ALTER AT GLASGOW

For the Lib Dems' main annual conference this week, Glasgow will be a new venue for almost everyone. ALTER's fringe is on Saturday (14th) lunch-time - before most delegates will have got themselves orientated. However the timing and the format - a showing of the new video The Taxing Question of Land, with discussion afterwards led by Dr Vince Cable - means that a capacity audience of 150 is expected: there are only 3 other competing events in the conference centre over lunch (SECC / Leven).

At the Launch of the video last Tuesday, at the prestigious RSA in London, a packed invitation-only audience heard Vince Cable comment afterwards (as a valued Panel member) on the fragility of the current tax system, the housing crisis, the need for sustainable funding for infrastructure, and the political difficulties around using LVT to radically reform fiscal policy.

The video includes interviews with a former Tory MP, the Green Party's economics adviser and a Labour London Assembly Member. The Institute of Fiscal Studies' Director Paul Johnson is effusive in support of LVT, as is a leading development consultant Jeremy Edge.

We recommend you view the video before going to Glasgow if possible. If you cannot be at Conference, please also view it - and post your comments on the U-Tube site.

As one of only four of the many "Executive Producers" who was involved in the video from inception to launch, I was told by the sponsors only to comment on factual accuracy and not format or presentation. The 'talking heads' and 'moving type' techniques used by Director / Producer Yoni Smith are not everyone's 'cup of tea' but judging by the reception at the Launch (over a quarter of attendees said they were made more supportive of LVT by it, almost none less so) it does what we want: reach a new audience effectively.

The ALTER fringe will set the scene for a Conference in which tax is likely to form one of the main media headlines. ALTER aims to put LVT up there as a key plank of Lib Dem tax reform.