It's not easy stopping P

There is little that need be said about the crackdown on P purchasers and suppliers that hasn’t been said before. Many users of P may be nihilistic and destroying themselves, and causing heartache for those who love them or depend on them, but criminalising them and the suppliers of what they seek will not change that.

Legalising P is the long term answer, but in advance of that much else needs to be done, in order that people become responsible for their own actions, and suppliers having to consider product liability. However, as there are already links on this I’d like to suggest something else that is more important, and nothing directly to do with politics.

Culture.

Most people take illicit drugs because they make them feel better, feel good. It is for pleasure. That, in itself, is not necessarily bad. However, it is clear that excessive use is about something else, escaping reality.

Whilst escaping reality is seen as a legitimate way to cope with overwhelming emotions, it is hardly a solution. Regular use of P helps people escape reality, with the logical consequences of abandoning reason – self destruction.

The decline through the 1950s to 1970s of the Christian-oriented basis for how many people saw life and existence saw holes filled with a range of philosophies. One of those was a nihilistic approach to life “there is no point”, “nothing means anything” etc. A destructive attitude that sees the only point to life the immediate satisfaction of pleasure, with the inevitable need for more of the same, greater, faster, longer, bigger, until ultimately you wake up from it all needing to eat, wash and find money so you have somewhere to live and pay for all of it. Whereas people once found solace in religion to cope with grief, relationship stresses, anxieties and the trials of life, some found solace in escaping it all.

None of this is new of course. Alcohol has a long history of supplying such escapism, but P has a completely different level of intensity. The problems attributed to both have the same source – philosophy.

The answer is to have a personal philosophy of embracing life, applying reason and enjoying existence for what it is. Enjoying your potential in whatever fields you get passionate for, whether business, the arts, sport, science, travel, social activities or anything else. For reality can be a pleasure of the senses, and a reason to live. The point to your life being to live it, enjoy it and share it if you wish with whoever shares your vision and values. The only limits being reality and respecting the same rights in others.

If the dominant cultural meme was like this, the prevalence of escaping reality would reduce, and then people would focus on assisting loved ones or others who needed help through difficult times. Criminalising those seeking to escape reality is likely to increase their willingness to escape reality. Making people responsible for their actions, through the health care system, welfare reform, criminal justice system and reform of ACC/tort law would be a step along the way to addressing it. These are all ways drug users escape the reality of any consequences of their actions (and indeed everyone else).

It is clear the status quo has both failed and is immoral. National is perpetuating it in the vain hope it will make a substantive difference, when the main effect will be to inconvenience people with cold and flu symptoms, and to harass tourists bringing in now restricted medications.

Meanwhile, guess how many pharmacies will have such medications in short supply by the end of the week?

Bono appears at Tory conference

After years of ingratiating himself with the Blair/Brown regime, Bono decides if the electorate likes the Tories "I will follow". In the hope that with David Cameron two hearts beat as one on aid, he wants to save people living in cities where the streets have no name. You see talking about helping Africa, spending other people's money to help Africa is even better than the real thing to him. Bono believes sometimes you can't make it on your own, so he needs the support of the incoming government to continue his campaign (yes I know, enough of the song "humour").

Sadly he undoubtedly will get vertigo if he actually learns about the problems of Africa, how much it is to do with poor governance, a lack of individual right protection and property rights, how much the protectionism of the EU on agriculture impoverishes, and how the solution to Africa's problems is to look at other continents that are far more prosperous and see that it's about capitalism, it's about government that protects rights and is impartial.

So Bono asking that the UK government spend 0.7% of national GDP on aid, is not just morally dubious, it simply wont work. It is good money after bad. Aid has made Africa addicted to other people's money, addicted to the notion that its problems can be solved if only other people wiped debt and paid it more money. It's simply wrong.

Bono has good intentions, I don't doubt that, but he needs to understand that the causes of Africa's relative poverty are multifaceted, and perhaps the biggest external limit on Africa is trade policy. If he embraced free and open trade he'd be embracing trading out of poverty. However, beyond that Africa needs good small government, it needs a culture of respecting individual rights and rejecting mysticism, tribalism and socialism. It needs the rest of the world to stop providing any form of comfort and support to the gangsters who run too much of that continent.

Who is the thief?

Let's say the mafia strongarms money out of you and your business regularly, say it does so to "protect" you, but is not very good at it.

Let's say your much bigger neighbour finds ways to evade the mafia strongarming so much money out of his business, quite successfully.

Then is the fact the mafia got less money from your neighbour, because your neighbour hid its money in clever ways, means your neighbour has effectively stolen from you (because the mafia might have taken less had it had what it thought it should have got from your neighbour)?

Just a way of looking at this.

In rebuttal to this.

No service means no subsidy

Again, rare for me to agree with Idiot Savant, but whilst NZ Bus services are suspended due to strike action, it shouldn't be getting subsidies for services not being provided.

Funny how the ARC Chair Mike Lee is pointing this out, but admitting that ARTA, which is a branch of the ARC, is still doing it.

Does he not realise how this strengthens the case for the abolition of the ARC?

Indeed it strengthens the case for abolishing bus subsidies. I'm neutral on the industrial dispute. That is between two groups of people negotiating payment and conditions for the provision of services.

However, part of the leverage in that dispute is that NZ Bus loses fare revenue when services are not provided. Yet, when it gets subsidies of, on average, $2 a passenger trip from ARTA, regardless of whether services are provided, then the main losers are Auckland ratepayers (who pay 60% of that subsidy) and motorists/commercial road transport operators (who pay 40% of the subsidy through fuel tax and RUC). It used to be that around half of all bus services in Auckland were fully commercial, in that fares more than covered costs and that the market was open to competition.

Now the proportion is much less, I have heard an estimate of around 20%, but it isn't clear. ARTA has "contracted over" commercial routes, so that one subsidised operator is paid to provide a set of routes. This effectively shuts out competition, which ARTA can prohibit if it undermines a contracted service.

Now, if NZ Bus relied wholly on fare revenue it might seek a settlement more quickly, as the business would be dependent wholly on pleasing customers, not a bunch of transport planners.

Daily Telegraph headlines this morning

Gay man 'tried to poison lesbian neighbours over three-legged cat feud'

Female predator pedophile stalked public lavatories

The pill gives women a taste for boyish men like Zac Effron

German banker used fake documents to work as a surgeon

Get the sense that Britain really IS about tabloid headlines?

French Minister of Pedarasty?

So you defend Roman Polanski.

Then someone reads your biography from four years ago where you say:

"I got into the habit of paying for boys . . . The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide"

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously ... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

Let it be clear the age of these boys is not clear, they may be legal age.

However, it is a big oops.

He COULD come out and say the boys were legal age, I have no shame about exploiting prostitutes from developing countries who consented and were (young) adults (!). There is no proof he has broken any laws.

However defending Polanski does not make for a good look. Polanski no doubt was excited enormously and was in a state of desire, so he drugged and raped a young girl.

It is THAT that denies his moral authority for certain, whether his rapacious hedonism also does so is something we may not ever know.

TVNZ is not a Taonga

Brian Rudman is sad that TVNZ is to broadcast programming of a wide appeal, which he describes as "lowest common denominator pap". He ignores, like all of the elitist snobs in the cultural subsidy industry, that the very people he claims to give a damn about - the poor, the less well educated, the needy - are in fact the broad mass of people who like what he calls "lowest common denominator pap". They are, the lowest common denominators. Those celebrated by the left are also sneered at, for their cultural (lack of) taste, in preferring cheaply made entertainment to local content, American sitcoms to documentaries about the union movement in the 1950s.

They wont admit it, but the overwhelming attitude is supremely condescending, like a ruling elite intellectual class that knows what's best for those poor unfortunate souls that capitalism has rendered victims of its heartless system. Woe is they who must watch TV of such low brow that we must tax them and force them to pay for what is good for them.

To fix the appalling choices of the proletariat, Brian Rudman calling for TVNZ to get special taxpayer money for New Zealand programming (which is also a breach of CER and a breach of New Zealand's GATS commitments). He thinks TVNZ is a treasure and harks back to better days at TVNZ, when it had programming he liked.

