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Many words have been written about John Biffen and Bill Deedes, Tim Garden and Tony Wilson in recent days. I suspect somewhat fewer will be written about Brian Hodgson, chair of the Labour Land Campaign and former Labour group leader on Oxfordshire County Council who sadly died following a heart attack and short illness from which he had been expected to recover on Saturday 18th August. But that belies the affection with which he will be remembered by anyone who had the good fortune to know or work with him in Oxfordshire or Georgist politics.

I first came across Brian when, as a City Councillor in 2001, we formed a joint group with the County Council where he was Labour opposition leader to explore ways in which we could better collaborate in support and provision for asylum seekers in Oxford. But soon learned he was a kindred spirit in Land Value Tax and in the "spirit of 1909". When I say he was unashamedly "Old Labour" I do not mean the bad old days of Militant Tendency, but of Diggers, Levellers and the spirit of the early days of Labour politics. UPDATE: Thanks Gareth for reminding me of Brian's own description as "Vintage Labour".

I have to say slightly unkindly that he always made me smile. For any familiar with the paintings in Oxford Town Hall, he always reminded me of one of the "Old Gaffers" watching proceedings in the Old Library with his somewhat 19th century style beard. But he was as kindly a man as one could wish to meet.

It was his motion to Oxfordshire County Council in 2001 that led to the council establishing a pilot project to investigate the potential effects of replacing the Council Tax with Land Value Tax and he was able to steer a coalition of Lib Dems and Greens in developing the study which has become a highly regarded contribution to the evidence in favour of LVT.

Having not been re-elected in 2005 to Oxfordshire County Council in the rout of Labour in his home area in David Cameron's Witney constituency, he put a lot of effort into the causes he had long supported - Land Value Tax and, more recently, Community Land Trusts. I last saw Brian when to my pleasant surprise he turned up to support a mutual colleague giving a talk to Woodstock Town Council in July where we are trying to build some interest in a Community Land Trust project to develop affordable local housing. He had been active already in such mechanisms as a trustee of the Stonesfield Village Trust, which in twenty or so years has provided fourteen affordable homes for local people with no subsidy - proving it can be don. We had a good long chat, with him still wondering when I was going to join the real progressive party that he had supported all his life!

I suspect Oxfordshire politics will be a more tribal arena without his conciliatory style and "elder statesmanship". Rest in peace Brian.

There is lots of mention today about Laurie Draper and his "cannabis induced" instant psychotic episode (in the Telegraph), or is it, as the Guardian says "hypomania" in Soldier killed friend's father in drug attack that supposedly led him to kill a friend's father with whom he had been sharing a pipe of cannabis.

There is no denying that his victim is dead, and that Draper killed him. But I would be intrigued to know what the medical evidence was. Because certainly the media coverage either cannot get it right or is reporting some cod science used to get someone off the greater charge based on the prejudices of people against drugs and their symptoms.

First off, which is it - psychotic or hypomania? The latter is specifically not the former. Hypomania is actually defined as a mild form of mania without psychosis - presumably the defense team thought, correctly as it turns out, that the prefix "hypo-" would sound as if it meant "severe" - the exact opposite of what it does mean. Further, contrary to what the Guardian reports, the medical definition specifically states that hypomania is only hypomania if the symptoms, none of which involve violent outbursts of the kind that would create a killer, are not related to substance use!

Second, why would being under the influence of the alleged effects of a drug be a defense against murder? Does someone who kills after getting drunk get let off murder because he or she was drinking?

Unless it was forced on him unwillingly (a paratrooper?) even if one could prove a direct and instant causal link between getting stoned and the "frenzied outburst" why would it constitute any kind of defense except by playing on the fears and prejudices of everyone involved in that legal process?

One attempt to get off a higher charge by blaming it on the skunk when even the reported scientific terms used are medically inaccurate does not constitute "proof" of a link. It only constitutes proof that in a world of suspicion and prejudice engendered by the "war on drugs" people, even lawyers, are only too willing to accept it as yet more evidence of the utter depravity and dangers one puts ones-self into by using such substances.

Will the CPS appeal the downgraded conviction? Will they hell. It suits their agenda. As the Guardian says the "case may stir debate over downgrading to class C (of cannabis)".

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.