Back and bloggin'

Internet access in the hotel cost £3 for half an hour and the connection was a bit on the slo-o-ow side hence no posts for last three days.

Although I genuinely dislike public speaking and had to re-write the final draft of the speech in the last hour before we were due to go on following the umpteenth change of mind, I must say it seems to have gone down well - at least a dozen people came up to thank me for explaining why the current system is so awful and how a CBI-style scheme would be infinitely preferable.

I even allowed myself an unscripted flourish at the end - rather than just leave it hanging in the air, I said something along the lines of "Yes - there will be winners and losers from the changes we are proposing, but the Welfare State is like a big ship that has been heading in the wrong direction for thirty years. It might take ten years for our system to end the culture of welfare dependency but the sooner we start the better."

I wasn't counting but I am sure that I got a fair few rounds of applause during a ten minute speech.

"Bournemouth makes waves with surf plan"

Here's a fine example of a council using land values to fund infrastructure,* as mooted by Tim Leunig.

TL's idea was much derided by some of the Land Value Taxers: this is a step in the right direction, but seeing as the artificial surf reef, assuming it works, will benefit most existing land-owners in the vicinity, why not finance the reef with LVT on land that already has planning permission? And if the reef doesn't work, there's no uplift to land values ergo local landowners won't have to pay extra. Win-win. Unless you hate surfers, of course.

*"the outlay is being entirely covered by the sale of land nearby for flats".