An unpopular view of Bush

As President Bush passes his final days before his term ends, the sighs of relief from all too many are heard, and the flippant throwing of the "worst President ever" title is tossed about.

You see it's all too cool and de riguer to slam Bush as a bad President. Who do you know who thinks otherwise? After all, he's an evangelical Christian, the aftermath of the war against the Saddam Hussein regime was a disaster, Hurricane Katrina was mishandled, the US started using torture against terrorism suspects and the economy is in freefall.

There is an alternative view, one I don't entirely support. It says history will be kinder to Bush given:
- No terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11;
- The overthrow of the Taliban regime helped liberate Afghanistan from one of the worst theocratic tyrannies in modern history;
- Saddam Hussein was a brutal warmongering genocidal dictator whose removal has given the chance for Iraq to develop as a peaceful, moderate ally of the Western world;
- The recipe for the current economic recession was baked well before Bush.

Andrew Roberts helps dismiss a wide range of Bush myths in today's Daily Telegraph.

While I don't excuse waterboarding, the failure to control the growth in government, the absurd lack of planning after overthrowing Saddam and the willingness of the Federal government to engage on grand scale surveillance of communications in the US, the truth is not as simple as the leftwing Bush bashers make it out to be.

Almost none of them point a finger at Bill Clinton for his years of appeasement of Iraq, the vaccilation between limp wristed passivity and bumbling airstrikes in the Balkans, the disaster that was intervention in Somalia, the laughable appeasement of North Korea that saw it develop nuclear weapons while being paid to not do so, the neglect of Iran, the failure to respond to Islamist terrorist attacks on several sites, the neglect of Russia as it bumbled from near bankruptcy as a free friendly power to a next generation wealthy corrupt authoritarian bully.

Even moreso, what would the world have been like had Al Gore won in 2000? Would the recession not be happening? Would we be happy that Saddam Hussein continued to sabre rattle and defy international sanctions? Would Islamists feel they had a soft touch as President? Would the Taliban still control Kabul? or would it not matter because a lot more people would have hybrid cars?

Greenpeace uses property rights to protest

Luddites they may be, and driven by an irrational desire to strangle British airports (which will simply transfer business to continental European ones), but Greenpeace is at least taking a rational approach to protesting the plans to build a third runway at London's Heathrow airport - buying up some of the land needed.

Emma Thompson, Alistair McGowan and Tory nitwit brat Zac Goldsmith have all put up money to buy a field north of Heathrow, which BAA wants as part of its proposed third runway, according to the Daily Telegraph. The intent, of course, is to stop BAA being able to buy all the relevant land, and frankly - from a libertarian point of view - they should be perfectly entitled to do so.

You see ultimately they can make a rational choice. BAA can offer a price which is as much as it is willing to do so to buy the land, and if Greenpeace can take the money (which could fund countless other campaigns) or sit on the land and let BAA try something different.

Of course BAA can ultimately undertake compulsory purchase because it is legally allowed to, and like most businesses today, will use the law to the extent it can to make money. Greenpeace of course doesn't give a damn about property rights, it happily supports those breaking and entering private property to engage in protests - like a recent bunch of fools at Stansted Airport.

So all in all, it's not something significant - an organisation that has scant regard for private property rights is using it to delay a rational commercial project by a private company. I've always said that if BAA can finance a third runway at Heathrow commercially, and buy the land to build it, it shouldn't be prevented from doing so. There may be issues around noise, but unless flights comprise a nuisance over and above that accepted by property owners on flightpaths, it shouldn't be an issue. Yes, I have lived under the flightpath myself.

Of course, if someone can put forward a private business case for a new airport for London at Thames, like Boris Johnson supports, let them do so. However, I wont be holding my breath, sadly.

One big council - one big bureaucracy

Governance in Auckland has been seen as a problem by many, mostly councils and central government, for some time. Mainly by those who think councils should be doing certain things, rather than considering whether such things should be done at all, and if so, by whom. I've not seen a major problem. Transport is often cited as an issue, but in the last few years umpteen major motorway improvements have progressed in Auckland (I can think of eight) and the major hold up has been the ridiculously expensive boondoggle called rail. Just because neither users nor ratepayers are willing to pay for this, doesn't mean there is a problem in governance - it is a problem with the idea.

So the report in the NZ Herald today of what the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance will recommend should send shivers up the spines of Auckland ratepayers - and by that I mean ratepayers of any one of the seven Auckland territorial local authorities. One big council, without restricting what it should do, will be a behemoth of a bureaucracy looking for a job. On top of that a Mayor, with powers to dictate, should also scare Aucklanders - as such Mayors will look for totem poles to build, at the expense of everyone else.

A libertarian view of local government would be that it is hardly needed at all. After all, as long as private property rights are well defined (which at present they are not), then planning becomes simply the delineation between those rights (which could include airspace, sight lines and factors for air and noise). Most of what else local government does is to meddle in utilities or supply facilities that could be provided privately, assuming that local government didn't pilfer money from everyone to pay for them.

So what is really needed in Auckland is not the creation of a mega council, but a serious debate about what the role of local government should be.