He is right that news and current affairs were better, but not by much of course. He then misrepresents considerably the TV licence fee, which ceased directly funding TVNZ in the 1980s, as NZ On Air was created and the licence fee was used to fund programming to all broadcasters on a case by case basis. Indeed all of the licence fee money was replaced by taxpayer funding when it was abolished in 1999, much to the chagrin of those who wanted rid of NZ On Air altogether. The statement "Government was supposed to make up the $100 a household licence fee but that never eventuated." is dead wrong.

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage, which has a demonstrable vested interest in maintaining and expanding this role, said "Important parts of our cultural life would simply not be present without intelligent intervention from the government."

Important to whom? People unwilling to pay for it? The suppliers who couldn't get people to pay for what they provide if given the choice?

Public broadcasting makes cultural elitists feel good, and the left like it for providing more in depth news and current affairs that inevitably has a statist bias. Why? Because by being forcibly funded by the state, such a broadcaster can find it difficult to build a culture to challenge the role of the state in that and other arenas. How CAN you question state funding of businesses, health, education, welfare and the like if YOU are a beneficiary of it?

Public broadcasting becomes a creature of the status quo and an advocate of statist solutions. How often on Radio NZ do you hear someone arguing for less government against one arguing for more government, rather than 3 all talking about different ways of having more government to resolve an issue of the day?

No. TVNZ is not a Taonga. TVNZ is a commercial broadcaster that seeks to maximise audiences, it is no more special than TV3. The fact it thinks it is, is a good reason to shut it down.

Maori TV offended - so what?

I didn't see the TV3 sketch obviously, I don't care whether I did or didn't, but notwithstanding that TV3 should have a right to free speech. It is privately owned, you don't have to pay for it or watch it. If its customers are offended then they can pull advertising if they wish.

There is no right to not be offended. It doesn't matter if you didn't find it funny.

In a free country nobody else is required to please you.

After all, the Maori Television Service is highly offensive to those who don't want to be forced to pay for any TV channels. I have never considered TVNZ to be anything to do with my values or my culture, for example.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is increasingly anachronistic when anyone can easily obtain video and audio content from across the world via the Internet, not that international broadcasting is new. It is time to wind it up, and for people, parents especially, to be reminded that:
1. Owning a TV is voluntary. I know of at least two families who deliberately do NOT.
2. Turning the TV on is voluntary, and you can turn it off too.
3. What is broadcast by television is the choice of the broadcaster. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
4. Unless a broadcasting is inciting commission of an actual crime, the broadcaster is party to a crime, engaging in defamation of an individual or breaching copyright, there should be no legal remedies against it.

So next time TV3 offends you, turn it off. Next time Maori TV offends you, turn it off.

Shame you can't stop paying the state when it offends you.

Helen sends UNDP back into North Korea

Despite a major report outlining questionable UNDP practices in North Korea before (such as hiring North Korean staff selected by the regime for sensitive job positions), the UNDP is back.

UNDP Watch notes:

The regime employees filled such critical jobs as UNDP finance officer; program officer slots that helped to design and oversee UNDP projects in the country; technology officer, who maintained all of UNDP’s internal and external communications and servers; and even the assistant to the head of the UNDP office, who presumably was in a position to see much, if not all, of the boss’ paperwork.

The staff were paid in US$, and the capacity for fraud and diversion of aid for political purposes was enormous. $9.13 million was paid directly from UNDP to North Korean government agencies for projects approved by UNDP.

Who says the UNDP is back? Well the Korean Central News Agency. All other reports rely on that coverage. So who knows how true it is.

The Heritage Foundation is outraged for a very good reason. In a totalitarian state, any aid given is approved by the regime and benefits it. The regime's top priorities are:
- The tightly knit senior leadership surrounding Kim Jong Il and his non-estranged family;
- The military and secret police; and
- High ranking party members.

By NO means can money or aid going to North Korea that is used by its own government agencies ever be verified as having delivered assistance to those in need. It would be like funding Concentration Camp commanders to assist their captives.

So how is Helen Clark justifying this? Or is it just plus ça change... ?

I'm sure the New Zealand mainstream media are working hard to investigate this one, like they did before entered the role.

Pictures from a nearly car free society

The Times has a new photo-gallery of, where else?

(and yes it is a trolley bus not a tram)

Police accountability

I'm astonished that I'm going to agree with both David Garrett and Idiot Savant, but maybe there is a bit a belief in individual rights that can be nurtured?

Garrett describes a case as follows "Last month, while attending a call-out in Khandallah, police used force against a teenager they mistook for a gatecrasher at an out-of-control party. During the incident, the teenager suffered broken vertebrae in his neck after being struck with a baton. When he asked for the officer's badge number, he was told to 'eff off' – in direct contradiction of long-standing and established police guidelines"

Idiot Savant, beyond some cheap nastiness about Garrett caring about "rich kids", agrees. The question I would have is whether both men can ever possibly be consistent on this. Garrett after all has little history about caring about individual rights, Idiot Savant of course thoroughly embraces the thieving leviathan of a socialist state.

The fundamental problem with the Police, as I have described before, is that the separation of powers between the law enforcement, judiciary and legislative arms of the state means that the Police believe themselves to BE the law, and not accountable to those who pay for them, but most of all that their attitude to civilians - you're a suspect until we're satisfied otherwise- just wont do. The Police attitude to criminal justice policy is telling.

The Police exist as an extension of our own rights to self defence, they are paid for that purpose. When they turn on people without warning they are going completely against that.

Both myself and Trevor Loudon have presented options for Police reform. It would be good if some government would consider them.

Nanny Tories to tax alcohol more

Why be surprised? It is in the school prefect, oh "the working classes as so incompetent we must save them" holier than though attitude that the party sadly personifies too often.

You see the problem isn't the drinkers, it is apparently those who sell to the drinkers. Well you shall not do that, of course young bankers who get bladdered on champagne wont be affected, after all drunk upper class people are just funny aren't they?

Nice cheap way to excuse not focusing the criminal justice system on real offenders.

Tories announce cuts

Conservative Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, presented his plan to cut spending to eliminate the budget deficit at the Conservatice Party conference. Is it bold? No. Is it acceptable? Just. Is it enough? Not by a long shot.

His ideas are:
- One year pay freeze on all state sector employees earning more than £18k a year, excluding the Armed Forces (this includes teachers, doctors and the police);
- £50k cap on pension payments for state sector employees;
- Reducing "size of the Whitehall bureaucracy" by a third;
- Abolition of "baby bonds" and welfare tax credits for those earning over £50.
- Increase state pension age to 66 from 2016 (for men);
- NOT to abolish the forthcoming 50p tax rate on earnings over £150k;
- Increase inheritance tax allowance to £1m.

To be fair he laid it into Gordon Brown saying:

“The Iron Chancellor has turned into the plastic Prime Minister. Free social care. Free hospital parking. Free child care places. We would all like those things. But where is the money coming from? He is treating the British people like fools,”

Quite right, but whilst this is a start, I still think far more can be done as I outlined before:
1. Abolish all corporate welfare, stop trying to pick winners;
2. Lead a call to cut the EU budget at Brussels;
3. Sell Channel 4, Royal Mail and the tolled bridges/tunnels of the highway network;
4. Cancel plans for a high speed railway, no new taxpayer spending on rail infrastructure;
5. Scrap the ID card scheme;
6. Scrap a wide range of government IT projects;
7. Scrap subsidising rural broadband;
8. Abolish regional development agencies;
9. Fund Scotland on a per capita basis, forcing it to make budget cuts;
10. Eliminate additional welfare payments for those on welfare who have extra children;
11. Negotiate an end to EU welfare tourism;
12. Freeze NHS spending, introduce charges for "no shows" at appointments and charge for more than 1 GP visit a year for those between 18 and 65;
13. Freeze all public sector pay until there is a budget surplus;
14. Terminate public sector pension scheme membership growth;
15. Abolish all NEW agencies established since Labour was elected.

So far we have only number 13. 1 out of 15 George, must try harder.

and I wasnt even being libertarian.

Is Maori TV rugby bid a breach of WTO obligations?

New Zealand is bound by the General Agreement on Trade in Services to have no limitations on market access in the audio-visual services sector and no limitations on national treatment. This was a commitment signed up in 1994 under the previous National Government. It has effectively stopped local content quotas being introduced on television and radio.

