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Some people appear to be criticising the way Simon has handled the sexuality issue on the basis that what he said a couple of weeks ago was misleading, or perhaps some kind of legalese "technical" answer along the lines of - "Are you gay?" "No, I've had sexual relations with women". Or that he's been avoiding the "B" word ("bisexual"). Many such people are people who should know better, having often struggled themselves with their own sexual identity. Some have not, but would just prefer some kind of "certainty" that they can then celebrate because they understand the label.

I believe that as liberals we should all accept and celebrate that there are a whole range of sexualities and that people self-define. This nineteenth century word invented to describe a pseudo-medical "condition" (and by implication some kind of either illness or moral deficiency) has no place in the twenty-first century liberal's dictionary. Until we reject such categories we will continue to see people hounded till someone pins them down to some neat classification (including those categories we decide label someone a criminal or of criminal intent).

I always remember a constituency dinner where Conrad (Lord Russell to non-Lib Dem readers) explained that a fundamental difference between us and Labour was that we treated every person as an individual where Labour tries to categorise everyone into "manageable" groups. To me, that individuality has *got* to include something as basic to our make-ups as our sexual self-definition.

Now, whether Simon shares that view and whether he was trying to convey some personal self-definition is another matter and I/we obviously don't know. But I just want to say how much I loathe these attempts to categorise people according to some arbitrarily defined labels. My only criticism of Simon if this is the case is his belief that this could be conveyed through our conventionally hide-bound national newspapers!

Jeez - I must read some Foucault...:)

I've always taken a slightly different view of the inbuilt age discrimination in the minimum wage legislation for under 21 year olds than many it would appear. When I was a councillor in Oxford we had a few instances of employers of young people - mostly restaurants - pushing the limits of the legislation anyway. I never did approve for example of including tips in the minimum wage. If someone's working they get paid, if their customers think they've done a good job they should feel free to enhance that, not make up the employer's shortfall.

But mostly, I felt that young people, people starting out on life's employment journey, are the very ones that need a bit of a boost. They're the ones potentially with the expenses of setting up home and so on, living independently for the first time. So I really never liked the differential wage for under 21s. I can, just about, accept that 16-18 year olds, who if I recall correctly were not even protected by the initial legislation (which was a total outrage if I'm remembering it correctly), may be paid less in order to encourage them to stay in education, and to encourage employers to give them added training related benefits.

So I'm quite pleased to see the quandary apparently being created by this weekend's implementation of anti-ageism legislation:

Age law 'threat to minimum wage':

Young people get a lower minimum wage than the over-21s

Laws being introduced on Sunday, which ban age discrimination at work, could endanger the minimum wage system, a business group has warned.

Workers aged under 21 can currently be paid less than their older colleagues.

But the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) said this may be considered discriminatory and be open to legal challenge under the new legislation.

I hope there are some test cases, and I hope personally they win. Eighteen to twenty-one year olds are adults. Why should they have any fewer rights than anyone else?

First, let me welcome all the many new visitors who have been reading my blog, thanks to the free publicity of my Labour opponent's latest leaflet!

In contrast, I and the Lib Dem campaign across the city are focussing on the issues on which the city council can make a difference in local services and stressing our positive record:

• Keeping the council tax down.
• Improving council services.
• Reviewing, and hopefully abolishing, residents' parking charges.
• Improving the quality of private rented housing.
  
• What we have already been doing locally

Let me look at these in more detail:

Keeping the council tax down. Labour and the Greens in Oxford have voted for above inflation increases in the council tax set by the city yet again. We need to maintain pressure on council budgets to force managers to deliver more efficient services without asking more of the hard pressed tax payer. Council Tax is the most unpopular and unfair tax. The Lib Dems would abolish it nationally. Labour have fudged the issue after spending millions (of your money) on a report telling them what we all know.

Improving council services. The independent council watchdog, the Audit Commission, has reviewed the last two years of Lib Dem administered Oxford and given us high praise for improving the state of Oxford City Council and the services it delivers. We have more than doubled recycling and are about to take that to a new level with the pilot introduction in parts of the city of weekly food waste collections which will go to be composted and remove the need to have anything in your ordinary rubbish collection that can go off. We have cut the time council houses are out of action between tenants to just one fifth of what it was under Labour in Oxford.

Reviewing, and hopefully abolishing, residents' parking charges. The Conservative run county council ignored the wishes of residents in Headington Hill and Northway and many of you have told me on the doorstep how unfair you find it that you have to pay to park in your own street. Even those of you without cars and others with driveways to put theirs on understand that this is an extra tax on their neighbours. My Labour opponent opposed my campaign to have the major employers developing in the area pay for implementing a scheme if it proved necessary. Those same PFI developers she was so keen to support have made millions out of the contracts, and millions more through sophisticated financial wizardry while we are paying for what they have imposed on our neighbourhoods. Our streets belong to us - why should we pay twice for using them?

Improving the quality of private rented housing. All too often in Oxford people having to rent their home, and there are lots of us because of Labour's mismanagement nationally of house price speculation, have been used for far too long to accepting substandard accommodation run by landlords who, at times, let homes in a dangerous, unhygienic properties to the most vulnerable people. The Lib Dems in Oxford have started to introduce stronger checks on rented properties going way beyond the Labour government's minimum standards and the small number of only the largest properties they legislated for.

In Northway:

• We have recently agreed a near £60,000 package of investment in the childrens' play area in Foxwell Drive - an important facility that allows younger children in particular to get out and enjoy fresh air and physical activity in a safe, contained environment.

• My colleague Altaf Khan, city and county councillor for the area, has successfully campaigned against Tory cuts that closed the Northway IT hub. Instead the equipment is now in the Northway Community Centre and Altaf is now working towards getting funding to create a pleasant and appropriate space to host the IT hub and get more people learning about and using these fast becoming essential tools of modern communication.

In Headington Hill:

• I have been campaigning against flier and flyposting litter and many, though not all yet, of the venues and promoters are now being more responsible about how they distribute their adverts.

• And I successfully managed to get the city council to take some responsibility for the parking chaos on Pullens Lane caused by the new residents' parking arrangements in other parts of the local area.

I will be campaigning for better, safer, parking arrangements, especially near council built apartment blocks where space at the moment is woefully inadequate, and for new investment in the Northway Community Centre to restore it to a vibrant and well used community facility and hopefully to encourage many more residents to join the community spirit and participate in the sports and leisure facilities in the area. And I would like to help create a "Friends" group for Headington Hill Park and Dunstan Park to get regular users and neighbours involved in managing and developing these wonderful urban green spaces.

But yes, I admit, and am proud to do so, that I am passionate about reducing the dead weight the heavy hand of government at all levels imposes on our lives and communities. I am passionate about those communities instead being enabled to take ownership of local public assets and to meet their own local needs through their own initiatives. And I am passionate about individuals taking responsibility for their own behaviour so enabling us to reduce our addiction to government interference in our lives. And if you stick around a bit and read some more, you'll see I would bring to the City Council innovative ideas about how that could be achieved and financed without adding to the burden of the public purse and the taxpayers' pockets.

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