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I noticed this in the Oxford Mail the other day:

Get Rid Of Gravestones Says Councillor (from thisisoxfordshire):

UNSTABLE gravestones in Bicester's cemetery have been laid flat and could be thrown away if not claimed by relatives within two years.

In the past, Bicester Town Council has repaired unsafe headstones, but councillors say it is simply becoming too expensive.

A total of 28 unsafe memorials, whose owners cannot be traced, have been laid flat or cordoned off in the cemetery.

At a meeting last week, town councillor Carol Steward said the council needed to adopt a firm policy for the future.

She told fellow councillors she believed unsafe memorials should be removed, stored for two years and then disposed of if relatives had still not come forward.

She said: "People could miss an anniversary or Christmas for two years. Any less and I think we would be doing the families a disservice.

"This is the only way the council can afford to go forward. It is a very, very costly item for which we are not actually responsible we have been doing it to be fair to everyone. We have to draw the line somewhere."

Now, it may be a bit morbid, but these stones are our future's history. Whether they leave people behind to look after them or not, are the memories of those people simply to be erased after two years? There are odd rules governing management of cemeteries in this country for a very good reason. We have municipal and church owned graveyards. When a church one gets full, it is "closed" and responsibility for managing it in perpetuity falls on the local council.

Now I realise Bicester is looking more and more like some anonymous "new town" as a result of housing policies. But that does not mean the people there should have their memorials and memories wiped out so presumptuously.

How much will rebuilding the Garth cost compared with this saving, by the way?

Today's Guardian carries a nice enough piece by Simon Jenkins in praise of devolution and localizing taxation, in particular through "ability to pay" local income tax. Clearly Daahling has yesterday set the scene for another big spat about Council Tax as it seems that the local government settlement is going to leave little option but for local authorities to raise the hated tax by more than they otherwise would.

Of course I think Jenkins, and the Lib Dems, are wrong on LIT - and are certainly wrong on removing all forms of property tax - but we in ALTER are prepared to accept LIT I think now on the proviso that we replace some other tax with a land tax at a national level (preferably a whopper like income tax for me!). Anyway - here's a taste of the Jenkins article (of course he's also wrong that it was a Tory script Daahling was cribbing from but don't let that get in the way of an otherwise good article!):

It was a Tory tax proposal that rewrote Darling's script:

The way forward can only be the European way, to devolve a major slice of spending on public services back to where it was before the mid-1980s, to local authorities. There it must be covered by some element of ability to pay - as bravely proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Darling cannot go on financing central programmes with above-inflation rises in a partly regressive property tax. There is no alternative, one day, to some form of local income tax. Council tax could be cut by a quarter with roughly one pence on income tax. Scotland is even now contemplating such a proposal. Yet ask Brown or Cameron for a view on such fiscal devolution, and they will look as if you wanted to murder their cat.

Giving taxpayers some scope to determine the level and quality of their public services is the only way to sustain future rises in public expenditure. That scope can come only through the local ballot, over health, police, education or whatever. Local income-related taxes exist in almost every country in Europe. They are intelligent taxation. Only in Britain do they scare party leaders witless.

The chap who drew me to joining the Institute of Economic Affairs (yes, me!) Fred Harrison, publicising his new book "Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam", has a piece in the Yorkshire Post today detailing how it ain't so:

LONDON Mayor Ken Livingstone claims that the capital subsidises the rest of the country.

Taxpayers in London and the South-East, we are told, pay such heavy taxes that the Treasury transfers about £13bn to regions like Yorkshire.

This is one of the appalling myths that cripples public policy and prevents people in the regions from enjoying a square deal from the public purse.

In reality, people in the South-East are subsidised by the regions. And the housing market is the vehicle for delivering this shameful result. For the tax policies of the Treasury, which are supposed to transfer income from the rich to help the poor, are biased to achieve the opposite effect.

...and households on average incomes will be able to afford to get on the housing ladder again:

From the Guardian House prices suffer biggest fall in 5 years as mini-boom stalls:

Rupert Jones and Angela Balakrishnan
Friday July 7, 2006
The Guardian

House prices fell by their largest monthly amount for almost six years in June, lopping £2,200 off the value of an average home, according to Britain's largest mortgage lender.

The 1.2% decline reported by the Halifax yesterday was blamed in part on householders feeling the pinch from higher utility bills and fears that interest rates were set to rise. The distractions of the World Cup are also likely to have caused what may be a temporary lull in buyer interest.

But there's another interesting factor at work in here:

"Substantial increases in utility bills and above-inflation council tax rises are putting pressure on householders' finances, with the majority of the impact of these increases yet to be felt," said Mr Ellis (Halifax)

Utility bills - well it certainly ain't telecommunications costs, so presumably it must be energy. Our houses aren't fit for a post oil-age world, if that's what we are about to enter. The signs are not good on energy costs - already elsewhere (though I can't find the link at the moment) it was reported that consumer spending estimates have been revised downwards because people have 10% (yes, a whopping TEN per cent) less disposable income for goods and non-energy related services because they are feeling the pinch from higher energy costs.

And note the property tax angle too. If the Lib Dems remove all vestiges of domestic property tax, what do *you* think will happen to house prices, everything else being equal?

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