Whilst there remain no limitations on market access, it is the commitment to no limitations on national treatment that is at issue here.

National treatment means that you treat foreign owned suppliers on an equivalent basis to domestically owned suppliers. In practice this means NZ On Air cannot discriminate between broadcasters on the basis of ownership, and it does not. However, it becomes a little more complicated when we talk about Maori broadcasting.

New Zealand limited national treatment for Maori broadcasting as follows:

"The Broadcasting Commission is 3)directed by the Government, pursuant to the Broadcasting Act 1989, to allocate a minimum of 6 per cent of its budget to Maori programming. From 1995 all public funding for Maori broadcasting will be controlled by Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (Maori Broadcasting Funding Agency)."

However, Te Puni Kokiri is responsible for the money being given to the Maori Television Service to bid for the broadcasting of the Rugby World Cup free to air. Not Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (commonly known as Te Mangai Paho). Indeed you might ask whether bidding for broadcasting a rugby match is "Maori broadcasting" but it is moot.

That limitation does not apply as the money has not gone through the right agency. So the exception doesn't work.

Is there a potential breach of New Zealand's WTO commitments?

The state granting funding to a broadcaster that would not be available to a foreign owned broadcaster, for the same purpose, would appear to be so. Subsidies, you see, are meant to have national treatment.

TV3 and Prime should be entitled to national treatment, and be eligible for the same funding for a similar purpose, but are not. Indeed, one could not even begin to argue that there was a process to allow them to apply for such funding.

The foreign owners of both broadcasters could, theoretically, get their national governments to formally complain to the New Zealand government of this breach. Indeed, they could go to a WTO Disputes Panel and thoroughly embarrass the government as a result.

Wouldn't this have been picked up? Well no. You see Te Puni Kokiri is hardly versed in trade agreements. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage, which is responsible, was not actually responsible for broadcasting policy and GATS at the time it was signed. It was the then Ministry of Commerce (now Ministry of Economic Development). The institutional knowledge about this is not located in the Ministry of Culture and Heritage nor TPK.

I also doubt whether anybody thought it was necessary to get Ministry of Foreign Affairs sign off on this funding.

So the Parliamentary Question is:

"Has the Trade Minister received any advice as to whether the Te Puni Kokiri funding of the Maori Television Service to bid for free to air Rugby World Cup broadcasting rights is in compliance with New Zealand's international trade obligations? If not, why not?"

Supplementary:

"How does the Trade Minister reconcile New Zealand's commitments to national treatment in audio-visual services with the granting of a subsidy to a New Zealand owned broadcaster to acquire broadcasting rights that could not and would not ever be available to a foreign owned broadcaster?"

UPDATE: This also applies to CER. New Zealand is bound to offer national treatment to Australian broadcasters. So there could be a breach of CER as well.

Manufacturing rights

One of the trends in recent years from statists of both sides of the political spectrum is the manufacturing of "rights". Not genuine rights, the rights to free speech, rights to control the use of your body, rights to your property, rights to interact peacefully with others. No. Rights to something someone else has produced which is to be supplied to you by force.

It started with the "right to life" not being the right to repel anyone else trying to do violence to you, but the "right" to compel others to provide you with food, clothing, housing and warmth.

Then came a "right" to education. A "right" to health care. A "right" to a job. Nobody asserting these ever wanted to make it clear what rights would be infringed upon to deliver this, or indeed what would happen if everyone demanded a "right" to a living and sat around waiting for it.

You see the difference between a genuine right (sometimes referred to as a negative right) is that your exercise of it does not take away from the right of others to do the same. My right to free speech does not take away from yours. Oh, and to be clear, my right to free speech does not demand anyone else supply a platform for it, but it does demand that others not stop me from producing or negotiating to acquire my own. For example, if blogger stopped allowing me to publish this, it wouldn't be infringing on my right to free speech, it would be asserting its own property rights. Indeed, it has granted me limited property rights here, so I can write as I see fit and can block commenters if I like - blocking your comments doesn't infringe on your right to free speech.

So called "positive rights", require taking from others. You see everyone on earth could have free speech, and it would take away from no one (except perhaps the superstructure upon which many regimes are built). However, to grant everyone a "right" to a home, education, health care, broadband or whatever is the latest trend, would cost. Indeed, assuming rights should be the same for everyone, imagine the cost. Notice how none of the statists arguing for such "rights" assert them across international borders. Your "right" to broadband doesn't apply in Chad, nor does your "right" to heart surgery. You might ask why not, if it is a "right". The truth is that it is no such thing - it is a claim upon others using language to place what is a fundamentally socialist concept on a higher ground than it actually is.

It is worth remembering the main reason "positive" rights came about was because the Soviet Union reacted against TRUE rights being advanced at the UN. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was created in 1966, as a Western attempt to push true freedoms onto the UN agenda. It is far from perfect, but does include rights to freedom from torture, the right to not be arbitrarily deprived of life, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of movement including leaving one's country, freedom of association, freedom of speech etc.

However, this perturbed the USSR, which of course routinely ignored all of the above. So it created the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It included a "right to self determination" (not individual self determination mind you), the rights to work, social security, a minimum standard of living, etc.

None of this really matters, as New Zealand is a signatory to both, but then, so is North Korea. The US did not ratify the latter, but did the former with reservations.

So why raise it now? Because Brendon Burns, Labour's Broadcasting spokesman, has said you have a "right" to watch the Rugby World Cup on free to air television.

Yes, presumably in asserting this "right", he should provide you with a TV as well as the programming. Indeed, why can't I assert this "right" in London? If it is a "right" then why not?

Brendon is of course complaining about the ridiculous taxpayer funded Maori TV bid, but it's not just about that. He wants state TV to carry it. He specifically shuts out Prime TV, because of coverage reasons, and ignores TV3. So in other words, the Labour Party wants to force the NZRFU to give TVNZ the rights to broadcast the Rugby World Cup. Nationalisation of programming if ever it was.

Of course it is genuinely pathetic. Nobody has any "right" to watch anything. The Rugby World Cup is no more special than watching M.A.S.H, Ed Edd and Eddy, Bro-Town or championship fencing. Just because a lot more people want to watch it, doesn't mean there is some magical "right" imposed on the suppliers of the Rugby World Cup to hand over the rights.

Tory conference

Given that the current Labour government in Britain is morally bankrupt as it:

- Calls for MORE big government to try to get elected;
- Lies about the need for spending cuts, then admits they are needed after no one believes it.

and is third in the polls, you might hope the Conservative Party would be worth looking forward to.

Well the party conference is a chance to present itself as a government in waiting, so what have we seen so far?

- Boris Johnson demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, even if every other country ratifies it. I'll believe it when I see it, as William Hague has said the CURRENT policy is a referendum. Frankly, all that matters to me is that the UK relationship to Brussels is renegotiated;
- Promises that every town will have a school for tradespeople. Oh dear.
- Boris Johnson noting that he has freezed the Greater London Assembly portion of Council tax for another year, and will again next year, and wants the forthcoming 50p tax rate abolished;
- National Insurance (a tax) to be abolished for new companies for the first two years;
- Waffle about cutting "NHS red tape" to save money;
- People on incapacity benefits to face tough tests to check if they are capable of working.

Yawn.

Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph made a great point when she demanded the Tories put forward the moral case for spending cuts.

"The Conservatives must stake their claim to be the party that has a positive account, a morally attractive case, for saying that public spending – which is to say, the power of the state – can and should be reduced permanently. Sounds like heresy? Only if you buy into the lexicon of the Labour-Guardian-"equality" lobby – which is, of course, precisely what Mr Brown wants you to do."

"David Cameron's Tories can present themselves as sole custodians of the future in which a smaller state will mean a stronger society."

I'm not holding my breath. This is, after all, the party that still believes in stopping a private company expanding its airport.

Change you can believe in: Tibet

Barack Obama on Tibet and the Dalai Lama before being President.

Barack Obama on how President Bush should have boycotted the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in protest for human rights abuses in China, including Tibet

President Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama, because US foreign policy interests are more important -which means getting Chinese support for action on Iran and North Korea.

Yep, awfully easily to play the moral high ground when you're not President isn't it?

