As G20 finance ministers gather in the UK today (Friday) to agree the world’s response to the economic crisis, the Put People First platform has released a blueprint charting a path out of global recession that places jobs, justice and climate at the centre of global action. Read more…
March 13th, 2009
New out today is Put People First’s policy platform report. It’s our analysis of the job ahead of the G20 leaders, and a 12 point plan that could go a long way towards delivering democratic governance of the economy for jobs, justice and climate. You can download a copy of the report here in Adobe PDF format, but here are our headline recommendations: Read more…
March 13th, 2009
The Put People First March gives all of us the chance to protest to the world leaders gathered at the London G20 Summit about the mess the planet is now in. Read more…
March 12th, 2009
Friday 20 March – 6.30 to 8.30pm. Chorlton Central Church, Barlow Moor Road , Manchester , M21 8BF
Trade can help poorer countries to overcome poverty, by generating jobs and supporting livelihoods. But the European Union is currently negotiating trade deals with over 100 countries in Africa, Asia andLatin America which will secure big profits for European companies at the expense of development.
These trade deals will particularly harm the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries, destroying jobs, local industries and the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.
The World Development Movement campaigns for a world without poverty and injustice. We work in solidarity with activists around the world to tackle the causes of poverty. We research and promote positive alternatives which put public good before private gain.
If you’re in Manchester, come and find out more – take action with WDM to end trade injustice.
Or check the Put People First local events page for more events happening near you in the run up to the London G20 Summit March on 28 March.
March 11th, 2009
Today, the World Development Movement (WDM) warns that Gordon Brown’s proposals at the G20 to salvage the global economy could be wrecked by contradictions between his tough talk on re-regulating the banking sector and the UK’s continued push for banking liberalisation in developing countries through European free trade deals.
The new report, ‘Taking the credit’, reveals the extent of the negative consequences of the financial services liberalisation pushed on developing countries through EU free trade deals. These deals would lift restrictions on how multinational banks, like Barclays, HSBC, Santander operate in developing countries. The World Development Movement’s evidence shows such deals would mean that poor people and small businesses lose out on access to credit and other banking services.
WDM’s report, and a summary can be found at www.wdm.org.uk/takingthecredit
March 11th, 2009
Visit the CAFOD site to get your own Obama image-making widget
The G20 Summit on the financial crisis will be US President Obama’s first trip to Europe, and everyone is going to want to get a piece of him.
CAFOD have made a nifty little widget to help publicise the Put People First march in London on 28 March, ahead of the summit. Upload your own photo and it will make an image in the style of the iconic poster from the Obama 08 electoral campaign.
Admittedly I’m not sure I look quite as stylish as Obama does in this one, but I guess that’s why I’m never likely to be a President of anything…
Visit CAFOD now to get your own image or widget, and help show President Obama and other world leaders what you expect from them at the London Summit.
March 10th, 2009
You’d have thought an idyllic island, a ‘British Crown Dependency’ off the coast of France with an average income of more than $50,000, must be a blissful place to live. Well, with 89,000 people and a notional $250 billion in the banks (that’s almost $3 million per head), it better had be.
But Jersey, one of the world’s leading tax havens – or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ – isn’t quite like that. It never is. I’m told that local groups have been fighting against the tax avoidance industry ‘in a climate of fear and intimidation’. A quarter of the population lives in poverty. So that’s what the off-shore City of London is really like. Perhaps we got just a whiff of it from the very nasty and on-going Haute de la Garenne children’s home scandal.
Anyway, by a happy coincidence, a posse of campaigners and the incomparable Tax Justice Network will be joining local groups for a guided tour of the havens, a public fresh-air meeting and perhaps even a bit of overdue fun in Jersey on 12 and 13 March – just as finance ministers gather in Sussex, England, to prepare for the big G20 meeting in London on 2 April.
Since the easiest political trick in the book at the moment is to blame bankers and tax dodgers for everything, if the G20 meeting doesn’t come up with some pretty clear proposals for tax justice on 2 April it will have been a complete waste of time. After all, who’s going to pay those mounting tax bills? Britain provides more tax havens than anyone else, and Gordon Brown will be presiding over the G20 in London, so it should be a shoo-in.
Of course it won’t be – and the G20 itself has no legitimacy at all. So it’s just as well that Put People First has brought together the biggest coalition of social movements in Britain since Stop the War, for a demonstration on 28 March – and the World Social Forum meeting in Belém, Brazil, in February declared this a Global Day of Action.
David Ransom is a Co-Editor of New Internationalist Magazine which is preparing a special issue f0r Put People First as part of its ‘Clean Start’ coverage of the economic meltdown. For more on Tax Justice see October 2008 edition. Originally published on the NI blog.
March 10th, 2009
Here is a map of where coaches can drop off, park and collect people for the Put People First March in London on March 28.
There are more and more coaches being added to our coaches page all the time, as organisations all over the country are able to organise them. Check out if there’s one near you – a full coach is one of the greener and cheaper ways to get down to the march.
March 9th, 2009
The World Development Movement has urged Gordon Brown to adopt an ambitious global Green New Deal in response to a ‘low carbon summit’ convened by the Prime Minister.
WDM Director Benedict Southworth said: “We welcome Gordon Brown’s support for a Green New Deal by saying that he plans to tackle the economic and climate crisis together, but he must be very careful not to dress up a high-carbon ‘business as usual’ growth agenda under a veneer of green gloss. Brown needs to show real leadership both at home and at the G20 meeting in April by committing to specific policies that could to ensure a rapid transition to a fair, low carbon economy – for example by massive investments in job-creating renewable energy projects, and by greening the banks to provide secure places for people to invest their savings and pensions.”
For more details see the WDM website.
March 6th, 2009
Tax avoidance by wealthy UK residents through tax havens costs UK tax payers at least £4 billion a year, according to new research published by the TUC.
The TUC research is the first ever analysis of the role of individual tax havens in tax lost to the UK. It shows that most of the loss to tax havens is caused by Jersey, Switzerland, the Isle of Man and Guernsey.
This money would be enough for the Government to meet its target to halve child poverty by 2010. But it’s currently being squirreled away in tax havens, rather than being spent in the real economy here helping us fight recession. With the tax take falling now because of the downturn, there can be no better time to get tough with the super-rich, so many of whom did so much to throw the world into this financial crisis.
We welcome the Prime Minister’s call for the G20 to get tough on tax havens when they meet in London this April, and this will be an important demand of the unions, development and faith groups organising the ‘Put People First’ march for jobs, justice and climate on 28 March in the run up to the G20 summit.
March 2nd, 2009
