what Henley & Partners call ‘residence optionality’. Greece has a strong second home culture (most ordinary Athenian families have their place in town and a family-owned place on an island). Henley’s southern Europe expert, Marios Rafail, explains that expats like to do the same.

I talk to John (not his real name), an investment banker and Henley client who left London for Singapore some years ago. He wants to return to Europe because his university-age children are based there. Having ruled out tax-grab Britain, he has looked at other options, including Spain, Portugal and Italy.

‘Greece was so much easier. It took a few meetings and within two months, I have already sorted out residency,’ he tells me. ‘We haven’t moved yet – and haven’t even decided what sort of property to buy or where. 

‘We’ll rent for a bit and check out a few islands and a few places in Athens. But there is no rush. The main thing is we have done it.’ 

Now that Mr Rokos has done it too, Labour needs to acknowledge a simple truth: there will be no ‘growth’ if you won’t curb your spending – and if your growers, like Homer’s hero, have already left on an odyssey of their own. 

Carrot Top was hospitalized in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an incident that TMZ described as a suicide attempt.

The 61-year-old comedian, whose real name is Scott Christopher Thompson, reportedly attempted to take his own life on Friday, only hours before he was due to perform at the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Sources told TMZ the incident occurred in the Las Vegas area and that Thompson was taken to a nearby hospital. His planned comedy show was later called off.

Jami Schlicher, a representative for Thompson, did not verify the reported circumstances behind his hospitalization, saying only that the entertainer is receiving “the care and support he needs.”

“Mr. Thompson is recovering in the hospital and is receiving the care and support he needs. His family and those closest to him are deeply grateful for the concern, prayers and respectfully ask for privacy,” Schlicher told TMZ.

The Daily Mail has contacted Thompson’s representatives for additional comment as the situation continues to develop.

Thompson’s most recent social media update came Thursday, when he promoted his scheduled Friday night appearance.

He shared a 2018 image of himself beside an orange utility terrain vehicle, writing: “Just your average Thursday commute to the Luxor. TBT.”

Amid news of his hospitalization, fans took to the comments of the post to send their well wishes.

‘You’re loved more than you know. You’re special & the world is more beautiful with you in it. Sending love & hope your way,’ one person wrote.

Another said, ‘Scott we love you dude. Praying for you. ❤️’

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Someone else added, ‘Just heard sad news. Hope you’re gonna be OK dude. Saw you last December and plan on bringing another friend next trip to LV to see you again. You are hella adored and hope you really know that. Truth.’ 

Thompson, known for his high-energy prop routines, rose to prominence in the 90s. 

Nearly on year ago, in November 2025, he sparked concern from fans when he was spotted looking disheveled while at a LasVegas grocery store.

An insider later commented to the Daily Mail, ‘He didn’t ever think he was going to be photographed shopping, so he let his guard down – [he was] not in any makeup or anything.’ 

In a 2022 interview with Metal Life Magazine, Thompson spoke about his clean lifestyle. 

He insisted, ‘I’m completely sober. I don’t smoke marijuana and I never have. I don’t think I have been drunk since high school, literally.

‘I have friends like Gene Simmons, he’s never had a drop of booze – zero. I’m not that pure. I definitely have a little Crown on the rocks right before a show.’ 

After a show, he said he comes home, watches TV and has a ‘glass of red wine.’ 

‘I’m definitely not the drug guy. I’m actually more of a nerd than anything else,’ he told the outlet. 

A wealthy San Francisco neighborhood was gripped by alarm Friday after a mountain lion was seen prowling residential streets, triggering an hours-long response as frightened residents stayed locked inside their homes.

Wildlife officials and animal control teams were dispatched to the city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood after the big cat was spotted near Ulloa Street and 44th Avenue, only blocks from the Pacific coast.

‘It was kind of crazy, we heard the police come out, they had all the bullhorns telling everybody, “You need to disperse, get back in your homes,”‘ resident Shane Jordan told KGO News.