Who really wants to be car free?

The Duke of Wellington famously loathed railways because he said it would "only encourage the common people to move about needlessly". Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes the comment by Prince Charles, himself the owner of six vehicles, on a similar vein. He believed one should be "elevating the pedestrian above the car". I like underpasses too, but he didn't mean that. He certainly didn't mean it for himself.

What is always missing from the anti-car language of the environmentalist movement (and a more peculiar "public transport religion") is the value people attach to having a car. It is so often portrayed as "car addiction" or "car dependent", but the counterfactual put forward, a fanciful notion that everyone was "better off" without cars doesn't bear close examination.

Put it this way. If you live in a modern new world city, consider the locations of jobs you can access with public transport conveniently, and those you can drive to within a reasonable time. The liberating influence of the car is dismissed by the doomsayers, as is the trend of those in China and India seeking to buy cars - as if it is some whim of the ephemeral.

"Living car-free may be fine for many people during some phases of their lives, and it may be fine for some people for all of their lives, but it’s no way for most of us to live — regardless of what Prince Charles and his fellow aristocrats may think" says Sam, and he's right.

Intensification for Auckland

One of the core philosophies of the Auckland Regional Council's planning approach for the region is intensification. It believes it is good to encourage people to live in higher density housing, close to "nodes", which happen to be railway stations. Indeed it is one of the key reasons why the ARC has embraced rail transport instead of bus transport. You see at one point, the then ARA advocated converting most of the rail lines into busways, busways would mean buses could travel around the central city hop on a busway, then exit to reach your home in the suburbs. However that wouldn't meet the intensification objective, as it would mean you'd STILL live on your quarter-acre section in the suburbs, when you SHOULD live in an apartment or semi-detached townhouse close to others. That is one key reason why taxpayers are being forced to pay for rail instead of bus.

So the theory is simple, people live closer together near a railway station, means they walk to the train to go to work, less people drive, all sounds good right?

No.

For starters it assumes that putting more people together means less driving, but it appears not to be the case. For if the development works, and there is retail and more reasons to go to the "transit oriented development" location, people drive there from further afield. It attracts people who go by car as well.

Secondly it assumes that because the railway is there, your job is on another station on the line. Wrong. Most jobs are not located within walking distance of the line people live on, and even if it was originally, as jobs change you may be less likely to find another job located also on that line.

Don't believe me? The LA Times did an investigative report into some such developments there, and the conclusions were rather clear. They did nothing.

This is one conclusion of the LA Times:

"In Los Angeles alone, billions of public and private dollars have been lavished on transit-oriented projects such as Hollywood & Vine, with more than 20,000 residential units approved within a quarter mile of transit stations between 2001 and 2005.

But there is little research to back up the rosy predictions. Among the few academic studies of the subject, one that looked at buildings in the Los Angeles area showed that transit-based development successfully weaned relatively few residents from their cars. It also found that, over time, no more people in the buildings studied were taking transit 10 years after a project opened than when it was first built."

Now it went on to claim Portland is working, but is it? Cascade Policy Institute, based in Oregon, says there is precious little evidence of this. It gave evidence to Portland City Council using official stats to demonstrate:

1. Despite high spending on public transport, the share of public transport for commutes into downtown Portland declined between 2001 and 2008 from 46 to 43%. It was static across Portland at 15% between 1998 and 2008. The goal of 60% share for downtown commutes by 2010 looks unattainable.

2. Portland's light rail system achieves ever growing ridership, although this isn't attracted from car users. However the proportion of operating costs paid for by users is less than 3%.

3. Dense housing advocated by Portland costs around 100% more than lower density housing, per person.

The question to advocates of the great Auckland experiment is this.

Where is the evidence that intensification and rail electrification will be any different for Auckland? Who should pay if it fails?

London's free Evening Standard

When I first arrived in London, the Evening Standard was the only evening paper. It started in 1827, It was owned by Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail, and I noticed it mainly because it loathed Mayor Ken Livingstone (not without some just cause, and the feeling was mutual). Of course, it didn't stop Ken getting re-elected. The Times notes it sold 450,000 copies a day on average five years ago. However, it soon faced intense competition.

From September 2006, TheLondonPaper was launched by NewsCorp, the difference was it was free. Associated Newspapers launched London Lite, to pre-empt it, another free evening paper, which was primarily focused on entertainment news and lifestyle items. London Lite was aimed at young female readers (unlikely to buy a newspaper).

The London Paper distributed over 470,000 copies, London Lite around 401,000 copies, but the Evening Standard had plummeted to 236,000, according to a June 2009 survey reported by the Guardian. In short, free papers had cannibalised the evening market.

The Evening Standard has been losing money for some years, so much so that Associated Newspapers sold 75.1% of it to Russian businessman, Alexander Lebedev for £1 in January 2009.

A couple of weeks ago, NewsCorp announced the end of TheLondonPaper, largely because of the collapse of advertising due to the recession. So now, the Evening Standard is to be relaunched at the end of next week. Free. With 650,000 copies to be circulated. Presumably, London Lite will disappear at the same time.

What remains, of course, are paid for national papers in the morning, but when London can't sustain an evening paid-for newspaper then it says a lot about trends in that industry.

The Evening Standard expects that by commanding the evening advertising market, it can be profitable, and it may well be. I found value in having a good paper on local issues, but admittedly I bought it less than once a week on average. I never pick up London Lite, but did use to read TheLondonPaper from time to time. In the mornings I read City AM, a financial news freesheet, as there is no newsagent between home and central London on my commute route.

Oh, and if you want to get some order of magnitude of the Evening Standard, if the Evening Standard is a giveaway of 650,000 copies, the NZ Herald SELLS around 171,000 and the Dominion Post around 90,000. Bear in mind also that greater London has a population of around 8 million.

Ireland votes yes and no

According to The Times, it looks like Ireland's second referendum on the same subject in two years is a "yes" to ratify the Lisbon Treaty of the European Union. Now given it was "no" last year, isn't it now one all?

Not to the European Union though. What was once a welcome lowering of borders and barriers between countries has become an arrogant statist project to impose a vision of regulation and uniformity across Europe. It is dominated by the economically and environmentally destructive Common Agricultural Policy, a massive transfer from British, Dutch and German taxpayers to French farmers (whilst farmers in eastern Europe get a third of the equivalent subsidy).

So when a country votes no, it is dismissed and it is time to have another vote. It is a disgraceful piece of hypocrisy that a customs union that purports to be in favour of democracy, ignores it when it doesn't go the "right" way.

As far as Ireland then? Well with an economy that was particularly badly hurt by bubbles in banking and property, many Irish were convinced that they needed to EU to be saved (given Ireland uses the Euro).

Of course, there needs to be another referendum next year doesn't there?

Just sell them

Labour is moaning about big dividends from electricity SOEs. Labour of course took big dividends when it was in power. However, the idea of cutting dividends and having this flow on to power prices is completely absurd. It would be unfair, because private power companies have less capacity to refuse dividends, and it would mean the taxpayer getting ripped off by the capital investment in the SOEs being undervalued. Of course, non-customers of the SOEs would get nothing, and given around 30% of the market isn't with the state, that's quite a bit.

So the best solution is simple: Privatise.

Partly by sale, when market conditions improve. Partly by giving away shares to taxpayers. Then the dividends wont just be money for the state to spend, but for people to choose how they wish to spend it.

That's true public ownership. However, those on the left don't like it, because they think they know better. You see you might spend a dividend on food, clothes, a holiday or your mortgage repayments, they'd spend it on state health, education and picking winners (or losers) in business or the voluntary sector.

However, you know the state will hold onto these for now, because the National Party thinks that the majority of you lot think privatisation is a dirty word.

Police create market opportunity

Closing down one supplier, puts up the price, and a new opportunity emerges.

Someone will be celebrating this, it wont be the customers, who will pay more, but the competition.

So what good has been done?

So, if you're in Queenstown, have you found the Police very responsive to thefts, burglaries, car conversions and vandalism?

Drinkers' licences - a joke?

Here's an idea:

"One possible solution could be an entitlement card that people would carry and swipe when every time they buy Alcohol or Tobacco and record their usage. Is that too radical? I don't think so. For a long time the Government have controlled motorists with a system of licences where people enjoy the right and freedom to drive - as long as they conform to certain rules.