Labour, with the Alliance (before it divorced Jim Anderton) and the Greens changed this radically with the Local Government Act 2002, by repealing rather unwieldy legislation that defined what local government was allowed to do, and granting a "power of general competence" (yes the joke from that phrase is too obvious). This effectively gave councils the power to build, buy, sell or engage in any activity that a natural person could do. Councils could set up schools, restaurants, trucking firms, radio stations, dry cleaners, banks or service stations, as long as they went through due processes of consultation. This was a view that local government could effectively be a mini-version of central government, although Labour resisted granting local authorities new taxation or regulatory powers.

National and ACT voted against this legislation, quite rightly so. It is time to take a different approach.

Look at what councils do that could simply be privatised, whether by sale or by transferring to trusts run by interested people. All commercial activities could clearly be sold, or shares transferred to ratepayers. Non commercial activities, like recreational centres, pools, libraries and parks could be transferred to interested parties to run, accept sponsorship, donations or charge for usage. The regulatory activities of councils could then be reviewed on a case by case basis, to consider how private property rights could be used to address the relevant issues.

In short, there is a grand opportunity to rethink local government, so that it shrinks considerably in the next three years. The more difficult examples, like local streets and footpaths may be last on the list, but in the meantime rates should be capped - permanently at current nominal levels, to force councils to trim, and if need be, merge. In other words, the scope for local government to be perpetual busybodies would decline over time, freeing up ratepayers funds, land and the public to decide whether what is done "for the public good" is actually what they are prepared to pay for. Commercial property owners in areas for "regeneration" may foot the bill for upgrading the street scape, instead of expecting all ratepayers to chip in.

The grand council idea is a recipe for local government to do more, much much more. I believe Owen McShane once wrote that the ideal size of a council was one that served between 10,000 and 40,000 people - not so small that it couldn't have enough capacity to carry out its functions, but not so big that it could charge ratepayers enough surplus to dabble in new areas of activity.

The appropriate response of the new government to this forthcoming report is thanks, but no thanks - there needs to be a more fundamental review of the role of local government. Local government has resisted year in year out the drive for lower taxes, and rode on the back of property price increases to increase rates beyond inflation. It is time to say no to a big Auckland council, and consider instead something else as a first step. Why does Auckland need two layers of local government?

Oh and if you think I'm wrong, note this part of the report "the commission will almost certainly recommend the mayor and new council become more involved in the social needs of the region, such as affordable housing".

Get it? You vote out a leftwing central government and you can watch one get elected locally - and you know who will be forced to pay for it.

I can only hope the Minister for Local Government can see this for what it is - a report commissioned by the last government which should be destined as a door stop.

10 wishes for the UK

1. The national obsession with climate change ends with robust debate that decimates the evangelism of the ecofascists.

2. Channel 4 is sold, and the BBC told the TV licence fee will be abolished from a certain date - after which it will need to ask viewers to pay by their own volition.

3. Chavs wake up one morning, take a look in the mirror and either find a conscience or find god or whatsoever, and change into civilised human beings, instead of obnoxious parasitical breeding entities who are oxygen thieves.

4. The general public starts realising that the answer to what they want is to do something themselves, not rely on the "guvmint". The Tories actively encourage pulling the state back from providing support to people who should be providing for themselves.

5. The Scots get totally fed up with the rather stupid Alex Salmond and realise that the UK is better for them than independence.

6. Heathrow's 3rd runway is approved, along with a 2nd runway at Stansted, and the great British knocking machine starts realising that with Terminal 5, Heathrow no longer has any really overcrowded terminals.

7. One of the two major parties talks about reducing tax for those on the 40% top income tax rate - which cuts in at only £34,800. (No kiwis, don't just convert that to NZ$, multiply your living expenses by around half the difference as well).

8. Someone in the media celebrates how the fall in property prices is making housing more affordable, and stops being sycophantic to the millions who invested in the "property ladder" insted of productive investment. Cheer what's cheap and a lot is in the UK.

9. The London Olympics are cancelled because of money, the savings given to taxpayers directly in a one off dividend. Let the profligate IOC find a replacement, if it dares.

10. May Brits stay at home, en masse this year, it will make travelling in Europe so much more pleasant.

10 wishes for New Zealand

1. The Families Commission is abolished, Transmission Gully isn't funded and Peter Dunne withdraws support from the government, and nobody really gives a shit. A by-election is held in Ohariu.

2. The ecological agenda is seriously challenged by the new government, with ACT demanding a review of the RMA that causes Nick Smith to be shifted to another portfolio (or ambassador to Pyongyang). The Greens wail and moan, but see support dwindle as the appetite to be taxed more for their pet projects is low.

3. Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and Michael Cullen all resign, cleaning out Parliament of some 80s flotsam and jetsam.

4. The WTO round is rescued - it matters a fair bit.

5. The Nats fail to get a majority to reverse the burden of proof, set up a DNA database that include the innocent, and focus on sentencing of repeat offenders.

