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Congratulations.

If any of the naysayers come across to Rome I may have to leave. One arrogant Messianic prick was nearly enough to make me leave.

I don't normally watch the "One Show" but I forgot to turn over today and Andrew Neill is on giving his take on the budget. I loved this one line in particular:

"This is a good budget for the Colombian Medellin Cartel"

He is right when he says that an ecstasy pill is now cheaper than a pint and a line of coke cheaper than an alcopop, and probably right that trying to attack binge drinking by increasing the cost will simply mean the real bingers take more pills or lines instead.

For me, cheaper alcohol simply means that when I do drink, which is not often, I can get a better quality of wine for the same money. Why should I be penalized?

Tough liberalism is what we need.

I have no particular beef with this. However, it is interesting to note that one of the classic demonstrations of the effects of such policy on Ricardian land rents is the story of London Bridge tolls.

Way back, when I don;t know, but since it is quoted by Churchill in 1909 I guess in the nineteenth century, London Bridge was a toll bridge. The least well off workers in the City of London mostly lived in poor Southwark and had to pay the tolls to get to and from work. The Southwark parish charities complained that they had to dispense such a dole in the area because the pay in the city and the tolls did not leave the workers enough to live on.

So the government lifted the tolls. Everyone was happy. For a short while. Then the parish charities noticed that the dole they were handing out rose again to the same levels seen while the bridge tolls were in place. What had happened? The city workers were being paid the same and now had one less cost to worry about. Yet they were just as poor.

It was found that the rents in Southwark had risen by about the same amount as the bridge tolls had once taken.

Forth Bridges Dark Skies
Originally uploaded by Duncan_Smith

So, when the BBC reports that:

The Scottish Parliament's transport committee has backed the Scottish National Party's policy of abolishing tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges.
In a report, the committee is expected to highlight that the cost will be £16m a year in lost revenue.

Isn't it a good job that the Scottish Parliament are looking elsewhere at Land Value Tax rather than see this public money feed directly through into a subsidy to landowners in Fife?