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Just a link really - in case you missed it Adam Sampson, Chief Executive of Shelter, writes in the Guardian today on the undesirability of perpetuating the myth that home ownership is wealth generating and calls for more tax on property rather than less, including land value taxes:

Adam Sampson: The price of house mania

...What we have is a classic disjunction between two policies, housing and taxation. Promoting affordable housing means making it more difficult to gain wealth by investment in home ownership. It means increasing taxation on the increase in the capital value of homes, not reducing it. It means reviewing the council tax system or examining the possibility of a land tax. It means using inheritance tax to reduce the growing wealth divide.

And this goes far beyond mere policy. Home ownership is driving a return to wealth disparities that we have not seen since the Victorian era. Whereas the space that rich people occupy is increasing, the poor are living more cramped lives. And the rise in house prices is reducing social and geographical mobility, with people far less able to move from the north to the south or from poorer areas to richer ones...

I had to roll one up just to steel myself to read this: University announces smoking ban

Newcastle University is banning smoking anywhere on its campus from next year.

Staff and students are being warned if they want to smoke after 1 January 2007, they will have to leave the university site - not just buildings.

Now, I don't know Newcastle University at all. I presume it's a city centre type affair where it won't be too much of an inconvenience to step onto the public highway (until smoking is also banned there of course). Though I know they have an agriculture department and the policy applies on the university's farms which probably will mean a long walk to the roadside.

But no doubt this will come to us all eventually. Here at Brookes we have a policy that says not only is there no smoking in the university buildings, but also, in theory, not within five meters of outside doors or windows.

I am a good smoker. I always stub my cigarettes out and put the butts in a bin, if there isn't an ashtray. I can't stand the habit of just chucking it on the floor as you get to the door - often not even stamping it out - that seems to go on a lot around here.

And I always stand the requisite five meters from buildings if at all possible. The nearest spot to my office has a huge plane tree that provides as good cover as any umbrella or bike shed for most of the year, but elsewhere you can usually find some eaves or something to stand under that don't infringe the five meter rule. But I have to say that from watching other smokers I am if not the only one, in a tiny minority that give more than one hoot about people coming and going at entrances or working in offices with not terribly well fitting windows that always let in a little unpleasant whiff if someone's smoking outside.

So, fellow smokers, especially those here at Brookes, the only way in my opinion to delay this fascist onslaught is to abide by the quite reasonable rules we already have. Mind you, the university could take greater steps to ensure people know what those rules are. At the moment it is up to occupants of offices for example to print off a little petulant looking poster and stick it in their window. It doesn't look terribly official and it looks like the occupants are being a bit petty if you don't already know the rule.

But maybe the attitude is "why spend any money publicising the rule when we could spend the same simply banning smoking on site altogether".

Let's hope they don't want to extend it to one's own space in halls of residence.

So I figured I would restart blogging with some feedback on what turned out to be an excellent South Central Regional Liberal Democrats' conference on Saturday here at Oxford Brookes University. Given that I see the place every day my motivation to get there in time for nine-thirty speeches on a Saturday morning was not great, and I actually arrived a few minutes into the first keynote speech by Evan Harris.

Some in the party and elsewhere give Evan a hard time I hear, but I have a lot of time for him. I get the impression he works his proverbials off in his constituency and has a penchant for minority interests which suits me. But listening to him on Saturday and then later hearing Vince Cable they between them seem to epitomize what one might call the "old" Lib Dems - leftist, statist, more interventionist - and the "emerging" Lib Dems - more liberal in every sense.

Evan restated his support for the fifty pence tax rate and bemoaned the federal conference at which it was removed from party policy, Vince emphasized that the new tax policy, trying to focus, as Churchill said, on not just "how much have you got" but also on "how did you get it", was in fact the most redistributive set of tax policies on the table from any party.

Harris's main point, as I understand it, was that the fifty pence tax rate sent a signal, even if it did not in fact promise to raise terribly much, that we were prepared to take more from the highest earners if need be to lift the poorest out poverty. It is a simple message to be sure, and easier to communicate than the "new" idea that we should be more carefully targeting tax on externalities and unearned privilege, but not one that adds to the progressiveness of the overall tax system one iota.

But Evan is exactly the sort of person we want to attract to our book the ALTER executive are putting together to launch centenary celebrations of the 1909 People's Budget. We want to show him how rigourously applying what we have been calling the "liberal economic tradition" will in fact raise the lot of the poorest by increasing the returns to labour, by rooting out corporate welfare, and by allowing genuine competition to bring down the cost and increase the quality of all sorts of goods and services some take for granted are best delivered by the state. In short that there need be no dichotomy between "social" and "economic" liberalism.

It's sounding increasingly likely that there will be only two or maybe three candidates for the Lib Dem leadership election. The Guardian is reporting that despite having secured verbal support from enough MPs to allow him to stand, Steve Webb is likely later today to rule himself out. This leaves, at the last count, just Chris Huhne, Nick Clegg and probably John Hemming prepared to join battle.

Now, it's not because my loyalty to Chris is in question, but I do believe this is bad for party democracy and was a big part of the questioning of the leadership of Ming over the past 18 months. It is true that the far too short timetable mitigates against a broad based debate and one has to question why FedEx made such a peremptory decision - worries about an attempt at a "coronation" spring to mind.

We have consistently positioned ourselves as the party of plurality and our voting system creates ample opportunity for people to prioritise from a wide field and shift our choices in a a multitude of different ways, but this only works with a decently large field to choose from. Which is why I much favoured the 1999 leadership election to the 2006 one. And why, despite not giving Charles any preference on the ballot I had a greater feeling then that he was the choice of the party as a whole than I ever did with Ming.

C'mon, more than two/three of you must have something to say about the future of our party and policy and the confidence to say it?

If you whittle it down to two or three before the membership has a say, are we any better than the Tories? At least the Tories had ballots amongst the MPs so we could all see which way support was shifting - you're all likely to stitch up the ballot paper in complete secrecy. And in the process, you give the lie to the notion that we are about devolution and local choice, and instead will have shown that as Westminster insiders believe you are above everyone else.

I am sure, for example, that those who have called on Steve Webb to stand would have different opinions about who to vote for as second choice to Steve, yet effectively Steve makes that choice for them if he "throws in his lot with Nick Clegg" as the Guardian are suggesting.

So, MPs, if any of you feel you have something, anything, to say on policy areas or party direction and priorities that might not be said by just two or three runners with their own priorities, please throw your hat into the ring so those ideas can get an airing, can prompt those who might win to take them into account, and give us a leadership that has assimilated the opinions and preferences of the whole membership. We might like the "Two Horse Race" for town hall seats up and down the country, but it is not appropriate here!

And those who don't want to stand in any event, you are the ones that can make or break this since every candidate needs seven of you to support them; please consider nominating outsiders if they ask. The last thing we want in my opinion is a race dominated by two people with twenty odd MPs backing them and none left over for anyone else to stand. We had what, 46 MPs when Charles was elected, and six candidates whittled down to five. Now we have 63 MPs, I'm sure more than two of you would like to have a say.

We complain that two party democracy is bad for the nation. I contend that a two candidate leadership ballot is likely just as bad for the party.