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I don't blog about work much, but this is exciting news you all ought to share! Last year, here at Oxford Brookes University we got terribly excited about being only the 17th UK Higher Education Institution to have appointed a female Chief Executive , in the form of Vice-Chancellor Janet Beer, who's now had her feet under the desk for nine months or so.

Shami Chakrabarti, new Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University

Originally uploaded at Flickr by martinstabe

In the interim we've been looking for a chair designate of the Board of Governors (I am one of the two elected staff governors), and have selected Joanna Simons, the chief executive of Oxfordshire Councty Council, and of course, another woman.

Today, we are very pleased to have announced that our new Chancellor, a position currently held by Jon Snow, is to be another woman very much in the ascendancy and particularly in the news in the past couple of weeks leading up to last night's vote to abolish Habeas Corpus for people the Home Secretary doesn't like the look of, Shami Chakrabarti, the Director of Liberty (whose "new members pack" I received yesterday by chance!).

We were doing quite well actually with gender balance amongst the top echelon of staff here, but I thought it was important to mark that the top three offices are now all held by women right at the top of their respective careers.

While we're in the business of announcing what laws we would shred given half a chance, I want to make a plea for every other Lib Dem shadow cabinet member to take a long hard look at the laws which govern their respective portfolios and choose a few to shred. We could even make it a new "target" - ten pieces of legislation each to be added to the bonfire in the next six months (and so too in the manifesto) could be our spokespeople's primary "Key Performance Indicator".

For me, there would be nowhere better to start than the oxymoronic Department of Communities and Local Government. In fact, for preference I'd like us to propose doing much the same to that as we do the DTI - abolish the thing completely. It's simple, snappy and at a stroke would massively increase the quality of our democracy in the UK. Westminster and Whitehall have, in my opinion, absolutely no business overseeing local government, let alone tying it up in tight knots that our local representatives cannot escape. Why on earth do we have to persuade the member for Bolton West about aspects of running our own localities when we have elected another fifty local people to do just that? If government is by the consent of the people, my consent to be governed on local issues is clearly given to local councillors, not MPs.

If there are things that absolutely every locality in England has to do the same way, then make it a national function - Housing Benefit could be directly administered by the same Department for Work and Pensions systems as other benefits, for example. Though as an aside one might prefer pensions and other benefits to be devolved to local authorities as they were when they ran the poor houses and the parish rate paid for the upkeep of those no longer able to work and when city corporations could borrow to provide affordable housing, all based on local needs and local costs of living.

So, come to think of it, there's an idea for Mr Laws - let's do away with the DWP too - there were a whole raft of local ballot measures passed this week accompanying the US mid-term elections that set state based minimum wage levels. What possible fairness is there in insisting that someone can live on the same level of dole or pension in London as they can in Yeovil, say?

C'mon, if we want to be a liberal party root and branch, let our wonderful local representatives do what we elect them to do. Our democracy would be far saner and far more interesting if we did.

The Lib Dem newsfeed on Monday included this - Urgent need for review of banking system - Cable:

Urgent need for review of banking system - Cable
31 July 2006

Responding to the news that HSBC has posted pre-tax profits of £6.7bn, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable MP said:

"There is a serious question mark about the level of profits in the banking sector. In March 2000 the Cruickshank report provided a serious set of broad recommendations for action, yet the Government’s failure to act has meant that we are in the worst of all worlds.

"Piecemeal and ad-hoc investigations by the OFT are being relied upon too heavily while the level of charges and levels of service deteriorate.

"With soaring profits seemingly unrelated to the standard of customer service, whether it be overdraft charges or cheque clearing times, there will be increasing pressure for a windfall tax on banks.

"We do not believe that is the right way forward. There is now an urgent need for an overall review of the banking system, a Cruickshank II, whose recommendations must be more seriously investigated."

Now okay, I know he's on about profits from charges - that was what Cruickshank was all about wasn't it? But if we're serious about "reviewing the banking system" we're opening a great big catering sized can of worms. What about their effective monopoly of the creation of credit? About their protected profits from lending with not one, not two, but three forms of security - income, a charge and ultimately the protection of the central bank from their own mistakes.

Somehow I suspect that seignorage reform is not anywhere on Vince's radar. I hope we can change that! The two big monopolies that stifle truly free trade and give inequitable power to the few who can afford more than they need, of land and credit creation, are coming into play together.

Technorati Tags: lib dems, monetary reform

In her defense of the surveillance state (sorry if I've misunderstood but that's what it sounds like!) at CCTV conspiracy mania is a very middle-class disorder there's one little sentence that gives it all away. She says:

There is a sad lack of voices to praise the benign state these days.

Maybe that's because there is no such thing as "the benign state", now or at any point in history that immediately comes to mind.

From The Register: Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weapon

Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weapon
Merciless assault on tearaways
By Lester Haines
Published Monday 5th June 2006 13:03 GMT

An Australian council has decided to deploy the ultimate rowdy youth repellent - piped Barry Manilow backed by a further selection of "daggy" melodies.

The radical sonic attack plan is designed to drive the ne'er-do-wells from a car park in Rockdale, Sydney, where they have been "revving their engines and generally annoying residents", the BBC reports.

Nice one!