Tag Archives: CTL

Your chance to ask a Prime Minister's Question

Posted on 7 April 2010 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that he will be answering questions from the public today in a ‘people’s Prime Minister’s Questions’. This is your chance to ask a question directly to the man currently running the country and seeking election for another term.

You can submit a question at the Labour Party website: http://www2.labour.org.uk/peoples-pmqs Gordon Brown will be answering questions at 5pm today so submit your question now!

You probably have a million things you’d like to ask Gordon Brown, but it terms of advancing the poverty agenda this is an ideal opportunity to continue to push the current government to wholeheartedly support financial transaction taxes. The ‘Robin Hood Tax’ proposal could raise up to $400 billion per year of additional funds to redress some of the harmful effects of the financial crisis and get the world back on track to reach the Millennium Development Goals, meet our commitments to climate change financing, and as well making a major impact fighting poverty here in the UK.

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Posted in Consultations, Development Finance

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Robin Hood Tax and Currency Transaction Levy – the differences explained

Posted on 1 April 2010 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Since December RESULTS has been campaigning for the UK government to implement ‘financial transaction taxes’ – tiny taxes onCurrency transactions between banks that could help to pay for global public goods like health and education. There are a couple of different proposals for financial transaction taxes, including ‘currency transaction levies’, ‘Tobin taxes’ and the ‘Robin Hood Tax’.

From feedback that we have received from our grassroots network we know that there is some confusion – among MPs, in the media and for ordinary people – about exactly what each of the proposals is and what the differences are. The post below gives an overview of the main proposals and sets out exactly how they differ. We hope that it will be useful! Continue reading →

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Posted in Development Finance, Training and Support

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100,000 Merry Faces!

Posted on 19 February 2010 by admin| Leave a comment

FacebookA quick one: the Robin Hood Tax campaign has just reached 100,000 fans on Facebook! If you’re currently on Facebook and aren’t a fan, you can become one here.

While you’re logged in, you can also become a fan of RESULTS here – We’d be very happy to have you!

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Posted in Development Finance

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More Robin Hoodwinks

Posted on 18 February 2010 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Kenyan Robin HoodThe campaign for a Robin Hood Tax continues to grow. If you haven’t been following along on robinhoodtax.org.uk, then you may have missed that 350 Economists have called for a Financial Transaction Tax. There are also lots of ideas there for fun local actions you may want to take.

It’s also heartening to see that Robin Hood is not just being backed by those of us who work in International Development: organisations such as NCVO have also joined the coalition, and are calling for even more to join too.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it would be great to sign and publicise Avaaz’s petition for the Robin Hood Tax. Once it hits 100,000 names, it’s off to the UK Party leaders – so get to sharing the link! http://www.avaaz.org/en/robin_hood/

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Posted in Development Finance

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Robin Hood – He's All Over the Media

Posted on 10 February 2010 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Today’s launch of the The World's Greatest Bank JobRobin Hood Tax campaign has caused quite a stir in the media.

The Telegraph had a teaser for the video on the front page, leading to an opinion piece by Bill Nighy, who plays the banker being grilled about the Robin Hood Tax.

In the same company as Bill, Hannah French from the Edinburgh group has an opinion piece in the Scotsman! Sadly, you can’t read the article online as you need to be a subscriber, but we’ve got our hands on a copy you can download and read it for yourself here.

The Guardian has done a great job of covering it too, with an article and a letter from members of the coalition, of which RESULTS UK is a signatory.

Everyone seems to have gotten quite excited! The Mirror has covered it as a “Top News” item here, and Sky News Online posted an article up, here. The Independent has a good article here.

This really is a perfect opportunity to write to any and all of these newspapers and media outlets to show your support for the Robin Hood Tax. If you would like to refresh your memory by taking a look at the background materials RESULTS has already prepared on the issue of financial transaction taxes, you can get them from our website. Alternately, the main Robin Hood Tax website also has some information. Good luck!

