An innovative national campaign has been launched today calling for a tiny tax on banking transactions that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change. The Robin Hood Tax would only be a 0.05% levy on speculative financial transactions, amounting to 50p in every £1000 – this is almost unnoticeable in the context of the amounts that these guys are trading (currently untaxed) on a daily basis, and would all happen at the trading level (in other words, before it gets anywhere near little people like us).

Gordon Brown and the French and German leaders have all raised this in recent weeks and it’s great to see the idea gaining momentum in wider public discussion. You can support the campaign by signing up at www.robinhoodtax.org.uk, where there are also clear and simple explanations of how it all actually works.

Our friends at Stamp Out Poverty are very much involved with the Robin Hood Tax campaign, and have been working for years to publicise this as a means of finding more money for relieving poverty across the world. They’ve already got lots of reasonable answers to critics of currency transaction tax, as well as evidence and case studies to show just how well this would work and the good it could do. All the info is in their resources section at www.stampoutpoverty.org.