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Bankers accused of rigging Tobin Tax ballot
An online poll over a mooted tax on the City received hundreds of 'no' votes from one computer
It seems the Sheriff of Nottingham has left Sherwood Forest for a nice job in the City – Goldman Sachs, to be precise. As reported on The First Post, campaigners for the ‘Robin Hood Tax’ – a proposed levy on speculative financial transactions based on the ‘Tobin Tax’ – are running an online poll to establish public support. The campaign is backed by Love Actually director Richard Curtis and actor Bill Nighy (pictured), who have collaborated on a video promoting the idea.
But the campaigners became suspicious on Wednesday when the rate of voting suddenly increased, with almost 5,000 votes cast in 20 minutes – all in opposition to the mooted tax. Closer investigation showed most of the votes came from just two computers – one registered to a private individual, the other belonging to Goldman Sachs.
The merry men suspended the ballot at 3.57pm, discounted the suspect votes and contacted the bank – who now say they are “investigating”. It’s thought that whoever the Sheriff of Nottingham is, he or she must have used a piece of software to cheat the poll and cast multiple votes.
And it seems appropriate that the bogus votes should emanate from Goldman Sachs in particular. One of the firms with the most to lose if such a tax were instituted, Goldman opened itself up to criticsm when its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, said publicly the bank was "doing God's work", and had not benefited from government support. In fact, the bank seems now to have started listening to these concerns: last month, it promised to cap bonuses for London staff at £1m.
The ‘Tobin Tax’ was proposed by Nobel laureate James Tobin in the 1970s as a way of regulating the markets, and the current proposals are similar but with a different aim: campaigners are interested only in using the tax as a way of raising revenue, not a form of regulation. They say a 0.05 per cent levy on bank trades would create as much as £200bn to fight poverty and climate change – and fund public services.
The online poll is now back on track, with – at time of posting - 25649 yes votes to 3073 ‘noes’. ·
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Blankein's "doing God's work" remark was silly and immature of him. It was never intended literally but purely as a snide backhander at the people who've annoyed him. It shows him to be petty and vindictive while at the same time unnecessarily damaging his position for no benefit. He rated his ego above his responsibility there.
This is a guy who's so elite his jacket sleeve buttons are tailored to actually undo rather than simply be sow-ons' for show. Such is his nouveau-riche ignorance that he fails to even know that they were originally intended purely as guards against sentries wiping the snot on their sleeve and were never intended as practical devices to do and undo.
Despite the charismatic stare he's developed from hours of practicing in the mirror he is, and will always remain, a puffy buffoon.
Tobin Tax? Just another tax-and-spendthrift socialist politics-of-envy trick. Let us not forget that Robin Hood robbed a robber - the official governor of the area, the Sheriff of Nottingham - who had the jackboot of the state tax-and-spend power on his side and used it to pauperise the poorest and most defenceless of his own people, until the heroic Robin of Loxley came to their rescue. Perhaps Nigel Farage would look good in green tights, who knows? But does anyone think that Cameron's clone army will be any different when it comes up to standing up to the rape of British industry and the City of London in particular? No? Yes? Well, go tell it on the mountain - put the passion back into British politics. That is not apathy you are experiencing, it is anemia, you are suffering chronic blood loss from the vampiric socialist tendency sucking on our veins.
Ha ha ha...and doesn't that just demonstrate how stupid bankers really are! They can't even fix a simple vote...doughnuts.