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Yazz:

Area planning decisions to be recentralized? Area committees disbanded? Is this Labour in Oxford's response to near universal calls, in political terms (not least from their own Communities Department), for greater devolution and localism in our government structures?

They're pretty much already committed to the Stalinist recentralization of all planning decisions, slightly modified now to have two wider area based development control soviets as well as a supreme soviet committee in case even these two go against the Politburo's diktat or predilections. All because Labour councillors seemingly cannot work out how they could possibly "lobby" for their constituents wishes on some applications whilst helping decide on neighbouring wards' local applications.

I prefer the Danish system I believe it is, where areas more or less the size of streets have small committees purely dedicated to development control.

But in the absence of that a much more open system of area committee planning hearings would be a step forward rather than Labour's regressive centralizing power grab. Colleagues in other authorities received different legal advice to Oxford's and hold open discussion at their area committees where parish council members usually attend en masse and they claim get better decisions, more local acceptance of decisions and an all round feeling of compromise giving the better solutions for all. The rationale is that it doesn't matter how much time objectors and applicants spend at any individual stage of the process as the applicant in particular can have all the time they like to argue their case at appeal - that it's the entire process from start to finish that has to be fair to both sides.

Despite an initial increase in time spent in planning as everyone wanted to have their say, in practice, area planning meetings are now quite sophisticated - nobody feels the need to fill five minutes because can because they know anyone else could raise questions and so few are repeated. Good chairing of course helps, something also sadly lacking in Oxford City Council in my experience.

But centralizing planning is one thing, now there are rumours that Labour wants to disband area committees entirely. I hope one of them is reading this and will assure me this is not the case, or that something better will be put in their place. I have long argued that Oxford should reparish the city, shrink the city council effectively to an executive committee and have much more local control through parish or town councils. It's really not that long ago (in its history of over a thousand years) that Headington was administered by the Headington Urban District Council for example. Parish and Town Councils can actually have quite a lot of power - indeed more or less anything a higher level authority wishes to delegate to them.

I was at Thame Town Council a few months ago doing a presentation on Community Land Trusts, and I got the great feeling that this body was one that was prepared to fight its community's corner against the district level council when it mattered. Much moreso than where the committee is really a "branch meeting" of that district and collective responsibility trumps representing your constituents. In other parts of the county parishes precept as much as the district in council tax. Even in the few parts of Oxford where there are parishes it's more like 10% of the district level rate. Headington - or rather the current North East Area Committee area - is half as big again as Thame; easily able to support a stronger more local decision making body if the City Council took its claws out by at least as much!

But again, if the nirvana of local parish councils is not available to them for some reason, there are ways in which area committees can be given real power. Again, colleagues elsewhere only appoint a handful of central portfolio holders on their executive board, and then appoint one member of each area committee as ex officio executive members. Bound by collective responsibility each area committee executive representative can take a decision on a local issue, but which would normally fall under the competence of the executive board, there and then at the area committee meeting, advised by the open discussion amongst councillors and interested public at the area committee. Further, when they are at the executive committee, these area representatives can carry a majority, so if they are mandated by their areas in respect of a proposal by one of the core portfolio holders, they can overrule the core portfolio holders; effectively giving real positive control to those local community meetings collectively.

So, Oxford Labour, I'm sure there's more than just me out there, even if we do not often attend your City Council branch committee meetings, who appreciate the fact that they exist for us if we want to have our say on something, who will be very disappointed if you dismantle this structure and, Jack Straw like, leave it half reformed and more centralized.

Who wants to join a campaign to parish Oxford city then?

Much discussion on the TV and in the press overnight about will-he won't-he George Osborne endorsing John Redwood's idea of abolishing inheritance tax. There has been a protracted discussion about this in Lib Dem circles over the last year or so as well.

The irony is though that many of those that want it abolished do so because it is usually the "family home" that pushes an estate into IHT liability. Ironic because of all the possible assets one might have accumulated in one's life, the value of one's property is the most likely to have been "unearned". Many proponents of abolition reckon that because they paid tax on the earnings they used to purchase their house, so any rise in the value of that property ought to be untaxed - that anything else is "double taxation".

The trouble is, you don't earn the rise in your property value. It happens because other people need what you have - a site in an increasingly popular location. A popularity most often created by expenditure on things like infrastructure that make that location better connected. It is monopoly profit.

Most of the other assets you might leave to your descendants - shares and so on - are productive assets that themselves help create wealth. Land values move wealth from those who don't own land, or own low value locations, to those who own better land, more popular sites, in a zero sum market.

So yes, abolish inheritance tax, but replace it with Land Value Tax, paid throughout the time you own that location, reflecting the value that others create at your location. Read about it: "Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam" (Fred Harrison)

The future of diplomacy?

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow and West | Primary school wins 'blog' award:

A primary school has won an award for its innovative international links with schools over the internet.

Staff and children at Woodhill Primary School in Bishopbriggs have set up blogs on subjects including French language and healthy lifestyles.

Technorati Tags: internet

...their knee at the same time, do you think it might catapult them all off to Poland or similar where they'd no doubt find their authoritarian meddling in other peoples' lives more acceptable and satisfying?

Haroon Siddique and Matthew Tempest
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Gordon Brown today announced the second review in two years into whether cannabis should be reclassified, in response to concerns that its current status does not reflect the drug's dangers.

Mr Brown announced the review, which will look at whether cannabis should be reclassified as class B again - rather than its present class C - at prime minister's questions.

Of course a "review" is also an opportunity to persuade of the opposite case, though anyone who received the government's reply to a pro-legalization petition the other day will know just how prejudiced they are heading into this latest review.

In 2005, 10,000 11- to 17-year-olds were treated for cannabis use - 10 times the number a decade ago.

Yeah - you know what - reclassifying will not make any difference in a black market where pushers don't really care about the age of their customers. Decriminalizing and penalizing people extremely harshly who sell to minors would.

But I'd love to know where this 10,000 figure comes from - before it becomes a matter of popular "fact" created by a political spin doctor. Officially there were just 946 mental health admissions related to cannabis in total in the UK in all age groups in 2005-6. So it seems extraordinary that, given the most common juxtaposition is between mental health and cannabis, that ten times the total number of mental health admissions can be attributed to youngsters suffering other problems as a result of the drug. By contrast, there were 5700+ hospital admissions of under 16 year olds due to alcohol abuse in the same year.

Plants are increasingly cultivated to include high levels of the active ingredient of cannabis, THC, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which encourages addiction and can cause a range of symptoms, from short-term memory loss, anxiety and panic attacks to triggering schizophrenia.

They are so cultivated because of the illegal market in which they operate. Where pushers and growers want to get the maximum value they can out of as little as possible to minimize their chances of being caught. It's not that difficult to measure the THC in any one strain or plant. So decriminalizing and forcing people to sell only with a statement of how strong it was would solve that one too. You don't expect people to be drinking pints of full strength Whisky when they go out for small beer do you? That's what the criminal nature of the market is forcing on cannabis consumers.

Prohibition has not worked and never will work. However unlikely, every review of the situation is an opportunity to persuade of the better course. Jacqui - read this first. On the other hand, given that most of us are criminals anyway, maybe if you stick to the paper clips and I'll stick to unwinding after work with a joint we'll all get along fine.

Technorati Tags: drugs laws, gordon brown, liberty, prohibition