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I'm sure there are probably a good few people rubbing their hands with some relish at the thought that private schools might feel the squeeze from this edict from the Charities Commission that they have to prove the value of their contribution to the wider community to retain their charitable status.

But before they get too excited, perhaps they might want to think about the numbers. I read that independent schools have about 600,000 pupils. If we accept the figures put forward by Nick Clegg, I think, when he was talking about the "pupil premium" in which he said, if memory serves, that the average cost was about £9,000 per year per pupil - which allowing for endowments and so on is probably a bit more than the average fees - it is an "industry" with a turnover of nearly £5.5 billion per year.

The statements about the level of charitable benefit they receive suggest that it amounts to about £100 million. This is therefore just under 2% of their combined turnover. Hardly insurmountable if they decide to stick two fingers up to the Charities Commission. But there's another side to it, isn't there. If we accept government figures that they spend about £6,000 per year on average on each state school pupil, then the 600,000 pupils whose parents are often scrimping and saving to put them through a private school are saving the state sector just over £3.5 billion.

It seems to me that whatever you think of private education, the charge that they do not contribute financially to the state sector through their customers' taxation cannot be upheld. Of course, since most of the charitable benefit is presumably in the form of reclamation of VAT on some expenses and I would argue that nobody should pay VAT, the most iniquitous tax on production we have, they would not have such a benefit in my fiscal regime anyway!

Nearly a month ago, when Chief Constable Peter Fahy of Cheshire went on his rant about upping the alcohol age limit I wrote the following piece but ended up not posting it. Now that thanks to Tim Martin of Wetherspoons (somewhat ironically as I would hold his company to be part of the problem - cashing in on the drinking shed culture and pricing out many estate pubs) an alternative argument similar to mine below has been posited, and picked up by Liberal England and Niles, I thought maybe it was worth reviving. It was a theme I mentioned actually in my candidate vetting interview as one potential way in which local authorities might be able to influence this "binge drinking" issue:

There's all this chatter about alcohol fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour going on. Most sensible folk seem to agree that raising the drinking age is no answer (I would in fact abolish any minimum age completely of course). But I wanted to take a different tack that has niggled away at me for a while. Kind of on the "Bowling Alone" theme of declining social capital. I believe a lot of this trouble is because of the demise of the local pub.

more from san joan's evening
Originally uploaded by J_G_R

Everyone now seems to get together (usually on the same night of course) and gather at drinking sheds in town and city centers. Long ago, when people weren't so mobile late at night and so on, they would go to their local pub. Many of our housing estates even had one built as part of the original planning for the estate, at least as important as a church or a medical centre or a Co-op.

But in there you would not just have the Club 18-30 hell bent on a little youthful havoc. You'd have people of all ages and all social groups on an estate. And it was probably the only one within walking distance so if you were barred it was a real pain to go anywhere else. If you got a little obnoxious or worse on the booze your family and neighbours would get to hear about it pretty quick through someone else who was at the pub when you kicked off. You would have to apologize, and perhaps even beg, or at least eat a bit of humble pie, to get back in. Be a little shamed by the incident.

Now, nobody who knows you sees you out in these anonymous booze barns in the centre of town. One is much like another so if you embarrass yourself at one you can go to half a dozen others for the same bus journey. Reprimands are all down to the police, assisted perhaps by bouncers. And all have to stay within strict boundaries - your cousin is not going to take you out the side door and box your ears (not that I'd advocate such violence as a cure!) until you stop acting like an idiot and can go back in and apologize. You might even feel proud to be on "Police, Camera, Action" rather than ashamed to be acting the idiot in front of your family and neighbours.

I doubt we can roll back the years that have made some city streets (like George Street here in Oxford) end to end gin palaces. Who knows though, maybe climate change, fuel costs, environmental concerns, might one day make us go back to the real local pub and have to face up to our families when we act the alcohol fuelled arsehole.

In today's Guardian:

Politics is an art not a science because most of us spend as much time inside our imaginations as in the real world, wrapped in memory and imaginary futures, swayed by deep beliefs only tangentially touched by reason or numbers.

I presume you speak only for yourself, dear!

Yours truly was off filming today. The next Bond it ain't. One answer to the shortage of affordable housing it just might be.

A company called the Einstein Network (why, I'm not sure as they don't do science films) who makes continuing professional development videos for planners, architects, surveyors and so on wanted to do a film about Community Land Trusts and chose us to explain it to camera.

So, a guy taking a day's leave from fixing computers for the local university explains how to solve the affordable housing crisis in one afternoon. Please, if any of you know any planners, particularly in local authorities making policy on affordable housing, encourage them to have a look at the Einstein Network's "Planning Channel" and keep an eye out for a film on CLTs.

It'll be the best value £200 they'll spend if they have affordable housing shortages in their area!

Guardian Unlimited Money | News_ | Study reveals financial crisis of the 18-40s:

Patrick Collinson
Tuesday March 28, 2006
The Guardian

An official government study into Britain's personal finances reveals a lost generation of 18- to 40-year-olds unable to cope with debts and soaring house prices, with alarmingly low levels of savings and little hope of building a decent pension.

The study, by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Bristol University, published today, is the biggest of its kind undertaken in Britain. It paints a picture of a generational divide fuelled by higher education costs and the collapse of company pension schemes - with 42% of adults now with no pension and 70% with no meaningful savings.

The FSA will call today for a new national strategy to improve Britain's financial capability, including workplace-based financial seminars targeted at 4 million employees; making personal finance more prominent in the national curriculum from 2008; and "money doctor" packs which will be sent to 1.5 million new and prospective parents each year.

What a typical and completely ineffectual response. A few leaflets and seminars to tell people to do better. Whilst it is still important to ensure that those who have worked all their lives now have a decent quality of life in retirement, we need to radically rethink our economic and fiscal policies to address this looming generation of have-nots, including me!

All of this bullshit about us being better off than we ever have been and so on is worth nothing if that better off means that we slave longer and harder for it. The monetary system has created a similar problem to the feudal systems that preceded mass home ownership, only this time there is little way out because people just do not have the capability to build up that same asset backing as previous generations had.

Forbes reported recently that:

Making a billion just isn't what it used to be. In our inaugural ranking of the world’s richest people 20 years ago, we uncovered some 140 billionaires. Just three years ago we found 476. This year the list is a record 793. They’re worth a combined $2.6 trillion, up 18% since last March. Their average net worth: $3.3 billion.

India's quota, 23 people worth between them $99bn compares with per capita GDP of just $3,400. Lakshmi Mittal's fortune increased in one year by the equivalent of SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND UK median incomes. Now don't get me wrong, I do not believe in a zero sum wealth game. I'm not some rabid trot that thinks they only get rich because others are poor. They get rich because money attracts money, because of the system that they are so good at playing. Because assets are transferred from poor to rich through landlordism (check out how many of Britain's rich list as rich because they own large tracts of our common wealth, the land of the UK itself that the rest of us need to pay them to occupy) and debt money.

This is not a call for some kind of punitive taxation - what's the point if, like Philip and Cynthia Green you can go through a year paying something of the order of five figures only in tax anyway, but for a new predistributive system that allows us all to share in our birthright, this planet, equitably and gives people a chance.