With the card, people who got into trouble for, say, minor crimes or drunk and disorderly conduct in public would receive a fixed penalty notice and 3 points on their entitlement card with points disappearing over time for in the same way works on driving licences.

More serious offences would result in endorsements on the entitlement card and the cardholder would not be able to purchase alcohol, tobacco or other drugs available for sale through the entitlement card scheme."

This comes from a Labour Party Parliamentary candidate, John Cowan on a British Labour Party blog.

I kid you not.

This lot rightfully call the BNP fascists, but methinks the proverbial pot is calling the kettle.

I'd like to think this nonsense will just be dismissed, but experience tells us it gets embraced by statists, who think it's a great idea.

Pop at "Beware Mad Socialists" says it is justified by the "cost to the NHS" and says "The 'cost to the NHS' is used by totalitarian socialists to justify many of their evil plans. If the NHS doesn't want to treat people, they should simply give people their money back and let them sort out their own medical care - private health companies would be delighted to sell people the care they really want."

Ration cards for what you consume.

Of course, then it could help with obesity couldn't it? You wouldn't get more points to buy chocolate if you didn't get points from going to the gym. You wouldn't get more points to buy petrol if you didn't get points from catching the train. You could all be good boys and girls and do what we say, rather than do what you want - as if YOU know what's good for you.

You think I'm kidding don't you? It is like Not PC's recent post on NZ in Print, one jokes about calorie taxes, and then someone thinks it is a great idea. In fact, Google "calorie tax" or "drinkers' licences" and discover how many are jokes and how many think it is worth considering.

Hat Tip: Old Holborn

People don't care about state TV

Uh oh Labour MP Brendon Burns thinks you all love the beloved nanny state broadcasting to you:

"New Zealanders expect a state commitment to quality and relevant broadcasting. The Government must provide it by looking at the future of the industry and determining how it can best ensure TVNZ remains a key player"

He wants protectionism for TVNZ and private free to air broadcasters. Why? Because he thinks they are special, as they lose viewers and advertising to the internet and pay TV.

Frankly, Brendon, I doubt most New Zealanders could tell you whether TVNZ was state owned or not, particularly TV2. Indeed, more than 1 in 3 households pay for TV content themselves. (Those listening to Radio NZ know taxpayers pay for it, but that's 1 in 5 radio listeners at best).

Most people wouldn't give a damn if TVNZ were privately owned, it's only statists on the left who think there is something warm and nationalistic about having a government owned broadcaster to show people what's good for them.

Personally, I think TVNZ has done more than any other state institution, besides the education system, to promote the systematic dumbing down of the population and sensationalism about news and current affairs. So while I'd be helping selling it off, I wonder if New Zealand wouldn't be better off if it was shut down and its assets sold off. Let someone else start up a couple of TV networks from scratch, and ditch the inane, image obsessed "broadcasting to 12 year olds' "approach of TVNZ.

Remaining tariffs to stay for now

National is replicating Labour's trade policy with this announcement "Import tariffs will remain at their current levels until 2015 at the earliest, Trade Minister Tim Groser and Commerce Minister Simon Power announced today."

Admittedly they are low, a maximum of 10% now (that early agreement to freeze them in the first Labour-Alliance coalition quietly expired with that coalition), and the government has said they are subject to negotiation at a WTO round, or free trade agreements. Apparently 80% of the value of all imports is tariff free (oh the horror say the Greens, I expect), and there is already 100% tariff free trade with Australia and Singapore. Other free trade agreements will see tariff free trade with Thailand, Chile, Brunei, China and the remaining ASEAN countries over the next

This is understandable, it provides a small amount of leverage. After all, without tariffs what does New Zealand have to offer in trade negotiations? Particularly in a world with a US President with precious little interest in trade liberalisation (yes Bush actually was a positive force on free trade compared to Obama).

However, this isn't the point. Much work in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that tariffs are a deadweight cost on the economy, by increasing the prices of goods for consumers. There are benefits in abolishing all tariffs on all imports. Tariffs make clothes, carpets, some processed foods, shoes and some other products more expensive than they otherwise would be, to protect a few businesses from real market competition.

While the government may pursue free trade agreements with remaining major trading partners, the likelihood is that the US will go nowhere under Obama, neither will Japan under the new government, whereas the EU and South Korea would shut out agriculture - which frankly is the main point.

Meanwhile, New Zealand could instead be a free trade zone that is an example to the world, rather than retaining a few puny tariffs that simply punish New Zealanders.

It's time to have some courage - and to meet the commitment New Zealand made, as an APEC member economy, to have free and open trade with other APEC nations by 2010.

That would be a start.

60 years of Communist led China

Yet China could hardly be more different today than it was when Mao declared the “People’s Republic”. It is remarkable how the Communist Party of China (CPC) can even begin to claim that the China of today is a natural evolution of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse Tung Thought and is progressing towards communism. The truth is that it happens to be the centre of power, with the armed forces, for a burgeoning market economy. Even China's official media now celebrates the 30 years of opening up.

China one day, publicly, will be able to reflect with a bit more balance on the first 30 years of that period. It was a period when Mao directly through oppression and indirectly through shockingly insane economic policies was responsible for the deaths of around 60 million. Mao famously said that he didn’t fear nuclear war, because if half of China’s population were killed, there would still be over 300 million left to fight.

Today he bears the not widely recognised title of being the political leader with the most blood on his hands. Blood because the “People’s Republic” became a place where sacrifice to the common good became the guiding philosophy, the cult of Mao the national religion, the Great Leap Forward that proved to be the exact opposite, and an insane level of mass mobilisation during the Cultural Revolution that saw China stagnate and nearly break down into civil war. It is curious that Western academic and radical interest in China was primarily during that period.

China today is an astonishing contrast. With Mao gone, and the Gang of Four of totalitarian thugs arrested, China got on its feet in the 1970s, opened up to the world and Chinese people were allowed to enter business, and have private lives, again.

The results have been astonishing, China now approaches the economic output of Japan, which it is about to exceed to become the second largest economy. Instead of famine and virtually universal poverty, China has a burgeoning middle class. Instead of regimented socialist realism, Chinese citizens are part of the global community, with now the largest number of internet users of any country.

That isn’t a China under Maoist regimentation any more. For all of the symbols of Marxism-Leninism and statements about communism, the truth about China is that it is an authoritarian capitalist state, which happens to be run by the Communist Party. It is becoming more akin to the authoritarian capitalism of Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s under the Kuomintang that it is to Mao’s China, although there is undoubtedly less freedom than there was in Taiwan, China is not the totalitarian state it once was.

Media is under tight state control, but debate and discussion and criticism of current events is vigorous, as the sphere for what can be criticised ever inches wider. Education still indoctrinates into a positive history of the last 60 years, but the facts speak for themselves. China changed direction in 1978 and has not looked back.

China’s phenomenal growth has happened in spite of Mao and in spite of the Communist Party. Hopefully it will be less than 60 years before the Chinese people can more openly discuss the rivers of blood of the era (error) of Mao. Until there is a genuine free press and freedom of speech, China cannot fully progress and hold its leaders accountable, and fight corruption.

Meantime, it is no wonder, that despite the brutal mistakes of Tiananmen Square, Chinese people laud Deng Xiaoping, who surveyed years of purges to be the architect of China's transformation for the better. China's celebrations are full of communist imagery, yet celebrating a largely capitalist led transformation. Although, the authoritarianism still remains as the Daily Telegraph notes:

"The people have been told to stay away from the celebration of the People's Republic today; those whose homes overlook the route have been instructed not to hold parties. The government has banned the flying of kites in Beijing, an innocent pastime enjoyed in the city's parks by old men with weary smiles."

Note also the irony of the country that most resembles China's first 30 years, hailing its paymaster now. Many Chinese who visit North Korea today say it reminds them of life before 1976.

My hope for China is that its leaders continue to tell the people less what to do, and trust them more, and to make the grand step to make themselves accountable to the people directly, by allowing free speech, criticism and separating party, state and judiciary. Most think democracy is the key to unlocking it. It may be a consequence, but what matters most for moving China forward is freedom - and most of all, freedom of speech. No politicians should fear criticism so much that they lock people up for it. May it take much less time for the CPC to humble itself to make China really a republic for the people, as individuals, with rights. They are already halfway there.

