LONDON -(Dow Jones)- With British banks expected to pay out large bonuses in coming weeks, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday he was redoubling his efforts to win backing for a global levy on banks.
With his Labour Party facing a tough re-election battle in coming months, Brown said in his weekly podcast broadcast Saturday evening, "I'm sure you also share my anger with some of the banks.
"I can tell you also that I am working very hard with international colleagues--including talks this week at the European Council--to find agreement on a global bank levy to make sure that in the future the contribution banks make is properly captured," he said.
Brown said it was crucial that any bank tax was global. He said he wants to see an end to "tax avoidance by financial institutions that happens when they play off one country against another."
Last November, Brown swung behind the idea of some kind of global tax on banks and has pushed the issue hard since then. U.K. officials recently organized a seminar in London on the issue, and Brown said earlier this week he believes a global bank tax could be agreed upon soon.
The opposition conservatives have also said they would back a global levy on banks to ensure banks pay their share of any future crisis. They have also backed a crackdown on bankers' bonuses.
In the podcast, Brown recounted the measures already taken against excessive bonuses in the U.K., saying his government already had the "toughest rules" on bank pay in the world. And he reiterated that higher-than-expected revenue from Britain's one-off tax on bankers' bonuses would be used to cut the budget deficit and fund youth unemployment programs.
Brown also struck an optimistic note on the U.K. economy which emerged from a deep and protracted recession in the final months of 2009. With a general election due by June 3, he said that "after the challenges we have faced together in the last 18 months, I believe we can now feel optimistic and enthusiastic about what lies ahead."
A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday, however, showed that despite making up some ground in recent months, Brown's Labour Party still faced any uphill struggle to secure its fourth straight election win. The poll showed the Conservatives' lead back up to 11 points from seven points in the last ComRes poll for the Independent on Feb 2.
The telephone poll of 1,009 voters showed that if an election were held immediately, the Conservatives would get 40% of the vote, Labour 29% and the Liberal Democrats 21%.
The poll also showed significant voter alienation from politics following the parliamentary expenses scandal and the recession. The poll showed that only 44% said they were "absolutely certain" to vote compared with 56% at this stage before the 2005 election, which itself saw a relatively low turnout.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones Newswires
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