6. The Electoral Finance Act is repealed and not replaced.

7. Nicky Hager's name is no longer mentioned in the media without the suffix, "leftwing activist and Green Party supporter).

8. TVNZ is closed down and its assets sold off in a fire sale. Its pernicious braindead influence on the national culture and psyche is difficult to overestimate. It is like having an 11yo school prefect perpetually telling you what's good for you.

9. National confronts education choice, and finds a way to let parents opt out - completely - of the state school system (and get their taxes back). The measure of success of this will be the degree to which the teachers' unions get upset - the more they get upset, the better the measure is likely to be.

10. The welfare dependency of the underclass is tackled head on and hard. The measure of success of this will be how much the middle class left get upset, and how much is saved in the budget for tax cuts.

Happy New Year then

Yes, took a while I know. Finally starting to feel like the need to vent.

There is so much too.

The empty headed "end of capitalism" nonsense touted by oh too many, as you see how contemptuously braindead the media is, attributing state central bank profligacy and the irrational exuberance of lenders to this subsidy to lend backfiring.

The doom and gloom merchants who thrive at this time, who don't focus on how damned cheap so many things are, how bargains can be snapped up, how housing is affordable for the prudent.

The tragic war in Gaza, and the vile appeasers of Hamas, a group that needs obliterating, eviscerating or to capitulate if there is to be peace in the Middle East. Noticed the protests at Iranian Embassies about Hamas, its disgusting worship of martyrdom and most appallingly how it sells this to children daily as their life goal. Notice Hamas couldn't run Gaza as a haven of peace and prosperity of free people trading and making lives for themselves, preferring to keep it as a land to be under siege, shooting rockets at Israel proper (no occupied territories here) from the midst of residential locations.

The Obamania surrounding the chosen one's inauguration, how everything is going to be better, with the change patently obvious from the likes of Hilary Clinton, who has no qualifications in foreign policy whatsoever. However, don't expect the Democrat felching mainstream media to hold it to account any more than it held the Clinton Administration to account for abysmal failure in Somalia, the Balkans and Sudan.

The National led government in New Zealand which, from my visit recently, seems mainly to have made people feel better that "she" isn't in power anymore. However that's it. I have heard enough from friends to tell that it will fall incredibly short of expectations to dump politics at the altar and implement good policy, as it will be spending lots of your money on a new generation of Think Big projects. Some in telecoms, some in roads. Few will fight the telecoms ones, only the Greens will fight the roads, because they are roads - the Greens like roads only as long as they are made of ribbons of steel with concrete or wood holding them together.

So where will 2009 take me? I don't know, the way the UK economy is going there is a reasonable chance I might not be hanging around to earn New British Won by the end of the year, though I would rather stay. Meanwhile, I hope to visit a bunch of countries I haven't seen before.

What are my hopes? Well here is are ten hopes for the world:

1. Barack Obama astonishes the world by showing a stunning lack of belief in the ability of government to solve problems, and pushes to reopen the Doha Round so that the WTO can form the catalyst to a new era in global free trade. That means slashing primary sector subsidies, staring Europe in the eye and demanding it do the same, and ask the developing world to give enough in return.

2. Iraq does not see a suicide bombing.

3. The broad mass of the British people get fed up expecting government to solve their problems, and both Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffer.

4. Robert Mugabe is dead, I don't care by what means, and the Zanu-PF regime is overthrown, whether domestically or by internationally backed forces.

5. Russia grows up, gets over this adolescent post communist phase of "I wont sell you gas" and faces reality that it is a power in long term, nearly terminal decline. There is next to no hope of Russia's population growth coming close to replacement in the near future.

6. The enviro-evangelists get some serious scrutiny over the various forms of snakeoil they have successfully peddled to governments and the mindless media. Recycling anything and everything, will be proven to be hardly a good use of money, but more importantly the religious approach to global warming will be watered down with some sense, even if it is someone calculating the net loss to humanity of all the follies of the ecological movement.

7. China's government sets its people a bit more free, with the establishment of an independent judiciary, and separation of party and state. No it's not liberal democracy, but the most important steps for China will be rule of law and a state that enforces against its own.

8. The Czech Presidency of the EU will send a few fireworks around Brussels, and the EU bureaucratic project is hamstrung by the unwillingness of enough Europeans to endorse the growing power of the new "top tier" of government in Europe. This capped off by European elections that see sceptics defeat the Eurosocialists.

9. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defeated in Iran, and there are mass protest in Tehran calling for an end to the Islamic Republic, which results in major reforms and the end to theocratic Iran.

10. Peace in Israel takes a leap forward, with the crushing of Hamas and Syria engaging in serious negotiations over Lebanon/Hizbollah and the Golan Heights

Yes I am returning soon

Basically it's like this - I was in New York - and that is reason enough not to sit behind a laptop, then I had a lot of work, then my laptop became virtually unusable, now I'm in New Zealand.

and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend long periods behind a computer until I return to the UK early in January.

So I hope you all have fun, it is cleansing to spend a month or so away from politics - because you soon realise how empty headed almost all politics really is. However the big political battle of our generation has started, it is NOT an election, it is the battle of ideas. It is free market capitalism against those who point at what is not and proclaim it is a failure, whilst offering nothing besides the failure of the past.

