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ConservativeHome highlights a speech at the LSE in which (despite what I assume to be an error in the first sentence) Cameron today says that whilst they will want to increase environmental behaviour modifying taxes, they will want to use this to cut taxes elsewhere.

Of course they already know that the Lib Dems have specific and costed taxation proposals that use green taxes to cut four pence off the basic rate of income tax and take many low income earners out of income tax completely. We also have a long standing commitment to replace the Council Tax (though of course you know I don't agree personally with our replacement Local Income Tax) which deals nicely with what turns out to be the most hated tax in today's annual Tax Payers Alliance survey, again highlighted yesterday by ConservativeHome. And our "Green Mortgage" proposals will help households deal with their most worrying expense - their fuel bills.

So Cameron, what are you and Osborne going to cook up to beat that? And when? You can't go on just blathering and blustering indefinitely with vague and vacuous platitudes to your CH readership. You're certainly not ready for government if you can't even tell us what you're going to do on taxes.

Speaking at the LSE David Cameron has crushed any idea that the balance of green tax measures under a Conservative government will be cuts to encourage good environmental behaviour rather than tax rises to discourage 'brown behaviours':

"By using green taxes as extra stealth taxes, Gordon Brown has given them a bad name.  I’m determined that the Conservative approach will be different. With my Government, any new green taxes will be replacement taxes, not new stealth taxes.

In a few days, our Quality of Life Policy Group will publish its report. It will contain many recommendations on tackling climate change, at home and abroad, including recommendations on green taxes.  As with all the reports in our Policy Review, we will study its proposals carefully.

But let me be clear.  We will raise green taxes, and use the proceeds to reduce taxes elsewhere.That is the right direction for the environment and it’s the right direction for our economy. It is the best way to deliver the green growth that must be our aim."

Good news from Oxford's Lib Dem group (at last some would say, but hey, it's only just two months since elections), who are manfully (in a non-gender-specific way of course) striving to clear up the big pile of number-twos that are the city's finances and operations after Labour's "ancien regime".

In their itsie-bitsie mini-budget 'Putting People First' they are going to spend just £84,000 (and fifty of that only in this year, non-recurring) on four little projects that will bring glad tidings of great joy to many people in the city - well, something like that anyway...

The Lord Mayor's Deposit Guarantee Scheme was established seven, maybe eight years ago now to give private landlords the confidence that in taking low income tenants (who nevertheless would not qualify for priority need for council provided temporary or permanent housing) they would not lose out from any mishaps that would normally be covered by a deposit bond. With 5,000 households on the housing register and around 1,000 in temporary accommodation Oxford's homelessness costs are enormous, and this has proved the only way for many (in my experience mainly young, hale and hearty, but on low incomes) to access very expensive private rented accommodation for which deposits are often into four figures that they would normally have to find up front.

When the Lib Dem-Green joint administration ended in 2002 I know we were looking at ways in which this fund itself could be insured against having to pay out for damage to landlords to protect it for longer and make the money go further, but it seems it has more recently been run down to nearly nothing, whether insured against or not, so this £50k will keep it going for a while yet and help a fair number of the most excluded households.

The next biggest chunk - some £23,000 - goes to making entry free at the Museum of Oxford - fulfilling a promise of Mr Blair's in 1997's elections if I recall correctly to open up access to the cultural delights of public museums and galleries that in Oxford at least his local acolytes have not found a way of doing so far. And Oxford's museum, despite its size, has a lot of history in it. I've been only once, with my young nieces, and they loved the stories of the Civil War and the growth of the University and C L Dodgson's Alice in Wonderland - okay, perhaps not quite as much as the old rocks in the University museum - but they both fancy themselves as scientists rather than artsy girls.

Having heard all sorts of stories recently about graduating students who, when asked by proud parents to show them this that or the other of Oxford, haven't got a clue, I reckon I should maybe try to make it a compulsory part of our introduction in halls of residence next year now - at least they'll know where they can send their parents to find out, while they and their fellow new graduates skulk in the Bear pub round the corner! It should in fact pay for itself anyway, now that there's a new cafe and so on that can generate a bit more income out of the entry-free visitors.

Thirdly, for just £8,000 a year, they're finally going to extend the "Shopmobility" scheme, that lets people with mobility problems book help and equipment like wheelchairs to help them get around the city centre, to Saturdays. Yes, for as long as anyone can remember the scheme has excluded people who need help to get into and about town on the most popular day of the week!

And finally for now (well - the Town Hall cupboards were not exactly crammed with used fivers on 6th May) some "bread and circuses". Lots of people have become disappointed, at what many have seen as a decline in the annual Lord Mayor's Parade and several other annual civic events. What used to be big pageants are reduced, often through "health and safety" issues, to an open topped bus, a brass band and some majorettes, or similar. The final £8,000 will boost support for some of these events, just a little, and ensure that they are a bit of free entertainment enjoyed certainly in previous years by a great number of local people.

So, just a little glimpse of what is to come from the Portfolio Holder for a Cheaper Oxford Better Finances and his friends. Of course they could all still go for a burton since the Lib Dems can be outvoted by the "constructive opposition" of Labour and the Greens acting together. But do they dare be so mean spirited as not to support four very good, if small, improvements for Oxford's residents? But then I would say that, wouldn't I!

