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Many of us will have been alerted by a nice email from that Chris Rennard chap about the fact that Nick Clegg has been making a speech about "decentralization" to the Local Government Association. That's nice. There's a section, as you would expect, on financing local government and, unusually over recent months it explicitly speaks of "local income tax" rather than just "on the ability to pay".

However it's the last sentence of this section I would like to see us explore more:

If we want local people really to decide on their local taxes and how to finance their local government, why don't we let them. Why don't we say, as in America, that authorities can legislate for themselves as to what they want their tax base to be - incomes, land values, restaurant tables, weighing bins, whatever. Already in a sense councils have some power over where they get some revenue. If they are lucky enough to be asset rich they can choose to invest that in whatever assets they like, within reason, and in some lucky cases, as with West Oxfordshire, that could fund as much as half their current council tax requirement.

Tax competition between municipalities seems to me to be something desirable. Each has different characteristics that might make the mix of things they decide to tax more or less useful. The choice of tax regime can do just as much for local economic competitiveness as any other aspect of public administration like planning policy, say.

Here in Oxford City I suspect, though I've not tried to do the sums, that Local Income Tax will mean people lower down the income scale in Oxford will have to pay more Local Income Tax than our "national typical" suggested outcomes because our median household income is depressed by the presence of so many students. Coupled with being an area of such high housing costs, this will be a double whammy for Oxford residents - their properties, now with no tax on them at all, will cost more and they will also have the income tax taken away from them at source.

But altogether, it would be far better than replacing one centrally determined system with another leaving all there to be discussed at local election times the rate of the local income tax. I could see it being much more interesting if councils and residents started talking about what tax mechanism rather than just what rate they wanted to use.

So Nick, there's that comfort zone barrier again - take us beyond it please, give localities a real dose of power and accountability, not circumscribe how they must do it.

Following hard on the heels of Chief Constable Fahy, the head of Oxfordshire area's police, Chief Superinendant Shaun Morley, demonstrates what I have come to expect from Oxfordshire's top policemen, a more generally liberal attitude whilst being mindful of the harm some people are inflicting on others and their communities with their irresponsible actions and attitudes.

He clearly talks sense, and from experience. It is utter nonsense to increase the age at which people may buy or consume alcohol. It's arbitrary and unfair to those who are able to enjoy a drink responsibly:

"I am not especially convinced that the answer is to raise the minimum age for drinking alcohol and in general I'm in favour of less regulation, and better self- management."

But the story highlights a few areas where improvements could be made:

Earlier this month, police also revealed one in ten licenced premises in Oxford sold alcohol to underage teenagers in a undercover operation.

I also read this week I think, but can't find it now, that there were a tiny number of operators losing their licenses for such things. 68 in a year in England was the figure that sticks in my mind. Perhaps if we got closer to a zero tolerance approach on sales of alcohol to under-18s people would be more circumspect about who they sell to - none of this namby-pamby fining and so on - let's go for license revocation first time out and so on.

Also, there needs to be a two-way discussion here - on-license holders need to be more responsible about not selling to people who are already too drunk. Many's a time here at halls when after closing time I have found people asleep or comatose in the middle of the road who should probably not have been sold another drink several hours previously. That said, I can't get too sanctimonious, as I for one have certainly had too much on occasion. Though I never get violent, drunk or not - I might start jibbering more than usual and then fall asleep midway through a sentence!

Also, dear to my heart, he singles out students:

"We certainly need a significant change in attitudes to alcohol, especially in the 18 to 24 age group, including students where wholly inappropriate behaviour fuelled by excess alcohol consumption is seen as acceptable by many of that peer group.

I have this pet theory that for "normal" local residents, one of the problems is the demise of the "local" in favour of an array of drinking sheds in city and town centres. Of course these came about as a way of making the throughput of alcohol sales more efficient for the brewers. But what they mean is that particularly for young people, they no longer learn to drink in the relatively safe surroundings of a local pub in a village or estate, where they have the friendly eye of a landlord who hopes and expects to see them again soon, and neighbours, friends and family who can take them to one side and point out when they are becoming a nuisance or worse. If that is true for people with their roots in a particular city it is even more of a challenge for our student residents.

Here at Brookes we are just about to initiate a discussion internally about enhancing the role of wardens in halls of residence such as myself, and I will be bringing this up as part of that. A couple of years ago many were scathing about the comments of the Vice-Chancellor at Brunel suggesting that universities had a parental type duty to teach social skills and personal responsibility to their students and, I have to say that over the past couple of years in particular when license times have been extended in Oxford and people roll into halls leery and noisy at all hours, I am beginning to agree.

I'm not a confrontational person so it would be a challenge to me to face up to some of the drunks that tear about the place after closing time, but I think we probably have to face up to doing that. We have a university disciplinary charge of "bringing the university into disrepute" which I suspect could be used here.

When I was done for driving under the influence fifteen years ago the police had to deliver me home to ensure that someone recognized me at the address I had given them. I wonder if the same applies to people who are arrested for alcohol related offenses in town? If so, perhaps wardens and college authorities should be the ones asked to vouch for such people when they are delivered back to university accommodations. If we had that heads up we could take action to show them that the university does not approve of our students bringing the university into disrepute by their actions out on the town at night.

One of the most common points of disagreement between, let's call them "state-interventionists" and "non-interventionists", is the claim that "non-interventionism" would leave the poorest in society on the scrap heap with no welfare, no support. That the much vaunted idea of "non-interventionists" that "private charity" or "voluntary co-operation" would take the place of state welfare is just an impossible pipe dream. So determinedly do "state-interventionists" believe their own claims that they frequently castigate "non-interventionists" as heartless uncaring selfish individualists who would rather see others die than pay taxes. One quote from a Lib Dem Voice "discussion" just today will give you the general idea:

"Well none of them [Libertarians] are serious, because it an incoherent philosophy....send the kids back down the mines, it’s only a lifestyle choice."