The new US Administration is highly unlikely to embrace open markets and less government. The UK government has already decided today is about mortgaging future taxpayers, more.
The NZ government is saying little, which means, I hope, that lots of hard drives are having "deleted files" recovered to dig up the dirt on the last government. However, you wouldn't have noticed much change - but I'm giving this lot till Parliament sits again, because New Zealand shuts down over summer.

Oh and on that note, it was damned annoying not to be able to go to the supermarket on Christmas Day. That is one law that could do with being gutted - prohibitions on when shopkeepers can open for business. It isn't your business, or the government's, and if you don't want to work there, don't. If you treat it as a religious festival, then good for you, respect that - don't force others to shut down because of your beliefs.

So let's see if any shops get prosecuted for opening on Christmas Day, and if so, what this government's reaction will be. That will tell you a little about how little has changed.

Don't spend time thinking too much about it, it is time to spend this period with loved ones, to enjoy their company and life. I come back this time of year for a reason, and it is obvious when I see the sun, clear skies and the space, and see those I love. The UK this time of year is bleak, enjoy what NZ has.

Have a Happy New Year.

Part privatisation of Royal Mail

While New Zealand's new National/ACT/Maori Party/United Future government continues to reject privatisation, Lord Mandelson, Gordon Brown's Industry Secretary today announced that the British government is part privatising the Royal Mail.

The Royal Mail, for anyone used to NZ Post, is a dinosaur. The list of problems it has is long:
- Complicated tariff structures that encourage use of counter staff, not simple stamp purchases;
- No sale of overseas postage outside Post Offices;
- Manual mail sorting;
- Chronic queuing at major Post Offices;
- Limited opening hours, and very limited hours for parcel pickup (often at fairly distant locations);
- Some locations with only cash payment available.

This all with the ever ubiquitous regulator (Postcomm) and government funded consumer representative body "Postwatch", neither of which exists in New Zealand, which maintains high standards of service, without subsidy AND state owned. The UK persistently believes that open markets need regulation, and consumers can't look after themselves. Just small examples of millions of pounds of unnecessary waste.

So a "strategic minority partnership" is sought from the private sector, to restructure the Royal Mail. Taxpayers would take on the £7 billion deficit in the Royal Mail's pension scheme, because those people work so hard for it don't they? It makes a profit, but loses money on its core letter business. It hasn't helped that it lost its statutory monopoly two years ago. New Zealand Post lost its statutory monopoly in 1998 - at the time Jim Anderton leading the Alliance, predicted mayhem.

Funnily enough, standing in a painful queue at a post office recently I was commenting on how it needed to be privatised.

Gordon Brown can do it - yes his leftwing loser backbench waxed on moaning with their northern accents - you have to ask why it can't be done in New Zealand.

Best train food in the UK (and better than Selfridges)

Yes, I know that sounds potentially like the best hotel in Myanmar, but no - it exists, it is very very good, and so, is about to disappear.

It is on National Express East Anglia - between London Liverpool Street and Norwich. Not all trains, but around every second train at peak times during the week, including the middle of the day, there is a restaurant car on the train - available to all classes, serving excellent food with fantastic service. I've had breakfasts twice and dinner once on this service, and will have it for the last time later this week. You see National Express East Anglia has decided it can make more money replacing the restaurant car with a carriage with seats - not surprising - but it is sad for those who use it.

You see it has been full the three times I have used it. Last time I got on the train 10 minutes before departure, got one of the last seats, and the Christmas menu dishes had already been ordered. So it is popular.

and the food and service are worth it.

For £14.95 on the 0800 from Norwich on Monday 8th December, I got hot porridge, with an unlimited supply of toast and croissants, and selection of preserves including marmite. Well cooked and delicious. Apple juice and bottomless cups of coffee. Then came the eggs benedict, with two eggs, fresh smoked salmon with lemon on fresh soft buttery muffins and lashings of hollandaise sauce. I have had eggs benedict in restaurants in several countries, and this is seriously one of the best I have ever had. Better than the one I had for hotel breakfast two weeks before. The eggs cooked to perfection, the muffins lightly toasted and melting in the mouth, smooth lemony hollandaise and delicious salmon. It was decadently delicious, and with the coffee and juice, was quite a start to a day. There are plenty of hot choices.

Dinner lived up to standards as well, on the 8.30pm from Liverpool Street on 11th December, with a starter of lobster tails on rocket, a mains of grilled salmon fillet with beans and potatoes, and dessert of white and dark chocolate torte. Fresh ingredients, beautifully prepared and cooked. Salmon that melted in my mouth, a delicious sweet professional chocolate torte, as good as any I've ever had. All up £22 including drinks, complementary rolls and butter. I have had far too many meals in restaurants that aren't a patch on this food - cooked by a chef in a 20 year old train going at 100mph. All with silverware, crockery, and a total of six staff working in the carriage. For 30 patrons.