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Posted in Development Finance, Grassroots Network, News

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Robin Hood Tax campaign officially launched

Posted on 10 February 2010 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

The Robin Hood Tax

RESULTS UK is pleased to announce the launch of the Robin Hood Tax campaign here in the UK.

If you’ve been following RESULTS for a while, you’ll see that this is the culmination of a lot of work we have done previously on a Currency Transaction Levy and on a broader Financial Transaction Tax. We’ve been working with an unprecedented coalition of domestic charities, aid agencies, unions, faith organisations and green groups – more than 50 in all and set to rise now the campaign is public.

The main website for the campaign is at robinhoodtax.org.uk. We would highly recommend everyone go visit the site, and watch the Bill Nighy video. Nobody does “uncomfortable squirming” quite like Bill. Continue reading →

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Posted in Development Finance

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Lord Turner says the UK should be 'open' to financial transaction taxes

Posted on 6 January 2010 by RESULTS UK| 1 Comment

On the 2nd January the Today Programme featured an interview with Lord Turner about financial regulation in the UK, during which he argued that we should be open to the idea of implementing a broad global financial transaction tax. Lord Turner is the Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, which is the independent body that regulates the UK financial services industry. He is a right-wing financier by background, so this is a big step toward getting agreement on implementing such a tax.

Lord Turner made his comments in an interview with Baroness Shirley Williams, former Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and a long-term supporter of calls to implement a currency transaction levy to raise funds for international development. You can listen to the interview at the BBC’s website - it begins at 7:35am.

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Posted in Development Finance, News

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Today programme to investigate taxes on currency trading

Posted on 22 December 2009 by RESULTS UK| 1 Comment

From 7-9am on Saturday 2nd January Radio 4′s Today programme is handing the editorial reins to Baroness Shirley Williams, who will be investigating the pros and cons of a ‘Tobin Tax’ on international currency transactions.

Baroness Shirley WilliamsCurrency transaction levies are potentially a major new source of funding for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and RESULTS is currently campaigning for the UK government to set up a currency transaction levy (CTL) on Sterling to fund the MDGs that relate to health. You can read more about the campaign on our website, and there is an explanation of what the CTL is and how it would work here.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Development Finance, Monthly Actions, News

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DFID Minister suggests 'Tobin Tax' could be used to increase global funding for TB

Posted on 27 November 2009 by RESULTS UK| 2 Comments

On Tuesday the APPG on Global TB hosted a meeting in Westminster entitled ‘Combating Tuberculosis: From Social Determinants to Policy Bottlenecks’.

Special guest speaker Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department, highlighted the successes we have had to date in the fight against TB. These include 2 million deaths averted and 32 million people cured of the disease between 1995 and 2008. But Dr. Raviglione also emphasised that at the current rate it will take literally a thousand years for TB to be eradicated and said that greater political will and increased investment are needed to combat TB.

International Development Minister Mike Foster responded by acknowledging that there is still much to do to address global TB. He suggested that as well as DFID’s long-term commitments there was a need to look at alternative funding streams for development, perhaps including a ‘Tobin Tax’. Continue reading →

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Posted in Department for International Development, Development Finance, Events, Global Health, Monthly Actions, News, TB

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Last Chance to Hear Radio 4 Show on Currency Tax

Posted on 20 November 2009 by RESULTS UK| 1 Comment

Those readers who receive our Friday Newsflash will be aware that RESULTS UK is taking action next month on the “Currency Transaction Levy”, or CTL, sometimes called a “Tobin Tax” and previously explained here. There was recently a short segment on “World at One” on Radio 4 where the CTL was discussed and indeed promoted as a good solution to “socially useless or possibly harmful” financial activity.

If you are in the UK, you have three days left to listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer as it will be taken down after Monday 23rd November. The relevant section begins fourteen minutes in, so fast-forward to just before 14:00:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntbcw

Unfortunately the BBC’s terms of use mean that you will not be able to view the clip from outside the UK, so apologies to our overseas readers.

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Posted in Development Finance

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