is longing for the day her children leave the nest.

Recent press reports out of the UK have cast a critical eye on what remains of Britain's post-Hong Kong empire, concluding that the poorest of her remaining dependent territories cost the British taxpayer some 153 million a year.

Citing statistics from the UK's National Audit Office, Britain's sole Pacific territory, the Pitcairn Islands, leads the list of welfare cases at a cost of 3,700 per resident.

But "wealthy Bermuda'' -- with an annual GDP of $31,000 -- and the British Caymen Islands meanwhile cost the UK purse virturally nothing.

"Of all the territories Bermuda is the most advanced constitutionally and without a doubt the most prosperous,'' Deputy Governor Peter Willis yesterday told The Royal Gazette .

Now Britain's largest territory, Bermuda is entirely self-financing, said Mr.

Willis, and even foots the bill for the Queen's representative -- Governor Thorold Masefield -- and his offices and residence; the Foreign Office does incur some expenses on the Island but those are "negligible'', he said.

British opinion towards its less well off "colonies'' meanwhile ranges from "prejudicial to parsimonious,'' says a recent report in the Guardian Weekly.

"The attitude at the moment is that they are a nuisance left over from the colonial period. We will drip-feed them enough aid to keep them ticking over, but there is no coherent strategy to help them develop,'' the Guardian quotes the British representative of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bill Samuel.

"The attitude of Her Majesty's Government is `Oh God, not the Turks and Caicos again. Send them another million and keep them happy'.'' The National Audit Office cites financial sector failures, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering, migrant pressures, and natural disasters as the main reason territories such as Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, or the British Indian Ocean Territory still require aid from Whitehall.

THE LAST RED DOTS -- Including 1.7 million square kilometres of Antarctica, Britain's 13 remaining territories are scattered around the globe.

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