Someone put it to me recently that writing several blogs before breakfast on most days of the week was not normal behaviour, but that’s what I do. They asked me why. My response was simple. By writing these blogs I know I have done something that day to try to change the world into the
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When I am asked by journalists why the tax justice movement has been successful, as I am, quite often, one of the reasons I offer is that we changed the language of tax. So, for example, tax avoidance and tax evasion, which are terms few people actually understand, became collectively ‘tax abuse’. And the term
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Ed Balls will argue this morning that the Conservatives would, if re-elected, cut the top rate of income tax to 40% whilst increasing taxes on the rest of the population of the UK. This, he will say, is part of their continuing faith in trickle down economics. I think Ed Balls is on safe ground
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This is off topic, but if you have not seen this, please watch it. There are, no doubt, errors and misjudgements being made by both Hamas and Israel over Gaza, but nothing can justify the bombardment that is killing Palestinian children. Jon Snow’s passion on this issue is powerful, persuasive and, in my opinion, entirely
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The IMF’s new report on the UK is totally contradictory in its prescriptions. The fact is conventional economics has no clue about how to deal with the 21st century economy. Listen to ‘The IMF is out of ideas’ on Audioboo

Time and again I am asked to believe that bankers have changed their spots and that we live in a new era of ethical financial services. Time and again I have difficulty doing so, and for good reason. I still see th UK’s tax havens resisting calls for public registers of companies. Secrecy remains top
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Polly Toynbee makes a call for tax to be centre stage in the next general election,and thereafter, in the Guardian today. Of itself this is not a surprise, and nor is the fact that Polly quotes me, amongst others, surprising either. But some of those others are more surprising. Polly quotes a Sheffield firm of
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Postscript to Friday:

Steve Richards argues in the Guardian this morning that Ed Miliband may be right, and that ideas could be the factor that determines the outcome of the next general election. This does not always happen, of course. The cult of personality is powerful. There are, however, moments when ideas can be pivotal. 1945 was one.
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