I don't think it's unreasonable to say no MP should get gifts from overseas firms or donors. Feels like a pretty basic anti-interference measure.

If Trump bails out UAE, does that he mean he wins the English Premiership if Man City overtake Arsenal? And more importantly, does he take ownership of the UAE's backing for the RSF's genocidal campaign in Sudan?

Perhaps you could put that together: a piece on the Roadmaps's corporate power manifesto, and which it should be made fully explicit?

I'm reading the draft report. Looks strong and ambitious.

It's a shame, from my POV, that the various proposals touching on corporate power aren't put together so as to treat the institution of the very large, profit-maximising corporation as a single, structural obstacle to eradicating poverty.

Second panel, on 'post-growth as a decolonial project.

Chair: Praachi Khera (part of the Roadmap team).

Panelists:
Bhumika Muchhala, political economist, Third World Network;
Jason Hickel, leading post/de-growth scholar/Barcelona;
Ndongo Sama Sylla, International Development Economics Associates

"...but also for dismantling the concentrations of wealth and power that perpetuate poverty, erode democratic accountability, and lock economies into growth-dependent trajectories incompatible with human rights and planetary boundaries."

"Such a progressive fiscal architecture is indispensable not only for mobilising the resources needed
to finance universal social protection, public services, and the ecological transition..."

"...through a coordinated architecture that taxes extreme wealth and inheritance, caps excessive incomes, secures a fair and effective contribution from corporations and digital giants, and aligns the tax system with ecological limits by making pollution and luxury consumption bear their true cost."

And the broader argument made powerfully:

"progressive taxation — understood as the principle that contributions rise with ability to pay and with responsibility for social and ecological harm — must be restored as the organising axis of fiscal policy, beyond progressive income taxation..."

"... setting a global minimum corporate tax rate applied jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and providing for unitary taxation with formulary apportionment of multinational profits based on real economic activity"

A particular highlight:

"increasing taxes on corporate profits would be greatly facilitated by the adoption of a UN Framework Convention on Tax Cooperation imposing binding standards for country-by-country reporting, encouraging the establishment of public beneficial ownership registries..."

The advance draft of the roadmap is here - and there's a lot in it! www.neep-poverty.org/roadmap-for-...

Great thread on the exciting launch (backed by us @taxjustice.net among others) of this comprehensive roadmap from the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

The Roadmap on Eradicting Poverty Beyond Growth is being launched today by Olivier De Schutter.
www.ohchr.org/en/special-p...

She is also hopeful about the UN convention on tax (currently being worked on) that she sees as a potential 'game-changer' in breaking the downward spiral of tax-reductions. We need tax revenues to pay for social protection.

⚠️The extreme wealth of the superrich is making our economies insecure

How did it become so extreme, and what can governments do about it?

This Swedish-inspired infographic breaks it down and explains how a #WealthTax could help 👇
taxjustice.net/2024/08/19/i...

#TaxTheSuperRich

It’s time.

Tax justice isn’t just about who pays, it’s about who gets paid.

Public cash going to the best‑connected— regardless of questionable value, ethics & tax practices— is leaving us short‑changed financially & morally.

Our ED Faiza Shaheen in The New Statesman:
www.newstatesman.com/comment/2026...

If Eni is so willing to undermine democracy, shouldn't the EU, the so-called defenders of democracy, do something? Eg stop it having access to EU institutions? Take away its EU Parliament lobbying badge? Stop it having access to EU subsidies?
@left.eu @socialistsanddemocrats.eu @greens-efa.eu

Disgraceful 🤬 ... Italian 🇮🇹 oil & gas giant Eni is trying to silence civil society criticism by launching *another* SLAPP suit against @recommon.org

We stand with ReCommon + all orgs speaking truth to corporate power ✊

@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu democracy is being dismantled, what will you do?

Effective 2025 federal tax rates paid by these corporations:

Alphabet: 8.01%
AT&T: 4.6%
Meta: 3.57%
General Motors: 3.09%
Amazon: 1.37%
Exxon Mobil: 1.31%
Disney: -1.57%
CVS Health: -3.88%

Income tax rate paid by the typical American: 14.5%

This is what a rigged system looks like.

None of this should come as a surprise, of course. If you hire Palantir, or any other of Peter Thiel's companies, you've chosen to work with an organisation founded by an extremely political active person who "no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible."

Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

Eyal Weizman · All they will find is sand: Gaza’s Yellow Line Most of the Gaza Strip – cities, refugee camps, schools, universities, mosques, the health infrastructure, agriculture...

All they will find is sand

Eyal Weizman on the demolition of Gaza

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A brutal reading that must be circulated once and again.

“HEY DID YOU HEAR THE GREAT NEWS?”

(Yes, that sounds strange! But take two minutes to hear three good news stories from this week and why they matter, and let me know what you think.)

History has proven Judith Butler right (and The Guardian wrong for censoring her). Just look at the reaction of Justin Webb, Hadley Freeman, Janice Turner and other TERFs to Trump. TERFs are not "part of the contemporary struggle against fascism."

Copy, paste, govern | Corporate Europe Observatory The EU Commission’s policy on data centres keeps information on individual centres' energy and water use under wraps. Research now reveals the Commission copied and pasted an amendment suggested by Mi...

🚨BREAKING

Research with @algorithmwatch.org shows how the EU Commission has copy-pasted a Microsoft amendment that will keep information on data centres hidden.

The aim? In the face of growing resistance, to prevent NGOs from obtaining key information.

👏 @investigate-europe.eu for investigating

Closeup of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking to camera, with subtitle "Well, today we're taxing the rich"

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.