And to an extent, I used to believe that propaganda. As a geo-libertarian of course I do have an answer of sorts - the basic income derived from land user fees (which would on their own create an almost unimaginably more equitable society in any case) would cover the basics of life for everyone, and give everyone an incentive to top it up with as much or as little work as they can manage.

But a recent discussion on a "non-interventionist" mailing list I've been frequenting recently has challenged the basic assumption of this debate for me. Would people really not contribute voluntarily to the upkeep of others if you don't have a government apparatus threatening them with the confiscation of their property and ultimately the loss of their freedom unless they pay their taxes?

It is a strange proposition. Governments for at least the last sixty years have been supporters at some level or another of some form of state welfare. They may argue about how much is appropriate but the fact is, people have overwhelmingly voted for a state that takes money from you in order to give some of what's yours to someone deemed "less fortunate". We even have a cliche about the inevitability of death, and taxes.

We have tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who do voluntarily give up their time to care for another. Most people are someone's relative, someone's friend, someone's colleague. And whilst I recognize that some do not have such support networks and would still require some form of collective support, most people do not want to see their friends and relatives on skid row or worse.

One has to wonder whether the interventionist route actually makes things worse. And in how many ways. When we look at our pay packets do we not think often that we've given quite enough for the support of others through our taxes thank you very much. National Insurance and Income Tax between them effectively make the worker near forty per cent worse off. I know what I would do with an extra forty per cent each month. It would pay the interest bill on the piece of land we have just acquired for our first Community Land Trust for a start.

Other taxes and protectionist policies keep the prices we pay for basics artificially high and create incentives for companies to produce cash cows rather than exciting developments. I'll bet if we didn't guarantee one pharmaceutical company a contract for however many millions of doses of Metformin diabetes pills every year a dozen others would have put the effort in to find a cure, not a chronic treatment regime.

The attempt to do welfare as a "universal" system, with the same rules for everyone, means a bloated bureaucracy enforcing inflexible regulations. If welfare were, say, to be dealt with at the parish level, and the barriers to job creation caused by taxes eradicated, I'll bet you more people would be found some work, appropriate to their abilities, even if it didn't give them everything they need and then people would feel much better about helping them out with the rest - because they were trying to help themselves as best they could. We have no way of measuring that at a national level really.

We have a Professor here at Brookes, a chap called Steven King. His area is the History of Welfare mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries - probably the period which received wisdom says was the harshest environment if you were poor or hapless. But I was fascinated by a lecture he gave a couple of years ago on being elevated to the professoriate (you are elevated to that aren't you?). Apparently when parishes were responsible for pensions, those who actually got a pension - those whom their own peers and neighbours if you like knew had simply tried and been unable to support themselves (in common parlance I guess the "deserving poor") would get on average 75% of the average working wage for their area. For others there were varying levels of support down to a pretty basic safety net that was intended to be subsistence rather than comfortable for those they felt were "swinging the lead".

And then there's the problem of administrative costs. If I had an extra 40% in my pay packet and was going to give it away, I'd know that the people or organizations I was giving it to would get all of my donation. I'll bet for the 40% the state apparatus take off me in taxes, probably half actually gets to someone who needs it, to direct service delivery, if that.

So, given all those disadvantages of, and the singular advantage that people actually vote for, this tax based welfare system at some level or another, is it not just possible that by doing away with all that coercion, all that centralization, all that unproductive bureaucracy, the people who get to keep what they earn would be quite proud to "do the right thing" by their neighbours and communities? If they vote at the ballot box to have money taken off them by the state for things they obviously believe are necessary, would they suddenly feel they were not necessary or that they should not contribute towards those same things without the threats of the state?  Isn't that a totally illogical position?  You'd vote for it but not do it if the people you vote for didn't force you to do it?

And so, at the very least, would it not be at least a courtesy to accept that Libertarianism is an optimistic creed; that it is positive about humanity's innate ability and even need to help each other. You may call that a naive optimism. But I'd rather be a glass half full freedom lover than the glass half empty authoritarian approach that says humanity will not help itself unless it is forced to do so by the agents of a state apparatus that may, just may, cause more problems than it actually solves. Libertarian is not a "devil may care/beggar thy neighbour" philosophy but one that places the utmost faith in people, as individuals, to know and do what is right.

And as to whether it is a "coherent philosophy" or not, I submit that "non-interventionism" is the only truly coherent philosophy in the game. For once you admit the state can do one thing better than we can through voluntary co-operation, you inevitably end up in endless arguments between factions about just how much the state can do better, and the ultimate end of that arms race is totalitarianism - that the state can do everything better than voluntary co-operation. Which is manifestly not true.

Or am I seeing things? There's this eerie silence going on about Blair's latest set of travails.

The Tories gave us Hamilton and a few quid to ask questions. But super duper new Labour trumps that nobly with huge official bungs to get a place permanently able to ask any question you like from the red benches of their Lordships' house.

The party that set up the new laws on donations and party finances has a treasurer and chair who have never heard of millions of pounds worth of loans made to the party.

The government can only get its bills through with the support of the opposition.

A series of ministerial scandals, sexual, financial, manegerial and a long term murmuring about donors and deals such as Ecclestone and Hinduja.

The biggest jump in unemployment for thirteen years.

And all on the day they go back into the lead in the polls over Cameron's Tories on the day before his hundredth as leader.

Maybe, just maybe, Tony Blair is divine, the missing corner that will make the Trinity a complete and perfect square.