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Cameron, Hesseltine and Liverpool

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[INDENT]"he [Cameron] also reveals Michael Hesseltine will be advising him whether a Conservative Government should fund Merseytram. [leaving his mansion for a while]"[/INDENT]Extract from Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam by economist Fred Harrison ..........[INDENT]In the 1980s Hesseltine led the Thatcher government's attempt to deal with the aftermath of the Toxteth riots. Hesseltine decide that inner-cities should be rehabilitated. Within a mile of Liverpool's city centre and Toxteth were 1,000 acres of of abandoned industrial wasteland. In London 6,000 of abandoned acres were in Docklands.

His twofold solution:

[LIST=1][*][B]Invest taxpayers' money in infrastructure to attract private enterprise.[/B] This delivered windfall gains to owners of adjoining land and raised the cost of rented accommodation to low income families.[*][B]Exempt real estate from property tax.[/B] This attracted warehouse type of investment with low labour content to areas of high unemployment - of little help to the marginalised dwellers of the decaying hearts of Liverpool and London.[/LIST]
Hesseltine did not understand that private landowners were as responsible for the dereliction which he observed as was 'the large-scale hoarding of land in the public sector'. When he was escorted back to Liverpool in 2006 by Cameron, it appeared that a future Tory government would repeat the mistakes of the Thatcher years. Hesseltine commended investment in capital-intense infrastructure that would make their assets highly valuable.
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The Thatcher government decided in 1980 that London's Docklands should be redeveloped. Its primary tool stood justice on its head. Instead of imposing public charge on vacant land - to force it into new uses [this also stops land speculating] - the government created an enterprise zone. One of the privileges was exemption from property taxation.

The result was predictable. Tax relief was capitalised into higher land values, and families which for generations had made Docklands their homes were pressurised out of the area. Those who did not own land were the losers. The windfall gains did enrich some people. Arnold Fulton purchased a plot of land in a derelict corner of Docklands for £650,000. Developers pursued him fending off their offers until he took £30 million.[/INDENT]Public money funded 1/3 of London's Docklands which is basically a new city with a new metro system of over 30 stations. This could have been paid for by taxing the values of the vast acreage of land. [U]The rich ran away with the lolly yet again.[/U] Land Value Taxation was used in Sydney to assist in funding the 2000 Olympics.

700,000 homes were vacant in the UK, 200,000 in London, because of land hoarding by speculators - mainly private but some public bodies. I live in a block of 156 flats. 8 are not lived in, and have not been for 5 or 6 years. If empty Council Tax is just a token. Instigate Land Value taxation and they will soon sell, redevelop, or let, as occurred in Pittsburgh and Sydney.

Every time large amount of public money is spent, private individuals or companies run off with many, many millions.

[URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ricardos-Law-House-Prices-Clawback/dp/0856832413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263167743&sr=8-1"] Ricardo's Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam by Fred Harrison [/URL]

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