Rudman shows why politics and transport don't mix

Brian Rudman has a cheek to call the Minister of Transport an ideologue when he is one of the true believers of the Auckland rail religion. Rudman doesn't call into question the "business cases" the ARC puts together on rail, or Mike Lee's strong leftwing political background in being mischievous towards the government before he is put out of a job.

Bear in mind a "business plan" for something that produces ongoing financial losses is a curious thing, and that scepticism from central government officials about the veracity of the ARC's work doesn't motivate Rudman to question his fellow true believers.

He damns the proposal for a Puhoi-Wellsford motorway. A project which may not be worthwhile, but only money to investigate it has been approved. Money paid for by road users of course. The same can never be said about capital expenditure on Auckland's railways. Rudman in a rather arrogant style dismisses the only major link between Northland and the rest of the country as a road to John Key's holiday bach. I guess he thinks nothing exists north of Puhoi.

Auckland's Regional Transport Committee, a hodgepodge of political interests, naturally wouldn't think so. Given it is advocating a billion plus underground rail tunnel in central Auckland, which would also run at a continued loss, it is clear it worships at the same church as Rudman and Lee.

Rudman doesn't understand why central government time and time again has said no to pouring taxpayers' money into Auckland local government's railway flights of fancy, except the last government. Maybe he should check his premises, these being the following key features of the religion he subscribes to:

- Auckland rail projects all result in ratepayers and motoring tax payers losing money year after year, but that's ok. It is for their own good, even if few ratepayers will see their property values increase as a result, and motorists wont notice a jot of difference to congestion.

- Auckland rail projects always fail conventional economic cost-benefit appraisal, compared to other public transport projects or road projects. That's because the wrong things get counted. People don't value saving travel time that much (they speed, use shortcuts and overtake because they are mean spirited), accident reductions aren't that important, and it is just really really special for people to ride by train instead of, bus.

- Just because the majority of Auckland rail users come from buses or wouldn't have taken the trip in the first place, doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile subsidising them at $4 a trip.

- It doesn't matter that 88% of Auckland jobs aren't in the CBD, where the railway is focused, it doesn't matter. Just ignore that. It will change when there is a railway, you'll see. Aucklanders who work elsewhere don't matter anyway, and we'll build more railways to serve them.

- It doesn't matter that 7% of Auckland trips are by public transport (most of those by bus), spending over a billion to get it to 15% (by 2051!) is good for you all (although 17% of trips are currently by foot).

- It doesn't matter that between 33 and 45% of peak trips to Auckland's CBD are by public transport, predominantly by bus as it is. It doesn't matter that this split is high by international standards.

- It doesn't matter how much money is spent on rail in Auckland, it must all be good, it must be good, even though the whole network was only worth $20 million to start with and wont be worth much more after $550 million is spent electrifying it. You couldn't sell it off for what has been spent on it, you couldn't sell it off for a quarter of that. However, in the church of Auckland rail, spending other people's money is a core sacrament.

- It doesn't matter that the impact on traffic congestion of Auckland rail is virtually nil. Traffic congestion is good. Car users are addicts and must be weaned off their addiction. They really don't want to drive, many don't really want to own cars, they just haven't learnt it yet.

Brian wants government to treat Aucklanders as adults. Brian, they would be better treated as adults if you let them spend their own money, respected the fact that most Aucklanders most of the time choose the transport modes that best suit them, respected the fact that most of the money you want spend on railways comes from people using roads, and respected the fact that this religion of yours is completely useless for the trips most Aucklanders do most of the time.

Maybe you should go to Penrose/Mt. Wellington, Auckland's second biggest employment hub, and ask workers there what the electrified railway will do for their trip to work?

Nationalising sports broadcasting rights

That is exactly what has now been done with your taxes, now that the government has approved taking your money so Maori TV can outbid TVNZ, TV3 and Sky (which owns Prime) in buying the free-to-air broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup.

In short, the government has kneecapped two private companies, and its own company, in order to subsidise an already highly subsidised broadcaster. MTS gets $16.5 million of your money, through the ever accountable Te Puni Kokiri, in this year along just to broadcast. This is clearly a big piece of pork for the Maori Party. Given Maori TV is meant to exist to promote the language, not be a platform to broadcast sports, you do have to wonder about how this is compatible with it.

Of course, the strategy presumably is to get more people to get their TVs tuned into the channel, and more watching it, to boost the ratings, the advertising revenue and for that to have a follow on impact on ratings for other programmes. It's not enough that MTS gets over $300,000 a week in subsidies, no it needs the government to buy the broadcasting rights for it.

The NZ Herald reports the cost is NZ$3 million. It is, of course, worthless to you as you would have been able to see it anyway on whatever channel it is on (notwithstanding coverage issues).

Just another day in the life of a government that happily spends your money, like the last lot did, buying special interests when it feels the need to do so. Maybe Maori would have preferred the money as a tax cut?

Time to abolish NZ On Air

David Farrar has written apparently sympathetically about the idea of extending the state broadcasting subsidy body - NZ On Air - to other media. This was because Fran O'Sullivan proposed it, and Janet Wilson appeared to endorse it.

What nonsense.

As people consume media increasingly online, they are doing so without state subsidy (although Labour poured a little into subsidising infrastructure and National is keen to pour vastly more into it). In the meantime, it has never been cheaper or more accessible to produce video footage or recordings. The excuses of the expense of local production making it difficult to make "Kiwi Kontent" now lie in only one place - the salaries of those working in the sector.

NZ On Air is, in effect, a job subsidy programme. It pays for people to work in the film and television industries (and state radio), from actors to producers, directors, camera crew, editors and the rest. A labour of love for many.

The argument that without NZ On Air, national culture on broadcasting would suffer is only true if you believe that the people whose jobs are supported by this subsidy would do something else. Many wouldn't. The question really is, who should pay for something that those working in the sector say is so valuable?

Should you be forced to pay for programmes you don't watch and didn't ask for? No. Of course not.

Plenty of people provide online content and do not get subsidised. Of course a significant number of households choose to pay for TV they want, through Sky and Telstra Clear cable television. People want what those companies offer, and those who don't aren't forced to pay.

So who SHOULD pay? Those who are such loud advocates for it. The people who say it is good for you. However, most importantly, all those working in the sector should do their bit - and work for free.

How can the humble taxpaying public be expected to embrace culture they are forced to pay for, if so much of what they pay goes into the pockets of those proclaiming how good it is for them?

No. If you work in the NZ On Air subsidised sector and think it is so valuable, then you do it for free and ask people to donate for your time.

Otherwise, isn't it just another form of rent seeking?

NZ On Air should be told that no more money will be available for any future allocations. Existing contracts will be honoured, but that is it. Radio NZ will face a similar fate, but can start to tout for donations, subscriptions and sponsorship.

Suddenly, TVNZ, TV3 and Sky will find it cheaper to make New Zealand content, because a whole host of people, whose jobs were dependent on the taxpayers, have to cut their income expectations in the hope of working in the sector they love. The time has come to stop propping up this vestige of protectionism.

Whoopi Goldberg's excuse for Polanski

Just when you thought you'd heard everything, Whoopi Goldberg, who one would think of as being a feminist and someone who would embrace protecting young people from violence says:

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape", according to the Daily Telegraph.

Hmm drugging then telling a minor to submit to having sex with him is what then? So when a 13yo girl doesn't struggle and fight, then it's what?

Oh that's right, it's the entertainment industry. You're special, you do so much for us, it's not so serious when one of you rapes a young girl right?

You pontificate about politics, judge so many other sectors, yet far too many of you give excuses for your friends to do violence to others.

The ONLY person with any right to say anything about this case is the victim, who happens to want it all to be left alone. That is the only mitigating factor as to how it is treated now.

Oh and she isn't the only one making excuses. Here is a petition (in French) signed by more than a few famous people, appeasing the man's forcible rape of a young girl.

What to cut? Here’s a conservative list

With the party conferences of the Socialist Liberal Democrats and the Nanny Labour Party out of the way here in the UK, next comes the Conservative Party. Can it inspire so that instead of Labour simply losing the election to it, that it positively wins? I have to say it is unlikely.

