We do not have a view on what electoral system the UK should adopt but the way the issue is being handled is telling. It is becoming apparent that there are several alternative PR systems, each with advantages and disadvantages. In the circumstances, there is a good case for the election to be a two-stage process so that people have the opportunity to choose between the different options. Instead, it looks as if we are going to be presented with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. Oh well.

These car ferries are free. They must cost a fortune to run. To whose benefit? Answer must be not more than one word long. Fortunately some of the value is captured by LVT but not as much as might be. The trouble is that other taxes are so high that they cut heavily into land values. The amount that can be usefully be raised is much less than would otherwise be the case. Still, you don't often see vacant sites in city centres, so it is obviously working.

In a discussion set up by a Marxist apologist, a neo-Libertarian asked, 'How is robbing Peter to pay Paul just because Paul is paid a pittance for the useless rubber ducks he make, considered "justice"? '

To answer this one, it is necessary to examine the assumptions behind this question.

It is necessary only to read or read about Marx to the point that one realises that he fails even to define his terms with adequate precision or to map them to the economic process. Having identified what is wrong with his fundamental assumptions, it really is not worth wading through hundreds of pages of his turgid text.

As a Catholic coming from a country where the Catholic church leads a hand-to-mouth existence, it came as a slight suprise to me to read here that the Italian Catholic church has been involved in a scandal involving the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the Vatican congregation that uses proceeds from a property empire including 2,000 Rome apartments to fund missionary efforts.

It is not actually the scandal that worries me, since these things happen. More disturbing is the fact that missionary activities are funded in this way at all. It is entirely contrary to scripture, the model for this being set out in chapter 10 of St Luke's Gospel.