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So, last night saw the first meeting of the "editorial board" of a new project initially being sponsored by Lib Dems ALTER , the party's only affiliated group focussing solely on radical economic issues, to publish a book of essays, in a similar vein to "The Orange Book" or "Re-inventing the State". We will set out the case that the "Liberal Economic Tradition " holds the key to the permanent eradication of poverty and the freedom to chose one's own path through life.

We hope to publish in time for the end of August this year, which will be the 100th anniversary of the passage through parliament of the Liberal Government's Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, a key landmark in the development of the modern welfare state, and a few weeks after the 60th birthday of the NHS, conceived by Liberal economist, William Beveridge.

It will truly take Liberal Democrats "out of their comfort zone", for many at least, by arguing that much of what we now have, a "state of welfare", started as a set essentially temporary fix-its intended to alleviate the worst poverty while the entrenched privilege caused by state protected monopolies was dismantled through such radical change as land reform and tariff reduction leading to truly free trade. It will promote the idea that this "unfinished business" is just as relevant and important for today's world, paving the way for what banker and author Bernard Lietaer has called "sustainable abundance".

Over the next few weeks we will firm up the range of topics and start looking for people who may wish to contribute an article in each area, hopefully mostly, and perhaps exclusively, from within the Liberal Democrats themselves. We would like it to be a truly collaborative effort with contributions not just from the "great and the good" within the party, but from the many grass-roots members who we believe share some of these ideas .

So, if any of you are interested in contributing something, do please get in touch with your ideas, or a subject area you would be interested in writing about. From time to time I'll keep people up to date on here, but we're also likely to create a "Liberal Alternative" website where we can co-ordinate the effort.

Apparently there's likely to be a formal offer by the end of the week for Sainsbury's after months of dancing around. What would they be getting? Do they actually want a food retail business in far of Britain? It's not like Qatar is a major part of the supply chain or anything for food retail in Britain.

No, for a cost of just over £10bn (at an offer price minimum of £5.95 per share) they'll get their hands on a property company worth about £10bn plus a retail business valued practically nothing as a sideline.

Need I remind you that this is largely land value that we create as a community, with our footfall, our planning consents, and our benign property tax on the out of town sites where the supermarkets do not pay business rates on most of their property, giving them an unfair advantage over in-town sites where parking is not so cheap. It's not Messrs Sainsbury & Co. that create it, but it is they who will walk away with the proceeds.

Technorati Tags: geo-libertarian, Henry George, land value tax

Whilst I might be happy about the ACPO drug idea, two other news stories today provide yet more evidence if any were needed of the creeping surveillance we are being subjected to. First, from the Oxford Mail comes a story that Thames Valley police are going to start setting up airport style metal detector arches in places like shopping centres at random to try and catch people with knives.

I know, I know - the police are our friends, and if you've got nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. And it's voluntary - but you watch their reaction if you turn around and try to find another way into the shopping centre or wherever.

Well bollocks to that. I don't want them going through my Anne Summers shopping bag turning out that shiny new metal vibrator I bought for Christmas because it sets all the bells in the shopping centre off! Or whatever.

And then there's a story that they're going to be using hand-held fingerprint scanners on people they stop for whatever reason. We're told they're not going to be storing the data they collect.

Yet.

We're told that it's voluntary.

At the moment.

But we also know that it's linked to a database of about 12% of the population already with fingerprints on file for whatever reason, and we also know that most people simply do not know their rights to refuse such things as "voluntary" stop and searches, so how will they be properly empowered to refuse this advance of the big brother state?

Just beware of sleeping at night - you might wake up with a bar-code tattooed on you some night soon!