The difficulties of achieving profound political changes are discussed in a recent article by Johann Lindvall, Samuel Finer Post-Doctoral Fellow in Comparative Government at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lincoln College. It is titled The Politics of Purpose.

There is good advice here. LVT advocacy needs to take account of the distinction the author makes between first, second and third order political reforms, of which LVT falls into the last and most difficult category. It needs to be thought about.

The Campaign holds to the concept of Land Value Taxation as proposed by Henry George in Progress and Poverty. This is not out of quasi-religious reverence for the words of a great prophet. It is simply that deviation from that concept will lead to failure. At one time, most LVT supporters were familiar with the underlying theory. This seems to be less the case now. Material has been, and continues to be published, based on a poorly understood grasp of what LVT involves and what its implications are. The main effect is to make it more difficult to campaign effectively, especially since opponents operate by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. It does not help, either, to claim support from prominent individuals who also do not grasp the idea. When anyone says, for example, that they are in favour of LVT “as part of a package of taxes”, one can be certain they their understanding is shaky, that they are not reliable supporters, and that in office, they would allow through legislation that was so flawed as to set back the cause for LVT by decades. This was the effect of both the pre-World War 1 legislation and the 1931 Finance Act provision for LVT. Campaigning for LVT requires that those involved in this work are fully conversant with the theory. Classes such as this on-line course are available, there are these evening classes, which offer plenty of opportunity for discussion, and the Henry George Foundation has a programme of meetings and courses in London. The HGF activities are a useful opportunity to meet, talk, and keep our ideas fresh.

The Liberal Democrat LVT group ALTER will be having a fringe meeting at the party's Bournemouth conference on Sunday 14 September.

Without new ideas, the Conservatives are doomed, says John Kampfner in the Daily Telegraph today. At the heart of the problem, he says, is that the centre-Left is running out of ideas. The policy wonks' cupboard is bare. The underlying problem is that economic theory stopped developing in the 1880s, when it had reached the point where the privileges of powerful vested interests would have come under increasing scrutiny. Economists such as Thorold Rogers, Professor of Economics at Oxford University and a Member of Parliament, and of course Henry George, had to be sidelined. This was done by throwing up a smokescreen of bogus theory which still holds sway. The result is that economic theory degenerated to the point that medicine was before scientists understood things like bacteria, viruses, vitamins, etc. In the absence of adequate explanatory theory, think tanks are unable to provide the politicians with the conceptual tools to enable them to understand what is happening and deal with the problems. The result is that the some troubles recur every couple of decades. And the powerful vested interests in the status quo remain. Read the article here

The Halifax Building Society reports that "house prices" were falling at the fastest rate since it started its monthly survey in 1983. This has been widely reported, for example in this Daily Telegraph article.  Elsewhere, comparisons are now being made with the collapse in the 1930s. Of course, what is falling is what had been bubbling up until 2007 - land prices. But nobody seems to have noticed.