Technorati Tags: lib dems, oxford, politics

I have this great little Google widget that tells me various things that happened "today in history".  Some I couldn't care less about: "High-school valedictorian, actress and model Cindy Crawford born"  But others prompt a wry smile...

Apparently, today in 1648, the House of Commons voted in favour of a motion condemning the House of Lords as "useless and dangerous". 

Oh the irony!  After yesterday in their lordships house, much as I loathe the whole disgusting setup of cronyism, patronage and heredity, it seems that they would be the ones today able to vote with some confidence that the Commons were "useless and dangerous", at least when controlled by the current bunch of egotistical mind-control freaks that call themselves the Labour Party.

There's a new cover version of that popular jingle "Britain 'needs compulsory voting'" out by those wild and crazy dudes at the Institute for Public Policy Research. Backing vocals are provided by Pete "Ha-ha" Hain and Jeff "Ho-ho" Hoon.

But to make a mark in these days of digital media downloads, SMS voting and supermarket sweep the boards it would have to have that something special, and it doesn't. In Ballot Box Jury's "hit or miss" ratings, it gets a resounding "miss". Along with The Truants' version of "We don't need no edgewekashun" and ASBOs "Leave Them Kids Alone" it's always going to fail to sparkle unless some carrot goes with the stick.

To me the carrot in this case has got to be making that vote count for something. Is it any wonder that people lose interest when the voting system means that if you don't predict the (usually) one and only winner correctly you get nothing - nobody to represent your views. And even when you do, you get someone else's choice anyway in the form of a single party candidate.

When in many constituencies and council wards more than half the vote is literally wasted, counting for nothing, and people see little difference between one group of politicians vying for their vote and the next, just forcing them to make up their minds is a recipe for disaster. They even suggest having a "I don't care" box so you wouldn't even have to make up your minds, just tear your minds away from Corrie for half an hour to get down there and do your "civic duty".

No doubt it's another thing they want to add to the National Identity Register in time, and when we're all bar-coded or chipped and pinned or whatever the next stage will be polling station officers will be able to send out little electric shocks to people at five to nine in the evening if they haven't voted yet.

It's clearly policies that count the most though. When we do reach out to a lower than average voting group they do turnout. The Lib Dems have proved this time and again with the student vote. Make the effort and you can lift turnout. Okay, maybe it's not yet the most exciting thing on a student's schedule for the week, but we have turned the corner in many places of student voting apathy.

If you finalise your policies through a focus group intended to be the most bland cross section of everyone in the country round a table of six people, you're not going to produce something to engage everyone - just something that doesn't offend too many.

A couple of years back, Jon Snow, Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University was asked about voter apathy at the end of his Chancellor's lecture. I thought his response was spot on; people are not politically apathetic in the main, they just often channel those energies and opinions in other ways. They didn't see the ballot box necessarily as the way to make their feelings clear about the Iraq war, so they took to the streets in droves. They join Greenpeace or Amnesty. They shamed the government into action last January when they rushed to give their widow's mite to the Tsunami emergency appeal. Strangely, this was just what Peter Hain, in his more enlightened moments said in 2001 - why has he changed his mind?

So, IPPR, if you want to make a difference, perhaps you could have a little think about your initials:

Interesting Policies and Proportional Representation would change peoples' opinion and engage them, not yet more New Labour authoritarian compulsory schemes.

Technorati Tags: electoral reform, politics

Whenever there’s some new planning consultation we are indebted to the CPRE for explaining its supposed consequences.

But I’m slightly confused at what appears an hysterical reaction whatever the Deputy PM’s office says. Which bits of the following do the CPRE disagree with:

That “this…paper discusses how planning delivers housing at the local level, and the new mechanisms involved…not…issues concerned with the overall level of housing growth and how it is determined…” or perhaps the core policy aim “that everyone should have the opportunity of a decent home?”

Do groups such as CPRE and the Green Belt Alliance have policy about the level of need in Oxfordshire and how to meet it? Or doesn’t it matter so long as the land values of their own homes hold up and they have somewhere to walk the gundogs? Is squalor, extortion and overcrowding for some a price worth paying for that? He mentions building for incomers while the available data suggests that 95% of Oxfordshire’s household growth is local demand.

I share their view that Green Belt development is not yet necessary, but at least some propose possible solutions, such as Land Value Tax (NOT Development Land Tax which the government is imposing and will more likely stifle development completely) or Community Land Trusts putting control of development into the hands of local communities.

We only seem to hear the “BANANA” (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) option from such groups. They cannot be completely blind to some need – probably affecting some of their friends, colleagues and families – children whose only “affordable” option seems to become a constituent of Mr Prescott?

This consultation is about promoting planning authorities working together to identify need and plan for it across local housing markets, instead of passing the buck to their neighbours. It may even help places like Oxford actually understand the market so they can look for other ways of responding to need than simply extending the city.

But let’s not let the reality get in the way of a really good piece of scaremongering.