However, with First Past the Post, the realistic alternatives have extremely remote chances of getting anywhere. UKIP is a party that is welcome on scepticism about the European Union grand state collectivist project, but also painfully stupid on economics with a protectionist streak. The embryonic Libertarian Party UK on the other hand is so limp wristed with its “libertarian” policies, that it looks to the left of Thatcher.

So, given the UK’s enormous public scepticism about politicians, the widespread belief that the state has grown too much and the understanding that the budget deficit must be drastically cut and eliminated, so that the huge burden of new Labour inspired public debt can be cut, I thought I’d pull together a list of spending cuts that any half arsed decent Conservative government ought to have the courage to implement:

1. Scrap the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and terminate all subsidy, loan and other forms of state support for businesses. The best support British business can get from government is to cut taxation and get the hell out of the way. No picking winners, no corporate welfare. Phase out all schemes to give money to employers to recruit and train people.
2. Lead a determined campaign at Brussels to cut the size of the EC budget substantively. Declare that the UK will cut its contribution regardless, and that if other EC member states don’t like it, then they can be reminded of their own widespread breaches of rules regarding budget deficits and the Euro. A first priority should be an immediate suspension of all export subsidy schemes, and a nominal freeze on the growth of agricultural subsidies.
3. Start a new round of privatisation. The Royal Mail and Channel 4 should be the top of the list. However it is time to be really bold and include the motorways. Don’t do the lot in one go, start by selling the tolled crossings separately, then regional networks of motorways, for extended lease periods. You’ll have to find a way to pay the new owners from taxes you collect, but give the owners a period to introduce electronic tolling, then cut back on fuel tax.
4. Cut spending on unprofitable railway projects. No new high speed railway. Let projects proceed only if Network Rail accepts full risk of borrowing and paying it back from track access charges. It is time the railway started paying for itself. Crossrail should be the last big taxpayer supported rail project.
5. Scrap the ID card scheme. It might only save £40m says the Home Office, but it is unnecessary and immoral. Write it off.
6. Scrap a wide range of major IT projects, like ContactPoint, NHS National IT Programme, the expansion of the DNA database to include innocents.
7. Scrap subsidising rural broadband. In the meantime, restore BT’s property rights over its own network. It is increasingly seen as a legacy system anyway.
8. Abolish all regional development agencies and suspend further funding of regeneration schemes. There isn’t the money to spend on state property investment.
9. Charge people on the NHS who are “no shows” for any appointments, charge all people who visit A & E with anything less than an urgent emergency, introduces charges for more than 1 GP visit a year for everyone 18-65 who is not below the poverty line. Freeze NHS spending in nominal terms.
10. Radically reform funding of the Scottish Executive, so that funding is proportionate to actual taxation raised from Scotland. Let the Scottish Executive cut what it can.
11. Eliminate extra welfare for people already on welfare who have additional children.
12. Negotiate an end to EU welfare tourism that entitles EU citizens to claim welfare in each others’ member states. The UK will withdraw from such provisions, meaning UK citizens cannot claim welfare elsewhere in the EU, and vice versa, except for old age pensions on a like for like basis.
13. Freeze all public sector pay until the budget is in surplus.
14. Terminate immediately all new taxpayer contributions to public sector pension schemes and announce that there can be no new members. This is exactly what New Zealand did in the early 1990s.
15. Abolish all new agencies created in the past 12 years. From those regulating childcare to those regulating the postal sector. Britain lived quite happily without them before, it can do so again.

Meanwhile, do not increase any taxes. Prepare for a simplification and general reduction in taxation once budget deficits have been eliminated. Announce what these are likely. Don’t cut defence. It is your core role and the mission in Afghanistan is hamstrung by appalling management and budgeting. Whilst Iran and Russia continue to sabre rattle, now is not the time to cut Trident.

Oh and really, this list is shamefully short. I have barely touched welfare, housing, health or education. This should be the easy stuff politically, although some (like Europe) will take some backbone.

What are the chances even a third of this list could be adopted?

Something else Israel's neighbours wont allow

This post, criticising some of Netanyahu's speech, in a major Israeli newspaper.

You see, the only permitted press in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, or indeed most of Israel's neighbours (Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon far less so), would not contemplate printing a column being profoundly critical of an address made by their political leader.

It shows that there IS real debate within Israel about such things as whether the IDF acting excessively or not against Hamas in Gaza, and noting some of the treatment of Palestinian protestors.

What struck me was not the criticisms themselves, but that Israel, unlike its neighbours, has a vibrant civil society, open press and has the sorts of debates that we take for granted in the western world. The sorts of debates that are more difficult to have in other states in the Middle East, or banned in the case of Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia.

In other words, Israel's enemies fear their own people turning on them, which says volumes about their own legitimacy.

Harriet Harman ignores the US constitution

There is, in the US, a rather unpleasant website called Punternet. It effectively is a website for consumers of prostitutes to rate their experiences. It is legal in the US, indeed it is constitutionally protected free speech. The speech may be highly offensive to many, but that is not a ground to prohibit it, it is, after all, just a series of opinions about consensual experiences between adults. For many it is no doubt a bit of prurient reading, for some it may be useful. It rates prostitutes in the UK . Again, this is protected by the First Amendment. Nobody has to go there, and no crime is committed to produce the website.

However, these are boundaries that enemies of free speech don't respect. They believe free speech which offends should be banned. So what is the result?

According to The Times, Harriet Harman, the Equalities Minister (an Orwellian role if ever there was one) thinks the Governor of California should ignore the US Constitution, and ban the website, because it offends her for encouraging the "commodification of women". Whether it does or does not is besides the point.

Sorry Harriet, just because the UK doesn’t enjoy protection of civil liberties by Constitution, and just because you have a petty fascist attitude to that which “offends you”, doesn’t mean you can extend your bullying ways to the USA.

Harriet has been criticised by Carrie Mitchell, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, who said "Once again instead of prioritising dealing with rape and other violence, Harman is prioritising censorship and repression”. So not even those who represent prostitutes believe in this supposed attempt to protect them, they'd rather the Police better dealt with real crime.

Nobody has a right to not be offended, for it were true, then I’d ban Harman and most of the utterings of this contemptible government for offending me and millions of Britons every day. This latest extension of the authoritarian "do as we say for your own good" nanny state shows further how vile the British Labour Party is, wanting other countries to break their own Constitutions to extend the nanny state into their jurisdiction, because of the limits of their own authoritarian reach.

Oh and well done Harriet, you’ve made Punternet’s day by undoubtedly increasing the hit rate from the UK by a significant factor. Today it is ranked 1053rd in the UK (according to Alexa), with 36576 hits yesterday. Let’s see how it is in the next two days….

Can't rural women pay for their own broadband?

The call by Rural Women New Zealand to force taxpayers to pay for them to be able to watch Youtube more easily, listen to foreign radio broadcasts, swap holiday photos and play multiplayer computer games (and no doubt some looking at porn) is outrageous.

There is no right to high speed broadband services. Just as there is no right to free car parking next to your job, or no right to have paddocks to keep horses on.

If Rural Women New Zealand want fast broadband access, nothing is stopping them paying for it, signing long term contracts with prospective suppliers and seeing who will provide it. If no one will, nothing is stopping them entering the market themselves and providing these services which they claim are in demand.

Nothing except, they don’t want to pay the cost of providing it.

If they don’t like how much it costs, they can always move into one of the main centres where such broadband services are available. You see, if you live in remote areas why should you not be surprised that you don’t get everything that is economic to provide in cities?

In the meantime, they might contemplate why, if taxpayers are forced to subsidise their choice to live remote from telecommunications infrastructure, why they shouldn’t pay for car parking for people at work in cities (which rural people “unfairly” get for free at their jobs), pay for city home owners to acquire an acre of land each upon which their kids can play and they can keep multiple pets including ponies, and pay for increases in road capacity so city dwellers can enjoy uncongested trips, like country dwellers do. After all school children in cities miss out on having open spaces to play in, and the opportunities to interact with nature, and it is “unfair” that they don’t.

Instead, you might just accept that where you live has advantages and disadvantages, and if you live in remote areas, you get cheap land, wide open spaces, empty roads, in exchange for being remote.

