David Cameron outdoes John Key

In the first year or so of David Cameron’s leadership of the UK Conservative Party I was critical of how much he was willing to step back from the proud tradition of Thatcher in rolling back the state. He was embracing the anti-rationalist philosophy of environmentalism, and inefficient producer interest shackled state institutions like the NHS. He didn't seem to stand for anything that different.

It seems Mr. Cameron has moved forward. With the gap between the Tories and Labour growing ever wider, he has become more confident. He now calls for the state to be wound back, if slowly.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph he makes it clear that the state must shrink to give the British public some of their money back. He is calling for tax reductions that are affordable. However more important he wants the proportion of GDP going to the state to shrink.

He opposes state intervention to rebolster the mortgage market, preferring to cut the punitive stamp duty - a tax on property sales.

He advocates the type of school choice ACT is promoting - the Swedish voucher system whereby the private sector gets funding per pupil as parents send their kids to the school of their choice.

However in New Zealand, after National had a wide gap with Labour, it became even more limp wristed and gutless! Bill English says that the growth in state spending should be less than under Labour. He doesn’t want the state to shrink, he just wants it to grow less. National rejected Rodney Hide’s suggestion that state spending grow no faster than population and inflation – which over time would be less than GDP growth. This modest proposal by ACT should be core National policy, on the basis that the state should be getting more efficient and if successful should progressively disengage itself from people’s lives.

Labour believes the opposite. Have no bones about it, Labour would increase the size of the state given the chance, as it has been. Working for Families is a part of that, free GP visits, student loan handouts, more state housing, state subsidised rural telecommunications, a grandiose underground railway for Auckland, greenplating a motorway so it costs $2 billion in a tunnel instead of a quarter that above ground. It is a vision of taking from everyone to giving to everyone, just in different proportions.

National is apparently incapable of fighting this, incapable of really articulating a vision that in a growing economy the state can easily and appropriately take a proportionately lesser role.

John Key is calling for tax cuts, but there is plenty of poor government spending that should be highlighted and cut. Come on John, if David Cameron can do it after 11 years of relatively centre-right New Labour, you can do it after 9 years of centre-left Clarkistani policy.

Kim Jong Il close to croaking?

Well Sky News says so and so does the International Herald Tribune citing a South Korean newspaper. This is on the basis that he hasn't been seen in public for three weeks (which isn't actually that much of a big deal in North Korea). The South Korean National Intelligence Service says he has heart disease and diabetes, which means he wont outlast his father (and let's face it Kim Jong Il since his teens has had a rich lifestyle, with little need to undertake any work), and apparently several Chinese doctors entered the country and remain there (though this could mean anything).

The Korean Central News Agency (which has an absolute monopoly on news from North Korea) of course says nothing of General Secretary Kim Jong Il. In fact its news reports are worth reading for tragic/humour value. Take this:

"Art performance "Really Good Country" of kindergarteners from across the country was given at the Pyongyang Schoolchildren's Palace on Sept. 4 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the DPRK...The numbers included small chorus "The General Goes along the Endless Road to the Front" and instrumental ensemble "Bean-based Milk Van Dashes Forward" which make one keenly feel the noble traits of General Secretary Kim Jong Il."

Well yes "Bean-based milk van dashes forward" certainly inspire feelings about Kim Jong Il, especially if stands in front of it. If there wasn't so much vile tragedy, murder, brainwashing and psychological abuse in this nightmare necrocracy (as Christopher Hitchens points out, the 14 year dead Kim Il Sung is still President), it would be really funny.

Meanwhile North Korea stopped disabling its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, after blackmailing the world to keep propping its vile regime up, and continues to enslave and torture children of political prisoners in gulags.

Meanwhile the Green Party says nothing about either.

UPDATE: Now, according to the Daily Telegraph, a Japanese professor claims Kim Jong Il has been dead since 2003, and doubles have been used ever since for speeches and public appearances. He has written a book called "The True Character of Kim Jong Il". I'm not convinced, but such a hermetically sealed state will create such speculation. It is also known that several dictators had doubles, including Saddam Hussein, and Albania's Enver Hoxha - the latter of which inspired the novel/story by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones called "Biografi", which is definitely a good read.

Swaziland's corrupt dictatorial misogynistic king

The highest rate of HIV per head of population in the world (41%).
70% of its inhabitants live on under NZ$0.61 a day.

So King Mswati, the absolute ruler of Swaziland, with 13 wives, who goes on multi-million pound shopping sprees with them, who suppresses political dissent, who owns helicopters, limousines and palaces, looks pretty vile.

Swazis actually like him, in spite of it all says The Times, or they are too busy to fight, dying or fearful of being arrested.

In 2000 he called for everyone with HIV to be branded and sterilised, which didn't happen. Then he called for a five year ban on sex, which he didn't respect, naturally.

