We all understand the deficit we are facing and remember how we got here.  The financial crisis started in the banking sector and we spent £1.4 trillion bailing it out. With the economy in a mess, the government’s Spending Challenge is asking us to make difficult choices over what it should cut.

But there is a better way.  A series of taxes on the banks in the UK could raise tens of billions each year to help recoup some of this lost money and help the poorest at home and abroad who have been hit hardest by the economic crisis.

A better idea

Add your name below to show that you support the idea of making Britain a fairer place. What do we need to protect,  to fund, to fight for?  Unlike the Government’s Spending Challenge we want a debate that includes all the possible solutions.

We’ll pull your ideas together into a series of blogs to keep you up-to-date and overall report at the end of August. We’ll take the report to a parliamentary briefing in the heart of Westminster, and you can use it to pressure your own MP.   By putting our ideas together, we can make them stonger.

As George Osborne says on the Spending Challenge site, there are indeed “tough decisions that need to be made”. But there’s one big decision that could spare us an awful lot of the most damaging ones.