Iran or Israel, how are they equals?

I fully agree with the sentiments of Not PC on the simply brilliant speech by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The video is here (in 4 parts)

However, the text is here.

He refutes the ridiculous Holocaust denial claims of the dictator buffoon Ahmadinejad, he describes the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran correctly as follows:

"Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."

He points out the wonder of human achievement, the application of free minds to the world:

"The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet."

He describes how Israel withdrew, unilaterally from Gaza, in the hope it would bring the advancement of peace but:

"In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent."

Meanwhile, far too many think Iran can't be pursuing nuclear weapons, or if it is, it is "ok", because Israel has them. Israel has had them for some years, but hasn't threatened to ever use them, except in retaliation for use against Israel. Iran's recent military coup and election rigging is "ok", because after all, it has to be better than the USA, what with George Bush invading Iraq (another "legitimate" state perhaps) and Afghanistan. The very same cover their eyes when told of the execution of political prisoners in Iran, the second highest execution rate in the world after China, and ignore the execution of homosexuals or minors for sex crimes - being consensual sex. The very same people ignore the persecution of those who want to choose to reject Islam, and ignore the systematic oppression of free press and media.

The same who claim to give a damn about freedom of speech, about womens' rights, supporting gay and lesbian rights, but are happy to let Iranians live with none of the above.

It reminds me of the wilful blindness of the old left who wanted to "listen" to the men who rewarded snipers who shot desperate East Germans trying to cross the Berlin Wall, or "understand" what Nicolae Ceausescu's new way for Romania, without Soviet troops, or recognise the advantages that the Soviet Union brought for education, employment and in housing. The same lickspittles and sycophants who regard Western claims of militarism and human rights abuses with disdain, so denying the victims of dictatorial regimes the legitimacy of their experiences.

In which case I say this.

If you think Iran has a legitimate government with rights, then why do you not endorse a similar government for your own country? If it is good enough for Iranians to get political candidates chosen for them by a theocratic council, to have election results gerrymandered by the incumbent, for political protests to be put down by a state security agency that arrests and imprisons, for newspapers, radio and TV to be fully state controlled to prevent messages "unwelcome" to the regime being distributed, and for bloggers and others online to be persecuted and arrested for criticising the regime, then why not for YOUR country?

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to acquire nuclear weapons, then presumably you embrace widespread nuclear proliferation.

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to call for Israel to be erased from the map, then presumably you think so too. So go on, explain how you'd propose that be achieved? Explain how little bloodshed that would entail and how that would promote freedom, human rights and secularism in the Middle East? How would it be compatible with your opposition to the invasion of Iraq?

Pity Guinea

Guinea doesn't make the news typically. However, it is quite simply an example of a country where the state is little more than an organised gang of thieves, using its monopoly on legitimised violence, to enrich itself and to pillage and oppress the citizens.

A military coup late last year, following the death of Lansana Conte (himself President since 1984 following a military coup, and then several highly questionable elections) meant it is today a military led regime, that has pledged elections within 2 years. The coup leader and effective head of state, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has railed against corruption in the meantime.

However, as protestors filled the streets of the capital, Conakry, angry at Camara's announcement he wishes to stand in elections next year, the BBC reports soldiers have opened fire and massacred them. Reports range from 87 to 187 killed. Apparently soldiers have simply been let loose, and without control have assaulted people in the street and in their homes, with reports of looting and rape of women. Captain Camara has condemned the attacks, but claimed it was difficult to control the soldiers.

However, the Guinean army has a record of suppressing protests, having done so in 2007 with a general strike, and crackdown on the media. Guinea itself having suffered from insurgency of rebels from Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has 25% of the world's known deposits of bauxite, but with ample potential for other minerals and agriculture. Yet it is beset with decades of mismanagement, corruption and dictatorship. It is, for most, just another poster child of the failure of African leaders to provide the conditions for economic and social stability and growth, operating more as a kleptocracy than a government that defends the rights of its citizens and their property.

Meanwhile, a country with per capita GDP of only US$1002 per annum (PPP) has a 15,000 strong army destroying wealth and pillaging from the citizenry. Given Papua New Guinea has more than double that GDP per capita, as does Cambodia, it tells you just what a sorry state Guinea is in.

Gordon Brown promises bigger government

Gordon Brown has made his last speech as Labour Party leader at a Labour Party conference. In a call to arms, to fight the next election, he declared a host of new policies, policies which reflect how little he has learnt, and how dependent the Labour Party is on making people dependent on the state. He has said Labour should never stop in its goal to win the next election

He has announced:
- Electoral reform. Presumably, like the left in New Zealand in the early 1990s, he sees the future in coalitions with the Liberal Democrats, Greens or even Welsh and Scottish nationalists. For any politician facing certain defeat, calling for electoral reform is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- A Nationalised Elderly Care Service: More government for the elderly, including “free” care in the home, which someone will be forced to pay for;
- Free child care for the poor, “paid for” by abolishing tax relief for middle income taxpayers. Given parents can’t let friends or neighbours provide it, it’s no surprise;
- Teenage single mothers to be put into government run homes to be taught how to be parents. Because it’s too difficult to teach them not to become parents or not to pay them to become parents?
- National ID cards wont be compulsory, which begs the question, why bother?
- “Create” 10,000 “Green jobs” by taxing those already with jobs and those who create jobs;
- Remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords (about the only thing I can seriously agree with);
- Expand the scope of Post Offices in banking;
- Raise tax “at the very top”, because nothing satisfies the left like punishing the successful to try to pay for its own profligacy;
- Tougher on crime, although he fails to admit the chronic under spending on prisons and the meagre sentences for violent offences, whilst the state focuses on hysteria over every adult being a potential pedophile;
- Promises on allowing weekend and evening GP visits, without addressing the chronic waste and production line standards of socialised free GP visits.

He claimed the Conservatives were wrong about the recession, yet fails to accept his own litany of mistakes from selling gold reserves to running perpetual deficits. He is proud of rescuing Northern Rock, when small to medium depositors were already protected from all bank failings by a deposit insurance scheme. Northern Rock could have been allowed to fail, and a strong message of restraint and risk management would have been taken by other banks. The wise could have taken over the weak, and future generations wouldn’t be paying the cost. Inflated asset prices (like property) would have been allowed to properly deflate, but Gordon Brown would have had to face thousands of mortgagees who stupidly borrowed too much to ride this speculative bubble. Instead, housing prices remain excessive. There was more worshipping of the NHS “which we love”, instead of noticing that for the vast increase in spending, there has been a 10% drop of productivity.

The unions are happy, which tells enough about how much he has swung Labour back to the left, back to more government, more taking from the productive middle income earners to give to the dependent and create more dependency.

So new Labour is old Labour, more government, no accountability for 12 years of deficits, wasteful spending and setting up the monetary and fiscal policies that saw the creation of the speculative bubble. A bubble that Brown hasn’t allowed to burst in the face of those who pursued it.

Gordon Brown thinks he knows best how to spend half of the money earned by taxpayers, and has been borrowing almost every year he has been in government, so that future generations can pay for the profligacy of the present. Millions of Britons live in ghettos of underclass, where many live in fear of petty crime and antisocial behaviour, unwilling to confront knife touting youths, whilst the state focuses on stopping people taking each others’ kids to sports events or babysitting them. Labour’s culture of dependency, of government solutions and strategies for everything, has been an abject failure.

Can there be hope that the other lot will be substantively better?

Hey others abuse kids too

Oh really, as true as it may be, you do have to wonder at the wisdom of Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, reported as saying that child abuse is common in other churches too. He claims 1.5-5% of clergy are involved in child abuse, which even if conservative is disgraceful.

However, there is no penance in being a party to covering up crimes to finger point "them too".

Of course, protestant churches and preachers of other religions abuse children too. Who has ever denied this? This also gets exposed and continues to be a cause of concern, but this reminds of the Albanian communist politician who on Australian TV said "every country has political prisoners" to excuse the then Stalinist state's repression of dissent.

Until the Vatican demands that all those who have committed atrocities towards children stand up and give themselves up to the authorities, and excommunicates the guilty, it can hardly start pointing fingers at others. Its own house absolutely reeks.