AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Haninge Originally uploaded by seadipper . A bus-train interchange on the edge of Stockholm. Just like Britain, and the local paper has a report about schoolchildren behaving like Mafia gangsters. All the same it is not quite as untidy and run down. And where are the chavs? And the fat people? And the litter? And the chewing gum bits on the ground? And that wall doesn't even have any graffitti. And what has happened to all the signs, warning notices, adverts and railings? And puddles and broken pavings? They must try harder if it is really going to remind me of Britain.

The British government gives foreign nationals really good tax breaks to attract them to live in the country. Last week the newspapers were runnings shock-horror stories about how these people were driving up the price of houses in London and pushing them beyond the reach of ordinary people. Worse still, it was reported that they are leaving them empty and helping to make the shortage worse. There was nothing surprising about any of that. What was depressing was the poor quality of the analysis in the newpapers and the failure of any of the commentators to put forward the solution to the problem. The government is quite right to give tax breaks to foreign nationals. In fact, it should give them to everyone, not just foreigners, so they everyone gets to keep everything they earn. But where then would the government get its revenue from? The answer is simple. It should tax land, based on its market value - an annual rental value assessed on market evidence. The super-rich do not normally...

I sailed away on the ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg last Thursday night and now I am in Sweden for an indefinite period - I will think about coming back later in the year. I am missing friends and our nice sea, but otherwise I feel no great urge to be in Britain. It is no longer the country I grew up in and I just can't think of it as home any more. Wireless internet links in hotels and other places can be a bit erratic so I have been off the air for most of the time.

Westminster Cathedral Originally uploaded by seadipper . This is Westminster Cathedral, the venue for the performance of a new piece of music by John Taverner, based on Islamic teaching. This is surely not the place for it? The name of the Christian God is Jesus. In Hebrew, this is Yehoshua, meaning "He will save". And the Christian God is Trinitarian - Father, Son and Holy Sprit. Like this. Which means that God is not a remote and purely spiritual entity but engages in the ordinary physical world we inhabit, and pays the price of that engagement.

I am pleased to see there are additional trains on order for Southern. I am less pleased to see they are more of the same. The Electrostar is essentially a 20 year old design based on the 1980s Networker. Whilst in many ways it has now settled down there are a lot of problematic and unaddressed features, as I pointed out recently in an article in Rail Professional. I would have thought it was in everyone's interest to have a mark 2 Electrostar. (1) Ride quality. This is dreadful. The problem is probably due to insufficient inter-vehicular damping. (2) Location of doors - for the services the stock is used on these should go to the ends as in class 444 used on South West Trains. Railway managers have a prejudice against this configuration as the believe it takes longer to load and unload passengers, but this based on comparison with end-door stock all of which has a bottleneck inside the doorway so the comparison is not like with like. This could achieve some weight saving also. (3)...

A friend of mine from my local church showed me a leaflet from an organisation called "Tradition, Family, Property". If you like to pigeonhole things, you would put it in the right-wing reactionary box. But what seems reactionary is not always so. The pamphlet puts the orthodox line and is very much in the tradition of G K Chesterton, which is unsurprising since it presumably draws on the same sources in Catholic Social Teaching. However, whoever wrote the pamphlet, which one must assume is a reflection of the organisation's view, has left themselves open with a logical inconsistency. There is a paragraph on Property which is contractictory both with itself and with Catholic Social Teaching. The first three statements are obvious and straightforward; "Property is a human right”; "Man is a free individual entitled to the fruits of his labour”; and “It is indispensable for the well being of the family”. Then it seems to go astray, and anyone familiar with Chestert...

This is what so upset the Independent -------------------------------- "Today’s Gospel follows Our Lady. She has just learned that she is to be the mother of the messiah and that her cousin Elizabeth is also to become a mother. Mary, whose whole future had been transformed in the Annunciation, is so moved at the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy that she immediately sets out for the town of Judah. The meeting of the two women is an event of great joy. What lessons can we learn from that scene? We see the affirmation of the immense value of life from its very conception. The redeemer in the womb unites himself with all of humanity. By becoming incarnate in the womb of Mary, God raises to a new level the greatness of every human life. The joy of that meeting holds out to us the message of delight that should accompany every pregnancy. With every life conceived God acts directly to create a new and unique human being, a person destined to life everlasting. Sadly, joy is not always the do...

The front page of yesterday's Independent carried an article attacking Cardinal O'Brien for his anti-abortion stance, following a homily in Edinburgh on 31 May. The article is titled ironically "The man who wants to lead a sensible debate on abortion" The Cardinal had likened abortion to the killing of a classroom of children every day. Elsewhere in the Independent, the Cardinal's comments were held up as a warning showing how the Religious Right was on the march against progressive forces. What I find strange is why the rights movement has latched onto abortion as a progressive issue. The whole notion of easy abortion seems to me a denial of human rights, not only those of the unborn child but also those of the mother-to-be. One would have expected upholders of human rights to be applauding the Cardinal. It's a funny old world.

"Why should people who improve their homes with conservatories, patios and nice gardens be penalised?" This was an editorial comment in the Daily Express earlier this week, which ran several articles on the subject, describing how a photographs were being used to compile a database for Council Tax valuations. The Daily Mail takes a similar view. Why indeed? But this snooping remains essential to get the Council Tax to work as intended. The only way to get rid of the snooping is reform of the tax, replacing it with a property tax must be confined to the rental value of land alone, and ignoring whatever buildings or other improvements on that land. This is perfectly feasible and would avoid punishing people who make improvements to their homes and gardens. It would be cheaper to run and there would be no more need for snooping. So why don't these newspapers run with the idea, which would benefit most of the who read them?