It is my sad duty to inform you that a very good friend of many ALTER activists, Brian Hodgson, died of a heart attack on Saturday. Brian was co-chair with Margaret Godden of the Oxfordshire County Council Land Value Taxation Study Working Group which set up and steered a study in the Vale of White Horse (near Oxford). The report was published in early 2005 and the County Council resolved to recommend a 'full' (i.e. tax-raising) trial of LVT just before the General Election that year, see entry on this site

Unfortunately Brian lost his seat at the county council elections on the same day. Also the Tories gasined overall control of the County and undid all the good work which Labour, Lib Dems and Greens had done for several years on LVT. However Brian continued to be very active in the cause as Chair of Labour's Land Campaign and a member of the Professional Land Reform Group. He and I were in regular and comradely contact.

One of the joys of campaigning on this issue of economic justice is the cross-party friendships one makes. I can only ask you to do what Brian would have wished most from ALTER members: make friendly contact with your own Labour Party acquaintances and ask them to work on Gordon Brown from inside his own party.