The service from the waiting staff can also show up those in many restaurants. Friendly, constantly helpful, grateful to be serving. I tipped them on the last trip generously as a result. It is only sad that apparently 40% lose their jobs with the change to the uninspiring "cafe bar" service. Clearly the price of the meals, given popularity, could've been popped up a bit to make more money - but tis a sign of the times - only one meal serving could be made in the carriage for the trip.

The restaurant car is removed for the last time this Friday - 19 December. I will be having my last dinner this Thursday evening on the service. It will be sadly missed.

By contrast, other food on trains in the UK deserves the reputation it has earnt. Virgin Trains between London and Manchester offers free food in first class, it has to be, you wouldn't pay for it. Breakfasts comprise a choice of orange and grapefruit juice, a couple of packet supermarket cereals, and then some cold toast, fried eggs, overcooked bland sausages and bacon, or slivers of toast with a small pile of (if your lucky) reasonably cooked scrambled eggs and a couple of slices of salmon. It is almost barely worth the effort AND the staff service ranges from the quite good to the utterly indifferent. Seriously - Virgin Trains should hire those National Express East Anglia catering staff that are made redundant, to teach its staff some simple courtesies - like looking like you give a damn about customers being happy.

However, I've used Virgin Trains so much my expectations are so low. £180 one way first class London-Manchester gets you 2 class service. The London-Norwich restaurant car isn't part of the fare, but anyone first or second class ticket holders, can use it. Beardie could learn something from NXEA. Virgin Atlantic in Upper Class is good, Virgin Trains has all the signs of a lacklustre monopoly.

So could Marco Pierre White. You'd think a restaurant carrying his name would carry his reputation for first class food, but Frankies in Selfridges (yes Oxford Street) was an ep

Update

Ahh been too busy, with work, planning trip home, buying presents, got a new digital camera, and really been enjoying Christmas. So there! Not going to be too much politics for now, because really it is time to forget the control freaks who think making the world a better place is telling people what to do. Bask in the joy of the mismanaged US car companies panicking like scared children begging for the Federal Government to thieve from others to save their "essential industries", when the better outcome would be to let the least competent fold, and be taken over by others. Bask in the joy of remembering Helen Clark is no longer Prime Minister of New Zealand, and think momentarily of how bloody lucky you are that you don't live in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Cuba, Myanmar, Turkmenistan etc. Remember that - and that it isn't really luck - but the wise choices of your forebears, and those who fought tyranny elsewhere.

On a minor note I will miss one minor luxury - the best train food in Britain.

The new government's plan

Pardon me if I am unenthused. Not PC has a detailed run down of what has been announced, and his views pretty much match my own.

So is there anything to be grateful for?
- Tax cuts (modest though they will be) will be welcome, wont be enough to make a difference to the economy, and the unions will cry that the efficiently run first class service state sector wont be able to function properly without the largesse;
- Tougher bail and parole laws. Something positive here, a step towards the core role of the state actually doing its job. Protecting us from serious criminals.

Meanwhile, there is:
- More state welfare to "help people out" in the recession, when it would be better "spent" in giving people bigger tax cuts, instead of giving people another excuse to NOT be frugal;
- Think Big for the 21st century. Doing what Barack Obama has already indicated, throwing money at "infrastructure". Road projects that aren't worth it, subsidising broadband for those who want to watch more video online and can't be arsed paying for it and more. Not the slightest indication that economic efficiency will be at the forefront and squeezing out the private sector to be avoided.
- DNA testing for everyone arrested of imprisonable offences. Screw the presumption of innocence, the state will treat you as a "likely suspect" for the rest of your life whether you committed the crime or not. Of course nice card carrying members of the National Party and their families don't ever get arrested, so the only people who should fear this are probably guilty of crimes we never caught them doing right? Utterly vile - and the European Court of Justice recently ruled the UK government couldn't keep doing this either.

NOTHING substantive to address the deficit of quality and consumer influence over education or healthcare. Wealthy parents who vote National, of course, will keep paying for a private education (and paying taxes for someone else's kids' education too), middle income parents will be forced to pay for state education and can't afford to pay twice. The teachers' unions will still have the government by the windpipe on pay, the absence of performance pay and the education system will still have a centrally controlled syllabus, full of collectivist, anti-reason dogma. Education will still be the cornerstone of how the left maintains control over the minds of so many New Zealanders. ACT (and the UK Tory) policy of the relatively modest Swedish voucher model, is totally absent.

Healthcare? Likewise - not even a chance that there will be fundamental reform of this queuing based, producer/bureaucratically driven system.

Now you will have noticed tinkering, such as a conference proposed by the Families Commission being canned. Looks like a great saving doesn't it?

Why not can the whole damned thing? Oh I know why, because John Key decided, even though ACT gave him a clear majority, and the Maori Party could too, to enter into a confidence and supply agreement with Peter Dunne.

Peter Dunne, who has kept Labour in power for the last two terms.
Peter Dunne, who voted for the Electoral Finance Act, but now "regrets it" conveniently.
Peter Dunne, who IS a party of one, who couldn't have given National a majority, who has been the biggest political whore of the country since Gilbert Myles (albeit Dunne has 10x the intelligence of Myles).

