Owen Tudor

This Wednesday, the annual bankers’ and merchants’ dinner will be held at Mansion House. Before they start quaffing champagne and knocking back the caviar (ok, we’re not certain they’ll be on the menu, but it won’t be pork pies and stout, you can be sure of that!) you can take action to call for an end to the reckless gambling of the finance sector and demand a Robin Hood Tax to control speculation and raise billions every year for good things like spending on education, health and action against climate change here and around the world.

Continue Reading →

Owen Tudor

In the week that the French and German Parliaments discussed financial transaction taxes, the European Parliament voted again to demand their introduction, and European Commission President Barroso expressed his support, a key industry body has at last sent the strongest signal yet that a Robin Hood Tax is increasingly likely … by coming out against it. The Futures Industry Association’s European Principal Traders Association, or FIA Epta, says European proposals for a financial transaction tax are one of its main regulatory focuses.  Until now, the people most likely to pay the tax have tried to ignore it in the hopes that it will go away, but now they know it won’t, and are beginning to mobilise against it. Let battle commence!

Continue Reading →

• It’s now official: The government lied when scrapping EMA
  The Education Select Committee hears from the author of research quoted by the government in support of scrapping EMA. What does he think of their use of his work? “It happened without any discussion with us…”

Continue Reading →

Nigel Stanley

Here is an important new paper that provides a detailed critique of the Hutton Report into public service pensions published by CRESC, the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.

It is thorough – and well-worth some serious study.

Continue Reading →

Philip Pearson

Ignoring a mass appeal from the UK solar industry and its supporters (unions, ngos, consumer groups) the government has decided today to go ahead with changes to the feed-in tariff. Andrew Lee, Head of International Sales at Sharp Solar, accused the government of:

“…stifling job creation in an industry which has the potential to flourish in the UK. A limit of 50 kW is extremely low will affect community projects and small businesses, and hamper growth to the UK economy.”

It’s just the kind of green jobs investment to aid the UK’s recovery that we’re debating with Chhris Huhne at the TUC’s climate change conference on 6 July. Coming just a couple of days after the Green Economy Council discussed the need for clearer focus on green jobs growth, the government’s decision – like that on the Green Investment Bank – means the Treasury’s funding cap trumps all.

Continue Reading →

Philip Pearson

There’s a prevailing sense here at the UN Climate Change talks in Bonn that the warming planet is headed into unknown territory: like a polar bear adrift on a shrinking ice floe.

Renewing the Kyoto Protocol (aka KP2) is becoming the new Plan B. Developing countries are forming a solid bloc here to advance a second round of binding commitments on CO2 reductions. KP1 expires in December 2012. Some KP1 signatories – Japan, Russia, Canada – are refusing to play ball.

Continue Reading →

Owen Tudor

The Irish Times reports that this week at the UN climate change talks in Bonn, the Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon has called for a financial transactions tax to raise money tackle climate change – one of the key demands of the Robin  Hood Tax campaign. It could generate “real funds immediately”, he is reported to have said, to help developing countries protect tropical rain forests and fight global warming.

And CIDSE, the international alliance of Catholic development agencies has issued a major report,  The FTT for people and the planet – financing climate justice which argues that an FTT could pay for the UN climate change deal outright.

Continue Reading →

Owen Tudor

There’s a challenging organisation in the USA called the “Patriotic Millionaires” featured on the AFLCIO blog this week. They’re a bunch of software designers, movie makers, financial gurus and entrepreneurs who either currently earn over $1m a year, or who have done in the past. They want Congress – 44% of whose members are millionaires – to scrap tax breaks for the very wealthy, because “reducing the income tax on top earners is one of the most inefficient ways to grow the economy”. Apart from making you think ”only in America”, this is surely one of the most refreshing messages ever to come from a bunch of rich people. And in dignified contrast to the usual “snouts in the trough” mentality.

Continue Reading →

John Wood

I’ve been playing the Chartered Managment Institute and Institute of Consulting’s new promotional web game (in my lunch break, honest!). It’s a novel way to convince young people that a career in business is for them, especially in one of the noble disciplines of management or consulting.

But if Battle for the Boardroom offers us a peek into the psyche of British managment, I’m a little worried.

Continue Reading →

Richard Exell

The Department of Health has published this year’s survey on Attitudes to Mental Illness. On the whole the news is moderately encouraging. There’s been an improvement in attitudes, with the number of people agreeing that “mental illness is an illness like any other” rising from 71% in 1994 to 77% in 2011.

But this is slow progress, and there are still a significant minority of evil bastards people who have yet to be educated on the issue:

Continue Reading →