Life expectancy is around 30 years.

You'll notice Bob Geldof, Bono, Madonna, Oxfam and other great advocates for Africa doing their bit to demand this vile corrupt kleptocracy be overthrown and for part of the King's wealth to be used to fund the infrastructure needed to provide some health care, instead of blaming the West.

Fortunately the UK supplies no official bilateral aid to Swaziland. That's a small relief at least.

What the hell is wrong with school choice?

If you're a parent, and your local state school doesn't deliver the education you want, and of course, you're a taxpayer, why is it unreasonable to expect that you should be able to send your child to another school - and for your taxes to follow where you send your child?

Now I'd argue that the parent should get the money back and pay the fees. Many would say "what if it isn't enough", which becomes another argument. I would say that YOU should help that family if you are so concerned, but also that private schools elsewhere often provide scholarships for kids from poorer backgrounds to attend. In the UK some private schools have up to 20% of pupils attending with fees part paid by such scholarships - and that is without anyone getting their taxes back. Imagine if parents had their taxes back, could choose the schools and those who could not afford would be helped by those schools, charities and their families. Yes, that's where Libertarianz aim for things to be.

Far too much for the Nats to contemplate, which is understandable - it couldn't convince people that most are quit generous.

However, there are steps along that path. ACT advocates school choice through vouchers, similar to what Sweden has implemented. The vouchers aren't actual pieces of paper, but each child has taxpayer funding that follows him or her, and the school receives that money, whether the school be state or private. The private schools can even be profit making (I know, and they don't even use the children for slave labour or their organs!).

It would be a simple step forward, schools would need to be attractive to parents - which is predicated on parents knowing what's best for their kids. Schools that succeeded would be funded on a per student basis, those that didn't would need to change or fail or face takeover.

National once had this policy, in 1987. Ancient history now. Parents choosing, schools accountable? Not any more.

A very modest step forward would be bulk funding. Schools funded on a per student basis, but only state schools. At least some accountability for performance. No. National can't even argue that schools should get money per student.

It's going to "plan talks on zoning", you know the law that means schools can only target students from local areas, with some exceptions. According to The Press, Education spokeswoman Anne Tolley said that "zoning "certainly won't go altogether" under National, but "I think there is some tweaking we can do"." So glad your political career is ambitious Anne.

PPTA President Robin Duff, (the PPTA being defenders of the right of teachers to get unified pay increases without any measure of performance or accountability), said "If you juggle things around with zoning, there are winner and loser schools". There already are.

The PPTA has long fought the right of funding to follow pupils, it has long fought teachers being paid according to performance, it fought vouchers and bulk funding. Nothing substantive will change in education until this bastion of old fashioned union monopoly dominance is smashed.

It is time for education to be about what parents want, not what teachers think is good for them.

National's ambitions for education are woeful. It is depressing that it can't even argue for funding for students to go to the school parents choose. Centrally planned education funded Soviet style is the status quo - and that's the education system you will keep getting under National.

Unless you are wealthy and can afford to opt out - which is perhaps why plenty of Nats don't care, why should they give a damn about children from middle class homes?

Teachers can use force to protect other kids

According to the Dominion Post, Police Inspector Chris Graveson says teachers are too cautious about using force to protect children in classrooms even though they are entitled to do so.

Apparently the issue is adolescents, some of whom are being sexually aggressive and violent towards other kids. Teachers, understandably terrified of being accused of being abusers themselves, fear touching kids even to defend others. It's dead wrong.

Inspector Graveson has made it clear that teachers should intervene, which is common sense of course. He points out that if some children are restrained, there is a risk they may bruise, particularly if they remain violent. The choice is simple though - a teacher is morally obliged to protect children from their peers if violence is witnessed.

Of course with a headline "Teachers can use force on kids", the "journalist" Lane Nichols is being deliberately provocative. It is not initiating force, it is using force to defend one child from another.

Teachers, particularly male ones, have been inflicted with a feminist led hysteria against any physical contect between themselves and their pupils, on the implication that it "could" be sexual and abusive. Few deny the seriousness of teachers sexually abusing their pupils, but teachers are well aware of the risks of any such allegations. Children are long taught to report "bad touching". However it has paralysed teachers providing comfort to upset children. I recall being hugged and held by a teacher when I was 10 because I was upset as my grandfather had died. I am grateful for that, I was crying and needed that comfort - it is natural, and this is what has been lost, to a feminist hysteria that has literally thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

Teachers must do the same to protect other pupils.

Of course the reaction of the eminently useless Office of the Children's Commissioner was to say "would be very surprised if it was official police policy to encourage teachers to use a level of force that would leave bruises on primary school children".

That is NOT what it was said. It is NOT encouraged, but accepted that it may be necessary if a child is resisting restraint and it is to protect other adults and children.

You see children are not always innocent.