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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...:)

Spotted this on Guardian Unlimited today: Mac adverts on behalf of exploited Chinese workers

You know those artsy Mac adverts where a couple of people explain why they have a Mac against a white background - well a group has done one highlighting the plight of workers in the electronics manufacturing industry in the far east mostly. As you watch it, of course, bear in mind that since Macs basically use the same bits inside as any other PC they're not particularly worse than anyone else - just that the slightly "holier than thou" (I'm a Mac user - I can say that) advert style is easy to spoof.

But it puts me in mind of another one of my unrealised "inventions" - the "Fair Trade PC". We get Fair Trade clothes, footwear, foods. We can try to buy locally produced goods. But with computers and most other consumer electronics we're more or less stuck with what we're given. Why not a "Fair Trade" PC? People pay a premium for Jonathan Ive's beautiful designs, why not for better conditions for the workers?

No, not those "E's" that make you a little bit more chirpy and empathic when you're out at a club, but E grades at GCSE level...

Interesting that getting a grade E may double the relatively tiny risk, while smoking skunk may increase it by less than half that. I suppose it is distinctly possible that all the Grade E students are perpetually on spliffs.

Personally I think both this research and the cannabis research are more on the "urban myth" front than good science but I'll bet we don't get some lurid headlines in the Express or Mail these next few weeks about all those just about to receive their GCSE grades and how half of them are doubling their risk of evil psychosis. I note also the last paragraph of the BBC article:

[Hilary Caprani of mental health charity Rethink] added: "The good news is that many people who have psychosis recover and go on to have challenging careers."

We don't hear that much in the scaremongering about dope, do we?

Cllr. Gavin Ayling from Adur publishes what one presumes is the Tory "line" on Lib Dem tax plans. Whilst I'm not clear from his comment:

Just a direct quote from CCHQ today, it’s all pretty obviously wrong… And yet the LibDems steal votes from the Tories in the country and from Labour in the cities… They’re lies, people, let’s hear that before wasting our votes!

...whether he's saying that the message put out by CCHQ is "all pretty obviously wrong" and "lies" but that aside, let's have a look at some of their criticisms:

Among the Liberal Democrats’ plans for over 40 new taxes are:
• VAT on new homes. Liberal Democrats would make homes less affordable by slapping VAT on new housing – inflicting a stealth tax on homeowners, especially first time buyers. New homes currently do not pay VAT. They advocate ‘new homes paying VAT at our new harmonised lower VAT rate’ (Liberal Democrats, Affordable Homes in Safer, Greener Communities, Policy Paper 69, November 2004, p.20). VAT at 7 per cent would add £12,000 to the cost of an average new home in the UK.

The purpose of this change is made explicit in the document cited (I was on that policy working group). The fact that VAT is not charged on new homes but is on renovation and repair of existing homes is a disincentive to better use of our existing housing stock. We cannot unilaterally abolish VAT on such renovations and improvements so the only way to negate this disincentive is to rate both at the same, lowest possible, level. Currently most renovation VAT is at the higher rate I believe - so this would reduce that by as much as we are able to whilst levelling the playing field.

For a party that tends to fight against new build, I would have thought that the Tories ought to support something that encourages better use of current housing stock in preference to giving in to pressures for new build sprawl.

• Tax to park at work or to shop. They would ‘establish private non-residential parking levies (including out-of-town retail and workplace parking)’ (Liberal Democrats, Policies for Transport, Policy Briefing 24, March 2003).

Yet it's okay in Tory controlled Oxfordshire to charge us to park at home? Or on-street parking up by 170% explicitly to discourage driving into town at certain times?

• Pensions tax. Liberal Democrats stated yesterday that they would raise £3 billion by scrapping tax relief on private pensions for higher rate tax-payers (The Daily Telegraph, 9 June 2006). This would further weaken pension saving.

If they were worried about the effect on investment I would agree. However to imply that this is going to jeopardise the savings of those who already don't save enough or at all for their pensions is just naive. Salting excess income away in the form of additional pensions contribution, whilst good for investment, is also one of the biggest and most exploited income tax avoidance measures in use in this country by the already very wealthy usually with very good pensions provision already. Together with the proposed removal of the plan for a 50% tax rate on incomes this is likely to be neutral at least on everyone but the very wealthiest. Most people who have only average pensions savings or none at all would be a million miles away from being affected by this change.

But the point is taken - the Tories do now have to fight for their core constituency haven't they...:)

• Second homes tax. Liberal Democrats have already called for 200 per cent council tax on second homes (Policy motion passed at Liberal Democrat Party Conference, September 2003). Under local income tax, this would be replaced by punishing business rates on second homes (Liberal Democrats, Scrap Council Tax: Liberal Democrat plans to replace council tax with a local income tax, January 2004).

Actually since policy is also to change Uniform Business Rate into a locally set and collected Land Value Tax (called Site Value Rating) second homes would fall under this regime and not UBR. And rightly so. The monopoly of holding land out of its best permitted use ought to be taxed as it has a social cost in the form of availability of affordable housing for the resident population of any area. If they want to publicise our policies, they could at least get them right!

Technorati Tags: conservatives, lib dems, property tax, taxation, tories

I don't believe that it is the place of the state to encourage or discourage any particular family arrangement . I declare an interest as a long time (and in all likelihood now permanently) single person, but I utterly resent the suggestion that the state should somehow reward those who are fortunate enough to have found their significant other by discriminating against singles.

I do accept, however, that the theoretical permanency of a marriage or civil partnership commitment may provide some benefits of stability in the lives of children of the union at important stages of their development. And I also recognize that virtually any interdependent personal relationship has the potential to take some of the onus off the state for support services and the like. So, how to reconcile these positions?

The answer seems obvious - Citizens' Income. Quite apart from such a system's ability to address the problems of benefits withdrawal creating excessive marginal rates of taxation for those trying to get off benefits and into work, if every individual were entitled to an unconditional and non-withdrawable basic income as of right as a citizen, those who choose, or are lucky enough, to live with another (or others), would be able to pool such incomes and no doubt make savings on the costs of procuring essential goods and services.

Food is generally cheaper when you are buying for more than one person. Family health insurance seems cheaper than the sum of the same number of individuals' insurance. In a Land Value Tax regime it is likely that multiple member households would be paying less tax per person anyway than singles simply by virtue of sharing space - making more efficient use of land by and large. Housing costs per person are likely to be lower.

So, give more of our money back to us for us to decide how to spend ourselves, and these family relationships will prove themselves by dint of domestic economic efficiencies. No need for more central tinkering.

Such is the difference, in my mind, between a moralising, authoritarian and protectionist view of human relationships and a liberal view.