‘Within a few minutes we learned that it was a mountain lion running around the neighborhood and so obviously there was a lot of concern,’ he added.

Footage from the scene showed the mountain lion racing across front yards and slipping beneath windows. In another image, the animal appeared to crouch beneath a bush with its ears alert, seemingly keeping watch.

Mark Mahoney and Grace Erickson said a burst of distressed bird calls prompted them to look outside. From their window, they watched the wild cat dash across their driveway.

‘It’s really exciting to see it so close,’ Mahoney told The San Francisco Standard. ‘They’re just stunning creatures.’

Another video captured the mountain lion sprinting along the center of a street between vehicles belonging to responding crews. The animal avoided capture, with one official briefly giving chase.

The hunt took another turn when crews moved in to tranquilize the cat, only for it to bolt yet again. Residents and media were forced back as the animal paused at a corner before vanishing into thick bushes.

But roughly four hours after it was first spotted, officials finally managed to tranquilize and capture the cat in the heart of the ritzy neighborhood, bringing the tense chase to an end. 

The mountain lion was later identified as a young male, believed to be between two and three years old and weighing around 78 pounds, Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Peter Tira told SFGate.

‘This was never a public safety concern or public safety threat of any kind,’ he told the outlet. ‘This was simply a wayward young lion who got stuck in the Outer Sunset.’

He said the young male was a dispersing lion who had recently left his mother in search of territory, likely straying into the urban area before finding himself trapped with no clear way back to open habitat. 

‘It’s always a challenge, particularly for a young mountain lion, a male mountain lion especially,’ Tira explained.

‘They’re out on their own for the first time and they kind of have to find their way in the world.’

The first sighting was reported around 7.30am, triggering an emergency alert from the city urging residents to stay away and warning them not to run if they suddenly came face-to-face with the mountain lion.

Anyone who encountered the cat was told to slowly back away, keep dogs on leashes and scoop up their children.

If the wild cat continued advancing, officials said residents should stand their ground and make themselves appear as large as possible by waving their arms, shouting and throwing objects at it.

But the most important warning was simple: do not run. One sudden movement could trigger the mountain lion’s chase response.

Just after 9am, two animal control vans arrived with a tranquilizer gun after the mountain lion was spotted hiding beneath Mahoney and Erickson’s home, according to The San Francisco Standard. 

But the animal managed to evade capture, darting into nearby bushes before crews could get to it. 

Just before 10.30am, city and state agencies finally tracked down the elusive beast, with Animal Care and Control, San Francisco Police and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife joining the search. 

‘We want everybody to be aware, especially out in that neighborhood,’ Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a video statement at the time. ‘We have eyes on this mountain lion, so just avoid the area, and we will keep you posted.’

Photos taken after the successful capture showed the tranquilized big cat lying motionless on a stretcher as gloved crews gathered around it to carry out a brief health assessment.

Tira told SFGate that male mountain lions can claim territories of roughly 50 square miles, with established males typically unwilling to tolerate another male encroaching on their territory. 

‘It’s a real challenge for a young male mountain lion to find a place to live on its own where there’s not already a dominant male,’ he said. 

Tira said young lions occasionally enter the city from the San Mateo Peninsula, where an established mountain lion population lives, wandering for a home of their own.

Researchers with the Santa Cruz Puma Project fitted the big cat with a satellite GPS tracking collar at the scene, with Tira revealing that he will now become part of the department’s scientific study, according to SFGate. 

‘The plan, as what usually happens in these things, is to return that mountain lion to its wild habitat,’ he told the outlet. ‘It will become part of the Puma Project’s research efforts as they track its movements and behavior and patterns in the wild.’

The project, run in collaboration with UC Santa Cruz, studies mountain lion movements and behavior across the greater Santa Cruz Mountains region. 

He has since been released back into the wild in the Santa Cruz Mountains, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.