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Hat tip to US Georgist tax researcher "Taxpayer" who highlights that Fred Harrison has made a seven or so minute introduction/video advert for his book "Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam"

If you want to understand a bit about just how unfair a tax system based on incomes is, have a watch, and hopefully buy the book - it goes into a lot more detail and will leave you I am sure convinced of the place of LVT.

Dr Tia MacGregor, who might have been my ward colleague if I were elected last year has ditched her Young Middle Class Assocation membership card and joined the, er, Young Middle Class PartyTories.

As foretold on Tuesday here, she has joined Paul (is-it-a-middle-name-or-some-affectation-I-ought-to-drop-if-I'm-joining-the-party-of-the-aristocracy) "Austin" Sargent, in taking their little "Independent Group" on Oxford City Council under Mr Cameron's wings. For the moment then it's just the two of them and at least they'll get to remain leader and deputy leader, Nanki-Poo and Poo-Bah, or whatever they want to style themselves.

Quoted in the Oxford Mail, Dr MacGregor said: "So far no one has said anything negative, but I am sure there will be people who are not happy with my decision to join the Conservatives when they voted for a Liberal Democrat."

I can now let you into a little secret Tia that most of your former colleagues were too polite to tell you; one reason you've not heard anything negative might be that most of your constituents don't know who you are. I lost count of how many doors I stood at canvassing last year having to mutter excuses for the Lib Dem councillor they never saw, never heard from and didn't know. And of those who did appear to know you, I sincerely doubt many of them would be happy with your decision.

Apparently "they did not quit the council and call a by-election because of the cost to the taxpayer."

What about the cost to the reputation, already at rock bottom, of the democratic system, the cost to the voters who have been thoroughly defrauded by your actions? In what way have your councillors allowances and time been spent representing them when you're no longer in the party they voted for? Googling around I see that District by-elections cost somewhere between £1500 and £3000 per ward in other authorities. Or about a pound per household. Since, Tia, you say that "I am impressed with [Tory] policies and on a personal level their views on the NHS" (which are what, precisely?) if we can raise that amount privately, will you go and seek a second opinion from your constituents?

And how can your new hero Dave say that Gordon Brown will lack a mandate without a General Election while embracing your treachery and refusal to consult the people who put you where you are?

...for members of the Oxford Union to vote tonight in favour of upholding the invitation to neo-nazis David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak next week comes with the news that Des Browne, Dennis McShane and Chris Bryant have said they will boycott future events at the Union if Monday's debate goes ahead with those two participating.

Me, I'm not a member so it's not my decision, and I am in two minds, having caught the bug and objected strongly when Irving was last invited in 2001 and I was on the City Council. On that occasion it was cancelled the night before when it became clear that events outside the union might make the city centre unsafe for ordinary folk going about their lawful business and leisure as Irving's supporters and Anti-Nazi League demonstrators promised to fight it out in the street outside and the police decided that it would be a public order problem.

My preference is for open and free debate - though I suspect that the two main protagonists on Monday do not really share that preference, and in a private member's club it should not be for anyone else to dictate who they have to speak to them. In a private member's club moreover made up of some of the most intelligent people in the land one would expect those members to be as well qualified as anyone to make up their own minds about the views of two of the country's most obnoxious people.

But if it's going to prove again, as I suspect, to be a threat to public order outside the Union, out of earshot from the privileged membership supping with the devils in their hallowed debating chamber and bars, they need to be told and not go ahead.

My hall of residence sits on the side of Headington Hill facing into Oxford city centre. Consequently we can occasionally be "entertained" late into the night by the noise from college balls in town. One such is tonight. I think it's Mansfield College (one of Headington's councillors' alma mater and the other's former employer incidentally).

College balls are supposed to be governed by an agreement with the City Council as licensing authority that, amongst other things, live bands will finish by 1am and all amplified music outdoors will stop at 3am at the latest. It's still going on as I write. I've never seen why, personally, they are permitted outdoors at all. Clubs and so on get licenses till all hours of the night nowadays of course, but they are at least indoors. And whilst the buildings may throb and hum a bit, there are strict limits on decibels audible outside. And though it's not very nice living near one when they chuck out in the early hours, at least the noise is limited to a big rush at tipping out time rather than being continuous for hours at a great distance. It is unconscionable to me that outdoor music that can be heard from miles away is permitted at all into the early hours, especially in a built up area.

What is more shocking though, given the college concerned's history as a place of education for the Wide Dissenters and other non-conformist Christian folk is the choice of music with which they have decided to keep the rest of the city awake. There's been some kind of rap artist (or hip-hop perhaps I don't know the difference and they're both just as bad) on for the last hour yelling obscenities about doing nasty things to one's female parent. Is it any wonder the "bluds in da 'hood" think it's okay to be anti-social?

The nice man from the council is on the case. As the environmental health officer on call tonight to deal with noise nuisances and such things he was not made aware that there was any late night event on tonight, which I find astonishing. I managed to find out through Google whose ball it was and let him know.

Ah - it seems just now to have stopped. And in its place, at 03:50, there are a few rockets being set off somewhere - illegal after 23:00 under the Fireworks regulations passed in 2004 but obviously incapable of being enforced at all. Oh well, maybe now I can get some sleep.

UPDATE: Just got a call from the EHO dealing with it. When he arrived the live "band" was still on and has been pulled off "early". The organisers could not name anyone in licensing that they were liaising with and did not know about the rules agreed for running college balls. These are clearly not working then. It was 800 people, so well above a Temporary Events Notice threshold. And I've found the license issued now.

It seems that you can maybe get away with having very wide ranging general license activities that cover you the rest of the year, and when it comes to your college ball or similar, you maybe just need to get an extension to any bit of it you are not already covered for - in this case the supply of alcohol after 02:00 which is when their usual weekend booze license finishes - they're already covered for live music performances from midnight to midnight Sunday to Saturday! So maybe there is no way of actually controlling these sort of events any longer.

It may be time for college authorities just to tell people to shove off and go hire an indoor venue for these events.

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