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50 expert bloggers from around the world get close access to the G20 Summit, to keep even closer tabs on what's happening for the rest of us.
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Congrats to Richard Murphy (A G20Voice blogger), whose Tax Research UK blog reaches a whopping 3,000 posts – but more congrats for the effect his work is having.
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Compass, The Other TaxPayers' Alliance and the Tax Justice Network UK have organised a major rally to call for greater tax justice in the 2009 Budget. Wed 15 April, 6pm, Council Chamber, TUC, Gt Russell St, London WC1B 3LS
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Philip Pearson
While the G20 people marched in London on Saturday for Jobs, Justice and Climate, their voices were missed in Bonn, where governments gathered to talk climate change. The UN tabled a ‘focus document’, laying ground for a new global climate treaty. But, with the citizenry in London, our voice was missing again, in word and deed.
The UN’s vision was of “a global transition to a low-emissions future” that would require sustained investment in technological innovation. “All countries should be part of this transition for it to be effective. Developing countries will need support to enhance their respective capabilities.” Looking ahead, “Profound transformations of production and consumption are bound to have economic and social downsides … including on livelihoods and employment, which need to be addressed domestically and internationally”. However, “economic recovery can be boosted by investment in the low-emission transition.”
A strategy that we would support. Three ‘transitions’ and one ‘transformation’ in a single opening paragraph. But the single idea missing here, again, is that word ‘just’: a voice for a Just Transition.
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International
Thirty-five thousand march through London to herald the birth of a new movement for jobs, justice, climate
Owen Tudor
The Put People First March for Jobs, Justice, Climate has just finished. Police estimates said thirty-five thousand people marched through London calling for a radical break with the failures of the unfettered free market. Faith and women’s groups, trade unions, development and climate campaigners were all mixed together on one of the most colourful demonstrations in years. Not even the forecast sleet (it did rain heavily at one point!) could stop people demonstrating.
Next week, back to lobbying. The world’s trade union movement are in town to see our Prime Minister and others.
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Owen Tudor
A fox woke me this morning at 4:30am, screaming at one of my cats. I hope it’s a good omen for today’s Put People First March for Jobs, Justice, Climate, which sets off from the Victoria Embankment in London at 12 noon (still time to come and join us!) But first, I’m off to see Environment and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband, Gareth Thomas from DFID and Stephen Timms from the Treasury to press them on a green new deal, emergency funding for developing countries and tough new rules on tax havens.
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Owen Tudor
There’s a brilliant short new video on the Unions Together website which sets out three of the key workers’ rights delivered through the European Union, and which David Cameron wants to scrap by withdrawing from the Social Chapter. Parental leave, equal treatment for atypical workers (like agency workers) and annual holidays are the examples picked. Does David Cameron really think it’s popular politics, or even sensible for the economy, to want to scrap these rights? If you’re worried that he will do it anyway, just to satisfy his euro-sceptic wing, sign the Unions Together petition on workers’ rights.
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Good support for a fiscal stimulus from the Work Foundation in a great new report.
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You don't have to agree with all the analysis here to recognise that the questions posed in its conclusion go to the heart of this debate.
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This should be read by every delegate to the G20!
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Brendan Barber
The G20 summit will meet in desperate times. Not since the 1930s has the entire world been gripped by deep recession and never before has it faced a threat such as climate change.
In the UK those who lose their jobs and homes as mass unemployment returns face real hardship. This may well be the worst recession to lose your job in for many years. Our increasingly individualistic society means that there are far fewer informal social support systems. Benefits have been set at scrounger-deterrent levels with no pretence that they provide enough on which to live.
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Adam Lent
I have written before about why progressives should be very, very cautious before they flirt with protectionist sentiment. Two articles in The Financial Times today reinforce the point. The first gives a detailed account of the Chinese Government’s unexpected decision to forbid what would have been the biggest foreign takeover of a Chinese company: Coca-Cola’s $2.4 billion bid for Huiyuan Juice. There is widespread speculation that this was a protectionist measure and fears are growing of a retaliation from the US or possibly Australia where Chinese moves to take over mining companies has caused political disquiet. (UPDATE 28/3/09: The Australian Government yesterday blocked the takeover of Oz Minerals by the Chinese company Minmetals.)
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Adam Lent
To read the papers this morning, you’d think the Government was staring insolvency in the face because yesterday’s auction of gilts was 7% unsubscribed. But suddenly today’s auction was three times over-subscribed killing a jolly good story. There is an awful lot of silliness in the reporting of the public finances at the moment - encapsulated in this 24 hour panic - stoked as usual by the right wing commentariat and the Conservative Party. Indeed the Tories must have thought their moment had come yesterday; how disappointed they must have been as they sat down for elevenses today.
Journalists are also getting a bit over-excited about the delphic comments coming from politicians’ lips. For example, Reuters has concluded today that the Chancellor has endorsed a fiscal stimulus while Bloomberg deduces the opposite from the same comments.
To paraphrase Michael Winner: “Calm down dear, it’s only a Budget”.
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Nigel Stanley
Adam has already blogged on whether Mervyn King is right to oppose a fiscal stimulus. His intervention has certainly had a political impact, and I fear its repercussions will continue to reverberate.
The main argument used by the Conservatives – the Governor’s was naturally a bit more sophisticated – is that spending today loads tomorrow’s tax payers with debt.