I await the first bureaucracy to be completely scrapped - and I don't mean having its functions all shift into a new one, or bloating an existing one. I mean abolish it.

Families don't function any better with the Families Commission than they did before - let Dunne throw his toys out of his cot. The only people who care about this bureaucracy are Dunne and its employees.

Zimbabwe's Christmas

You wont be surprised. The cholera epidemic, the kwashiorkor, the continued harassment of MDC politicians and advisors, and Mugabe's continued lavish thumbing of his nose at the world and his people.

and South Africa's blood stained repulsive support for him. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Mugabe to be removed by force if he wont resign. The ANC continues to provide succour to this murderous corrupt autocracy, and you have noticed the mass protests against both the Mugabe regime and the ANC by those who once fought apartheid - seems that dictatorship is only worth fighting if it is racist. President Bush has called for Mugabe to go - a good Christmas present for Zimbabwe would be to arm the MDC, for Zimbabwe's neighbours to isolate it completely, except for humanitarian aid.

How many have to die before military action by Africa will save more lives than it risks?

Another year goes by and Mugabe hasn't had a bullet through his head.

So you are a Minister now...

You’ll already have had a briefing from your departmental chief executives. They will be hoping to train you, it is your job to make sure they don’t only talk to you like you are their boss, but treat them that way. There are twelve things you should make sure you do in the next two months, with whatever department you have charge of:

1. Buy, rent or borrow copies of all episodes of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. Yes there are differences, but you absolutely, completely cannot understand how officials can treat Ministers without watching this programme. You should have seen all episodes by the time Parliament returns in the New Year.

2. Read up on the roles and responsibilities of your departments, so you know which one to ask about what. Few things will show up ignorance more than not knowing what government agency looks after what activity, because then agencies can play each other against one another.

3. Ask for all Bills in the House that your departments are servicing, seek briefings on why they were introduced, why they should proceed or be amended or defeated. Prioritise defeating those which are contrary to your policy.

4. Start negotiating what you want on the Order Paper for the New Year to get legislation introduced. Even repealing Acts requires this, so start understanding what you need to change through legislation, regulation or by your own executive decision. Legislation obviously takes the longest time, so get focused on that early.

5. Ask every official you come into contact with where the money comes from for what they seek approval for – if the answer isn’t “it is taken from taxpayers” then teach that official a clear lesson about how government is funded and the attitude that should be taken about that money.

6. Make sure you seek analysis of “do nothing” as an answer to any problem crossing your desk. Think of how “do nothing” might change behaviour by allowing people to face the consequences of their decisions.

7. Follow your instincts when you think “why does government do this”. Ask the officials why, ask what would happen if it stopped and what it would take to do this, if you don’t get a clear answer, ask for a briefing within a week.

8. If your department is full of relatively incapable and incompetent people (you ought to figure that out quickly), then seek advice from elsewhere. Treasury is a good start, but by no means enough in many cases. Generally speaking if your department can’t send you an economist or a sharp thinking analyst, it is a lost cause. Bypass it for advice, tell it what it should be doing.

9. You’ll get Ministerials (letters from the public) in droves. You’ll get officials to write responses that you’ll sign. You would save taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars annually by giving this up, and letting a secretary screen letters for most of them which are from cranks and idiots. Those from people who you need to consider can be responded to, the rest should be sent a standard letter saying “Thank you. The Minister wont be responding to your letter, please direct your query to the relevant department or the private sector”.

10. You’ll get Official Information Act requests. You can’t ignore them. You have little to fear from these while you haven’t made any decisions, but it will become a check on all papers your receive on topics. Labour used to have adhoc meetings of Ministers and “non-papers” to avoid having to reveal what it really wanted briefings on. This is why you should quickly learn how to use the OIA and how it can be used against you. Learn about LGOIMA too – the local government version. You can use this to get information from local government.

11. Get an IT consultant or someone in the know to recover ALL documents from the hard drives of all computers in your new offices. Demand it, because it is the only way you’ll easily get copies of documents the last government had produced that it has shredded and not saved. Remember most Ministers have no damned clue how to clear this. Don’t hesitate on this one – you’ll find lots of nonsense, but get someone in the party to trawl what is found.

12. Decide early what agencies should go or be merged. Remember Labour restructured the state sector in its image, you need to do this as soon as possible. That includes getting rid of functions.

Go on, it's your honeymoon period. Don't waste it.

By the way, you'll have countless parasites seeking money and favours from you in the coming months - treat them as you would similar creatures at home.

What's wrong with Britain? Welfare culture led by the state

I'm constantly astonished by the belief held by all three main political parties in the UK that local government somehow could ever have sufficient competence to manage everything from education to law and order and welfare. This case in the Daily Telegraph, demonstrates the complete disregard local government has for the money it gets from taxpayers.

