As the scales tip in Labour's favour, this is a pivotal moment for Ed Miliband

President Hollande this week launched the first tranche of France's financial transaction tax. Ed Miliband has just been greeted at the Elysée Palace, pointedly before David Cameron. Closely watching the progress of this leader of European resistance to austerity, Miliband has not, as yet, made the tax Labour policy, but he is seriously considering it.

How could he not? Nine European countries, including Germany, bring in the tax in December, hoping Barack Obama will follow after the US election. The Robin Hood Tax campaign says it would raise £20bn a year in Britain, a stupendous sum. The world of finance owes a payback for the monumental cost to citizens of its reckless rapacity. Among supporters is Will Hutton, who finds an "overwhelming case" for it, "both to raise crucial revenue and to cap the growth and frenetic speed of financial transactions" - as he writes in The Shape of Things to Come: Labour's New Thinking, a Fabian book by Miliband advisers and shadow cabinet members.

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Source: Guardian