Janet Williamson

The one-off 50% tax on bank bonuses is welcome.  Setting the qualifying level at median earnings underlines the absurdity of the fact that so many working in the City earn so many times more than average earners for doing – well, a variety of things, including contributing to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

However, if the Government wants to bring about a permanent change in the scale of City bonuses it will need to follow up this one-off tax with stronger, longer-term measures.

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Brendan Barber

Today the Chancellor had to maximise the chances of recovery, help the unemployed and make sure that when the time is right to close the deficit those who did most to cause the crash and did best from the boom make their proper contribution through a fair tax system.

On the biggest decision he is right. The Chancellor has ruled out big cuts in the near future. To have cut spending so soon after a serious recession would be gross economic irresponsibility. Instead he has concentrated on helping the unemployed and a welcome boost to investment in the green technologies of the future. This is not just good for jobs, but helps rebalance the economy away from our over-reliance on finance.

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Tim Page

Industrialists have some reason to cheer after today’s publication of the Pre-Budget Report.

The PBR contained an additional £200m for the Strategic Investment Fund, the body set up in this year’s Budget to support the ‘New Industry, New Jobs’ initiative.

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UPDATE 2pm: Thanks to everyone who came to or contributed to the PBR liveblog. The event has finished now, but you can still read the transcript here after the fold. Also check out the blogs partnering in the event throughout the afternoon for post match analysis (ourselves, plus Left Foot Forward, Liberal Conspiracy and LabourList).

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Philip Pearson

Fears that governments were negotiating a political text behind closed doors were confirmed here yesterday with the leaking of a so-called Danish text. It’s made the headlines in all the NGO bulletins here in Copenhagen this morning.

The ITUC’s take on this is that it delegitmises the many years of negotiating through UN processes, excluding many who have sought to make a worthwhile agreement. It lacks long-term commitments, just pledges. The UN looks set to agree to lower level emissions commitments, lower financial flows to help developing countries adjust, and stronger demands for emerging economies such as India and China to do more.

It ignores totally all mention of just transition, decent work, green skills, and crucially, stakeholder involvement for the long haul ahead. If this is adopted, all the progress we thought we had made has gone. There’s one token reference to gender, in the wrong part of the text. No other civil society mentions.

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• New Reform report should be welcomed by progressives
  Nigel has a guest post on Left Foot Forward saying that Reform’s rigorous cuts package explodes the myths that painless spending cuts can close the deficit and that front line services can be insulated from cuts.
• Right-wing think-tank demolishes public spending myth
  The (O)TPA’s Clifford joins the analysis of the new Reform pamphlet.
• How to tax the bankers
  Richard Murphy shares his plan to deal with bank bonuses on Comment Is Free.
• The Cuts Won’t Work
  The second report from the Green New Deal group: Why spending on a Green New Deal will reduce the public debt, cut carbon emissions, increase energy security and reduce fuel poverty.
• Secret Santa generator
  And for some light relief, the TUC’s workSMART website has an online secret Santa tool that automates the process of matching up gift givers and receivers

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Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling gives his 2009 Pre-Budget Report tomorrow (Thursday 9 Dec).

Brendan has set out what we see as the three tasks he needs to pull off in a post here, and tomorrow we’ll be using the blog to analyse the PBR and its implications in more detail.

Join us from 12 noon onwards for a live chat on the PBR, produced in association with leading progressive blogs Left Foot Forward, Liberal Conspiracy and LabourList, and featuring many expert guest commentators.

Then throughout the afternoon, our ToUChstone blog team will be posting up their own post-match analyses, on what the report means for their particular policy briefs.

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Brendan Barber

We think Alistair Darling has three big tasks to pull off in his Pre-Budget Report tomorrow:

First, he must do nothing to endanger economic recovery by taking premature action on the deficit. Unemployment is still rising and the economy remains fragile.

Second, he must do more to help the jobless, particularly action to prevent this generation of school and college leavers being scarred for life.

And third, he must show that those who brought about the crash and did so well out of the boom years will pay the price of putting it right. A windfall tax on bank bonuses should just be the start of building a fair tax system and reforming finance.

We need a finance system that once again serves the rest of the economy, not just itself.

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• Telegraph publish Left Foot Forward’s “red lines” progressive PBR letter
  Adam is one of the signatories to this letter to the Telegraph, warning of the dangers of a ‘double dip’ recession if public spending is cut prematurely.
• The pre-budget report must be credible, defend Keynesianism, and tax ‘bad things’
  Tony Dolphin of IPPR has four tests for the PBR at Progress Online
• ITUC – Trade Unions & Climate Change
  News and documents from the International Trade Union Confederation delegation to Copenhagen.

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Nigel Stanley

There are rumours that the Chancellor is to take further action against higher rate pensions tax relief in the PBR on Wednesday. The commonest version seems to be that those earning more than £100,000 will only get tax relief at the basic rate.

As with any other proposal to raise more tax from top earners, there have already been howls of protest. Indeed if your read the personal finance pages of newspapers like the Telegraph, one would think that all their readers were in this income bracket.

But there is a particularly disingenuous argument doing the rounds against limiting higher rate pensions tax relief. (See here for an earlier post on how tax relief works.) 

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