The Saindi family has seven children. The mother approached Ealing Council for housing assistance in July, and according to the law the council was legally required to find a seven bedroom property for this family. Yes, seven bedrooms. So it did. The family gets £400 a week in benefits/tax credits, but taxpayers are also paying £12,458 a month in rent to the private landlord for this property. In other words the landlord is making a killing from taxpayers - because the Labour government forces councils to find accommodation for families, regardless of cost.

On top of that the system "enables landlords to find out the maximum amount of money available before a price is agreed", so it allows them to completely screw taxpayers. So this one has, and has no shame about it. "Landlord Ajit Panesar, who is acting within his rights, fixed a value for his Acton property so that the Rent Service – an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions - could advise the council what it should pay. It came up with a figure of £12,458 a month." An estate agent said that similar properties typically attract half that.

The mother's eldest son 20 said "It's not that we wanted this big house - my mum is not happy because she has to clean all of it. The first day we moved in here we got lost because it was so big". So the family would have been content with less, but no, the warm loving embrace of the Labour government, and its compliant council, is throwing taxpayers' money for people to live in a £1.2 million house - the same taxpayers struggling to pay mortgages.

Central government sets rules to force generous welfare on councils, it sets rules that allow landlords to rip off taxpayers at extortionate rates, even beyond what those receiving the benefits would seek themselves.

So the winners are:
- The Saindi family which gets a large house but pays next to nothing towards it;
- Ajit Panesar who is ripping off the taxpayer by playing with the rules;
- The bureaucrats who are paid and aren't the slightest bit accountable.

The losers are:
- Future British taxpayers who will face higher taxes or less government supplied services to pay the debt for this largesse.

Socialism is wonderful isn't it?

NZ made? so what, promote it yourself

Unless you have the intellectual breadth of a young child, the idea that taxpayers should be forced to pay for a promotion to buy New Zealand was always banal. There is no more good reason to buy a product made in New Zealand over one made in Australia, Austria, Albania, Angola or Antigua because of where it is made, than there is for someone from Karori to buy Karori made over Khandallah made. The rational consumer should trade off price and value from any commodity. That may also include an element of preferring one producer over another, for moral reasons. This is exercised by consumers across the spectrum, because of concerns over environmental, political, religious or philosophical underpinnings of producers. Governments can't predict nor should they interfere with these billions of choices that influence producers to meet what people want. It certainly shouldn't make you pay for a campaign that is about convincing people that where something is made should influence whether it is bought - rather than price and the product itself.

So, it is positive that the new government has abandoned spending any more money on the "Buy Kiwi Made" campaign. A campaign the Greens strongly pushed, as part of their own economic nationalism agenda. Believing it is moral that all New Zealanders, consumers, producers (including importers) should subsidise advertising for New Zealand made products, on the misguided notion that buying more New Zealand made goods is good for the economy.

The truth is that buying a New Zealand made product is good for the producer - it isn't good for the competitors of that producer, or producers of other things you may have bought, or even where you may have invested or saved the money. However, to create value the money you paid for that product should be worth slightly less than the product you bought. Why buy something New Zealand made if it costs more and is poorer quality than the alternative, or simply doesn't meet your needs? After all, why is the producer of the foreign made good - who used initiative to produce something that DOES meet your needs less deserving of your dollar? The only conceivable answer to that sort of discrimination is racism. After all once you have a product you like at a good price, it is up to New Zealand producers to attract business from the foreign producers - which of course, would be easier if there was free trade.

Oh yes, the Greens oppose that too, indeed have actively supported nonsense like "food sovereignty", the latest leftwing campaign against free trade in agriculture, warmly welcomed by the bleeding parasites of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and Sue Kedgley.

However, stepping back from that, this s not to say that New Zealand producers should not, voluntarily, fund a "Buy NZ Made" campaign if it wins them business. Which they do, and have done so for many years. Air New Zealand, for example, makes a deal about being from New Zealand. However, I'm not flying it back home this Christmas simply because of price - I got a better deal in business class with Scandinavian Airlines (not quite as good but I wanted to spend the extra £1,500 on something else).

You see the government campaign was "Buy Kiwi Made" and has duplicated the privately funded "Buy NZ Made" campaign. Yes there already was and still is an industry led campaign to "Buy NZ Made". Labour and the Greens duplicated it.

Sue Bradford, well renowned economic genius, could put her money where her mouth is and financially support that campaign, and leave everyone else's bank accounts alone.

However, I somehow suspect Sue Bradford's degree of direct support for the privately run "Buy NZ Made" campaign will match the regularity of Green MP's using the train to go between Wellington and Auckland.

Why women don't need to be funny

Christopher Hitchens wrote an insightful piece in Vanity Fair called "Why Women Aren't Funny" and got an expected reaction. His point is simple, men need to make women laugh to attract them - women don't need to do that. Men use humour as a technique of seduction (you all know it, the guy making the girl laugh is a prelude to "let's go back to my place", no girl seduces a guy with humour). An interesting observation.

So watch below as he defends his position.

Hitchens on Obama - prepare for disillusionment

Christopher Hitchens, who supported Obama in the US election (predominantly because the McCain/Palin campaign so infuriated him that he could not support it - despite supporting Bush in 2004) has written in Slate about the delusion of so many that everything will be better now merely because Obama has been elected:

"Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don't think a diet of hope is going to cover it."

