The Sherwood Echo: 9th July

Remember the dismissal of the Robin Hood tax as a ‘fairytale’? We do – those days are long gone.  As the disappointment and failure from UK Budget and G20 summit the hits home the Robin Hood Tax continues to gather support from powerful places.

IMF tells Osborne – Triple your bank tax

In a recommendation to the European Commission The International Monetary Fund is pressing for Britain’s banks to pay an annual levy of up to £6bn, to protect against the impact of future crises and curb the more reckless behaviour of the industry, three times the more than George Osborne’s plan for a £2bn bailout tax on the sector.  But a spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign said that while the IMF report increased the amount banks should pay, it still let them “get away scot free”.  ”The IMF is saying their excess profits and bonuses should be taxed, to help pay for the human cost of the crisis they created,” he said. “George Osborne should ramp up his bank tax to £20bn annually and use this to fight poverty at home and abroad, and tackle climate change. This would be the most popular tax rise in history.”

Great things come from small beginnings.

The Economist: “George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, is no Robin Hood.”

In a great success for the campaign we now have The Economist reporting our research. The article discusses the broad consensus that the banks got off lightly in the budget in which the new Government missed an opportunity to prove its commitment to ‘fairness’.  It further discusses our financial transactions tax  which could potentially raise enormous amounts of revenue and put a brake on high-frequency, high-volume trading, as “lurking in the wings”. And acknowledges that a tax on transactions would be easier to collect than one extracted from individual institutions.

Naomi Klein at G20: Use Robin Hood Tax to Pay Climate Debts

The start of a global movement leading up to COP16 (Cancun, Mexico) was launched in Toronto as part of the Shout Out for Global Justice event just blocks from the G20 Summit. Naomi Klein speaking of the dishonesty and disppointment of the Copehagen agreement sent a clear message to world leaders: “Impose the financial transaction tax and earmark the revenue for social spending and climate change here and in the developing countries”. Exciting times.

Posted in: The Sherwood Echo, Top stories