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So, I made my first federal conference speech this morning. And what a one to choose! Called immediately after former housing spokesperson Andrew Stunell's opening speech I was asking conference to reject his paper with a wide range of what are probably pretty popular measures in it because it lacked one measure - LVT. And boy did the assembled throng let me know how wrong they thought I was - I reckon I counted half a dozen votes at most to reject the motion . Maybe that's some kind of a record or something for a maiden speech?

But it had to be said. There is no getting round the truth - you cannot create affordable housing through the sort of policies that are regularly bandied about, including in this motion, without subsidizing landowners. Your taxes and mine are being committed to buying back the land for the needs of the community. How arse about face is that? As the quote from proto-liberal John Locke said in the quote at the top of my blog:

'It is very clear that God, as King David says, "has given the earth to
the children of men"; given it to mankind in common'. (John Locke, Essay
on Civil Government, 1690)

Why do we not instinctively know this nowadays? And why is it so difficult to explain to fellow liberals who, as Andrew said at the beginning of his speech, should be really angry about the effects of homelessness and overcrowding on the rising generation and prepared to countenance bold, perhaps even unpopular, poicies to address this fundamental inequity.

Interestingly, I was told yesterday that there is a move by the International Georgist Union to lobby to have "access to land" added as a funamental human right. And there can be no greater right in my opinion - we are all born here. There is no other planet we can go to just because someone already 'owns' every part of our existing planet. Of course it is a fundamental human right to have equitable access to what nature has made available to all of us - it is the basis, frankly, even of the "right to life".

Some day, maybe, even the Lib Dems will understand the importance of it. Most everyone I speak to, just as Lembit did at the summation to the debate and Vince did last night in the ALTER fringe, acknowledges that we are onside in principle with land reform, but we must adopt practical policies to implement it if it is to be any more than howling in the wind.

I thought I would write about something quite close to me tonight because it has angered me. Rather than the ethereal world of politics which can sometimes feel quite abstract.

I have a friend currently buying a house, with several acres of field adjacent, in a village in the Green Belt just outside Oxford. The vendors are the Church Commissioners. Apparently hurt after being stung over several years or decades by having sold off properties on which the buyers have then got planning consent and made a fortune they are trying their best to tie down buyers.

This is nothing new. The landed have often put restrictive covenants on land that say that if the buyer subsequently gets permission to do some profitable development they will get some profit. I personally think this is an outrage in itself - since I don't really believe in the right to trade in land, our only real common wealth, for profit.

But get this - the Commissioners think they have it all sewn up. They would like to sell my friend only the freehold of the surface of the land itself. A 'flying freehold" where they retain the freehold of the airspace - yes, the air - above three meters above the ground, and the subsoil more than a meter below the surface.

My friend is not buying an option, he's buying a home. If circumstances change twenty years down the line and this piece of green belt becomes developable, yes, he might make a killing, but that's not why he's buying it. If the Church Commissioners want to retain this, they should not be selling the property at all. If they were to sell a bunch of shares they hold to someone, would they expect to be able to keep the dividend, or to stipulate that if the company is taken over after twenty years and the buyer rakes in a small fortune they should have some of it? No, that's what's called investment risk - the risk that they sell something that's still got further to go upwards for whatever reason.

All this just goes to show that what people generally think of as "theirs" - the land on which their homes stands and so on - is frequently not. It's bonkers. Large areas of North Oxford still have restrictive covenants granting some nobleman not so far away the right to prevent development on land long ago sold by his forebears.

Why on earth do people therefore complain about the idea of a Land Value Tax. At least that tax is going to the common treasury to be spent on others usually less fortunate...rather than to vast institutions and ancient landlords wanting to maintain a finger in a pie they disposed of, presumably for good investment decision reasons, ages ago.

The very observant amongst you will have noticed, I hope, that I've been very quiet for a couple of weeks.  Well, since this marks the anniversary of this Drupal version of my blog, I decided to give it a make-over.  Partly this was prompted by having been nominated in summer for the best designed Lib Dem blog, because the previous "look and feel" was not terribly technically tinkered with standard Drupal theme.  So I wanted to have a play and see what I could achieve "under the bonnet" of Drupal.

So, I've reached the point where I'm into that last 20% of any project that will take 80% of the effort, so I figured I might as well "go live" on the new theme and continue to tinker in the background.  So, things will change a little over the coming days and weeks as I spot things I don't like, but please let me know if there's something not working, or not working as expected.

...shame I'm not waking up to this today:

Lots of things to catch up on over the next few days: my feelings about the new leader and his new team, not least.

You'll notice that the whole idea of static "blogroll" type lists has apparently gone.  All of you to whom I linked are still linked, I just need to go through the various links and tag them with categories and they will then show up in the "related links" slot when you view relevant content on my site.

You'll get the hang of it, I hope! 

In response to a recent letter in the Oxford Mail...

I believe Alan Page (1st Feb) is completely wrong on drugs, though I am probably in a minority. Prohibition, especially of something addictive, is mad. It makes criminals of people who literally “cannot help it” once they are hooked.

For most of history humans have used natural based drugs for health, recreation, and even religious rites. In the nineteenth century when both opium and cocaine were legal, the group most likely to indulge were upper class women. They really only became illegal when the lower classes wanted to join the fun, and often on racist grounds at that.

While they were legal and available in controlled, measured, self-administered doses, addicts functioned perfectly well with few adverse health or social effects, unlike those whose poison was or is alcohol.

People get into more risky methods of use, such as injecting, to get the greatest “hit” precisely because they do not know where their next one may come from or when. The worst will use multiple substances to compensate for an irregular supply of their preferred drug.

On the same principle as “good money drives out bad” who would go to the shady man in the darkened windowed BMW to get a supply of unknown quality or strength if your local pharmacist or nightclub were selling regulated doses alongside the beer or cough mixture?

And you can bet respectable companies have plans for that eventuality already in place.

You know what it's like, when you haven't been sat on your arses listening to the blather from the podium, you've been trying to remain upright enough to sort out the world in the conference bar.

So now it's all over, if you're travelling back passing anywhere within range of Oxford today, why not call in and help ensure that Nathan Pyle gets elected to the city council?

I myself failed dismally this morning for which I am still trying to work out how to apologise - having said I would do some good mornings, after delivering eve of polls last night and thinking I was getting to bed early enough to get up and five I slept right through my alarms at both 5am and 7am.

Since I am at work, the best way to put this right for me I guess is to encourage you all, freshly inspired by your week away, to spend an hour or so here on your way home. You know it's better than a Welcome Break.

From FlockTogether it's the only thing on today so there are no excuses. Catherine Bearder is the contact but more details on FlockTogether above.