His concern is that the threats to the Western world aren't going to go away, and that it is time for some sobriety. He worries that Obama's victory emboldens our enemies and that his supporters don't understand that more than a belief that he can make it better will make it so:

"many Obama voters appear to believe that the mere charm and aspect of their new president will act as an emollient influence on these unwelcome facts and these hostile forces. I can't make myself perform this act of faith, and I won't put up with any innuendo about my inability to do so."

Indeed - it is time for those Obama supporters who did so out of thought not blind following of a superstar to recognise the same. The USA, and the entire Western world deserves to be led by substance. The idea that he will be tested by those who wish to observe weakness in the USA remains a concern. Don't forget, Bush remains President for now.

When is Cindy Kiro going to be fired?

This woman sought to nationalise children under Labour, she continues to collectivise everyone, blaming everyone for child abuse (hat tip: NZ Conservative).

She is an authoritarian, she wants the state to monitor all children, and she engages in the philosophy of collective blame and collective responsibility.

The Commissioner for Children has been abundantly useless in its task, children are NOT safer than they were when the office was set up. It should be abolished, so parents can get a few more cents back in tax cuts to spend on their kids. Cindy Kiro will undoubtedly become an academic and continue to live suckling off the state tit, but her doggerel can be treated for what it is - the ravings of a Neo-Marxist academic.

Abused children suffer because of their parents, guardians and families that abuse them - they are predominantly on welfare, disproportionately Maori and that is not the fault of society - society is forced to pay these people to breed. It is time to focus on the offenders, not some generic nonsensical use of "we".

Seven random or weird facts

Annie Fox, Not PC and Elijah Lineberry have both tagged me for this sort of doggerel (no it's not doggerel, but I love using the word - look it up). So here goes:

1. I once was told by a previous employer to look for pornography on the internet to find out how easy it was to find, including illegal material, because her boss wanted to know what all the fuss was about from conservatives in the early 1990s.
2. I once sat on a plane next to Winston Peters. I was in business class from Wellington to Christchurch, and the only other occupant of that cabin was Lockwood Smith (on the other side of the aisle). Air NZ cheekily sat us all side by side, even though all other seats in business class (3 rows) were empty. After take off Winston grumpily moved into the front row. I wasn't unhappy with that, he didn't even say hello - none of his voters, except fellow MPs, ever flew business class.
3. I have committed at least 4 criminal offences in Malaysia given that, the first time I visited, I was with my girlfriend (2 aren’t offences if the couple is married). All of these activities are legal in New Zealand.
4. I went to school with a girl who became Miss New Zealand, although at the time I must have annoyed her intensely as I followed her around a lot (must have been about 7 or 8).
5. I was twice a telephone Santa for Telecom, which was great fun, tempered by rude kids, sad kids (wanting a sick relative to get better) and excessively flirty teenage girls.
6. I was once strip searched at a departure gate at LAX before flying to NZ shortly after 9/11, the reason being that boxer shorts with a small stainless steel button would trigger off the hand held metal detector.
7. Radio Sweden once contacted me to participate in a Q&A programme about welfare policy when I was 22, as it wanted someone from New Zealand to talk about “radical” policies.
8. I spent 10 days at a nudist club when I was 12 years old, as I arrived at night, I didn’t know what it was until I walked out of the bach one morning and noted the tall bearded man with a chainsaw, naked.

Yep I can do 8 too, and since I have not read blogs for weeks I wont tag people who I don't know haven't been tagged. I am resisting reading too much because I know if I read Frog Blog I'll get annoyed, and life is too short to get too wound up too often.

It might be my New Year's resolution - to not get wound up as much :)

Sluttiest land in the west?

Yep I'm in it. The UK according to an AAP report in the NZ Herald.

The study by Bradley University Illinois reports:

"An international index measuring one-night stands, total numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex also put Britain ahead of second-placed Germany, with the Netherlands third, the Czech Republic fourth and the US sixth.

Researchers behind the study say high scores such as Britain's may be linked to society's increasing willingness to accept sexual promiscuity among women as well as men."

So when your son or daughter embarks on the great kiwi OE to the UK they may be in for a a bit more than sightseeing, although perhaps if they could throw together some rude phrases in Finnish going there could have more success on that front as:

"The country with the highest average score was Finland, while Taiwan had the lowest." in terms of how sexually liberal people are in thought and behaviour.

That itself is telling. If there is some truth to this, is Finland swimming in a morass of social problems any worse than many others? It has the third highest per capita reported crime figures in the world (don't be cocky, New Zealand is second) according to the UN, which of course shows that Yemen, South Africa and Zimbabwe are all safer - which of course may simply reflect that most in those countries never bother reporting. It does top suicide stats, which is interesting and sad (but may also reflect the latitude, with very long dark winters). Its high stats for rape may reflect higher levels of reporting (who can know) in a culture that is quite liberal towards women.

and Taiwan the most conservative? Hmmm.