Author Archives: Tony Vickers

New book: The Case for a New People’s Budget

By Tony Vickers | Published 18th September 2009 - 6:25 am

To many of us, notably Vince Cable, it has for long been blindingly obvious that the property boom would end – and end in pain for millions around the world.

The scale of the crash may have surprised even most who expected something like it at this time, as borrowing against unsecured ‘bubble’ land values was bound to lead to massive default.

However the Lib Dems’ campaign group on land value taxation (LVT) which I chair, ALTER, believes that the ‘Credit Crunch’ can be turned into a major opportunity for the Party, if it can press home its renewed conviction …

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Posted in Books, Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Opinion: Where for Land Value Tax after conference vote?

By Tony Vickers | Published 27th September 2007 - 3:37 pm

A week after the Lib Dem Conference debate on “Green Tax Switch Mark 2″, how does our tax policy look from an ALTERnate perspective (i.e. not Chris Rennard’s)? Well, I’ve almost sold out of my book’s first printing (would someone like to post a review on Amazon?) and most LVT supporters who were there agree that having Vince Cable claim membership of ALTER and fulsome support for its aims in his summating speech was worth more than any show of hands in the conference hall. [Reminder to self: ask Vince for a sub!]

Even Arnie Gibbons, who until recently used to move away – or mutter most foul – on hearing any discussion at Conference about Land Tax, was quite nice about us. We are accepted in polite circles – well Liberal ones anyway.

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds | 2 Comments

Opinion: Lib Dems must support LVT

By Tony Vickers | Published 12th September 2007 - 7:45 am

I’ve been asked to preview the conclusions and argument for my book Location Matters: Recycling Britain’s Wealth here. If you subscribe to Liberator or Challenge (the Green Lib Dems’ journal) you will get reviews by others of the book before Conference. In the current Challenge you will also see a piece by me about how the Liberal Democrats’ Tax Commission got in such a depressingly non-radical place with Land Value Taxation (LVT) – which is what my book is about.

What I want to do here is explain the conception of the book, its purpose and what I hope happens next. But first, as requested, in a single sentence: conclusions and arguments. If the Liberal Democrats do not go into the next General Election campaign with a pledge to retain some form of nation-wide property tax at the same time as scrapping Council Tax, they will have betrayed their forebears and – more importantly – future generations of British people and will not deserve the support of voters.

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Posted in Books, Conference, Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments