Paternalism is more acceptable, I suppose, if you get to be the parent. Because children are immature and deemed incapable of making responsible decisions, parents sometimes make decisions for them. Most of us accept this as a way of protecting children as they grow up, make mistakes, and acquire responsibility themselves.

Her Majesty's Government, sometimes referred to as 'nanny,' has been taking wider powers to assume that parent-child relationship with many of its adult citizens. It either regulates or wishes to regulate the circumstances and the degree to which they can eat high-sugar and high-fat foods, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, and engage in risky activities ranging from boarding buses to adventure sports.

Its argument is that it knows better than we do the extent to which we should indulge in these things and, further, that it has the rights of a parent to over-rule our judgment in favour of its own. A parent has this authority as guardian and custodian of the child because it is assumed to be more mature, knowledgeable and responsible. For some reason the state seems to think itself more mature, knowledgeable and responsible than its citizens, but it is by no means obvious that it is.

There used to be a class in Britain which thought that those who used cutlery the right way and pronounced 'awf' correctly possessed a natural superiority and leadership which entitled them to dictate how others should live. It did this in their interest, of course, thinking it knew what was good for people better than they did themselves. Its influence and self-confidence did not survive the extension of choices and opportunities which Lady Thatcher introduced. But its replacement as lifestyle custodian by elected governments has not removed the fundamental weakness of paternalism.

When people's decisions are taken for them, they never learn to take responsibility for their own actions, and to accept the consequences accordingly. They remain, in effect, children. Ministers say that people are unaware of the facts about healthy diet and lifestyle, or, when they are aware, are 'insensitive' to those facts.

Some of these facts are contentious, and in some cases a refusal to conform to them can represent a trade-off. The donuts might be bad for us, but they taste good. A stern nanny might take the decision out of the hands of a child, but many might question how the state acquires the nanny's authority to dictate the donut consumption level of adults. If people never acquire responsibility themselves, they never acquire the independence which accompanies it. They expect to be protected at every turn, as children are, and feel indignant when things go wrong. They look for people to blame, rather than being ready to acknowledge a mistake and to learn from it.

In a free society adult citizens should learn wisdom as they make their choices. Sheep, on the other hand, should eat the pasture chosen for them and return obediently to the fold at the summons of the tinkling bell.

I don't like to say 'I told you so', but the Ukraine crisis underscores much of what we've been saying recently about the British government's energy policy. Basically, a couple of years back the outgoing energy minister, Michael Meacher, decided to be true to his anti-nuclear principles and commit the government to phasing out all its nuclear power capacity over the next 20 years.

What would fill the gap? Well, don't go too deeply into the sums, but the government thought that gas from the East might do the job. At least until new wonder-sources of energy (like those wind turbines that are polluting every decent view in Britain) start becoming remotely efficient thanks to government subsidies. And already, new pipelines were already marching West from the new gas and oil fields there.

Slight snag here. Britain is of course at the end of the pipeline, so anyone in between could turn the tap off. Not to worry, though, because the gas goes through 'stable' countries. Like Ukraine. And now, about a third of Europe's gas comes through Ukraine.

If you want to keep the lights on, you must have a diversity of supply for your energy. That means not having to rely on a single source like gas. It means having a sensible nuclear capability and lots of other sources. The Ukraine crisis makes it abundantly clear that the UK government will have to u-turn (again) and start building new nuclear power stations. Remember, you read it here first.

Scotland is being urged to try a flat tax. The call comes from Dave Clarkson, tax chief at the Scottish branch of accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers. Like the ASI, he opts for a radical, simple way out of the mire of tax complexity. He urges (in a Times report) a flat tax above a threshold of £10,000 p.a.

Would it work? Yes, it probably would. Scotland could become a magnet for investment and entrepreneurs. A benign tax regime would enable it to become a latter-day Hong Kong, with a favourable climate for economic high-fliers. The talent drain from Scotland might be reversed, and Scotland could become the preferred location of international investors as well as its home-produced achievers. None of this might last long, however, if other nations rushed to emulate Scotland’s success with flat taxes of their own.

Could the Scots do it? No, they probably could not. The Scottish Assembly has tended to diverge from England in increases in regulation and collective spending, not decreases. In the days of Adam Smith and the century which followed, Scotland made great waves in invention, economic development, and trade. More recently, alas, it has tended to prefer a socialist outlook rather than an entrepreneurial one. Flat Tax may be the coming thing to unloose the creative forces of enterprise, but it is unlikely to happen in Adam Smith’s home country.

Tyler Brûlé in Saturday's Financial Times suggests a hypothetical Liberteria as an alternative to the current UK. He writes:

This month has seen the UK all but infantilized by a wave of bans and curbs which will render it a more bland, less edgy nation.

He suggests there should be no highway speed limits, no planning restrictions on architectural innovation, a banking system 'sans frontières,' and "freaky and fabulous hotel and resort properties."

…smoking would still be tolerated in clubs, bars and restaurants and drinking would occur round the clock. Gambling, strip clubs and prostitution would all be legal. Add to this a tolerant line on soft drugs..

He wants a return to the hop on, hop off London buses which were deemed unsafe, and cyclists free to ride with the wind in their hair, rather than having to wear helmets. He sees a brand niche for a Liberteria which welcomes "all kinds of lifestyles and most manner of trade."

It's quite an agenda, and would certainly mark a break from the trend towards the ever heavier hand of the nanny state. Would it work? Indeed, would it be enough? Surely this state should be a tax haven, too?

The key question is whether this is all pure fantasy, or whether such a state might ever come about. And if it did, what would it be like to live in?

I was shopping on Oxford Street in London today at a prominent multinational clothing company. I took my three tops to the checkout and handed over some £20 notes. The young woman serving we asked, "Can I trust that these are genuine notes? Our tester isn't working today." Of course, I said. She then explained that when she had been at school, she'd bought a fake £20 note for a fiver, gone along to McDonald's, bought a hamburger and got lots of genuine change. "I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that. These multinationals don't deserve to be so rich, it's not as though ordinary people suffer. I'm all in favour of entrepreneurs - it's just Big Business I'm against. I'm in favour of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. You might think it a cop-out to me to work here, but I need to earn some money to help me through university."

The clothes I bought are pretty damn cool, and that was why I shopped there. The only reason why that company is a big business is because millions of people like me like their clothes. I wasn't forced to buy from them - I chose them because they gave me what I wanted. Her distinction between being an entrepreneur and being a big business is rather odd. Big businesses get displaced if they lose the entrepreneurial spirit and stop reacting to consumer demand. These new competitors then become big businesses. The clothes shop I was using isn't all that old and has won market share from older competitors. Its success is something we should celebrate, not resent. Besides, being against multinations is so 1990s.

Quite often in Westminster circles people discuss the question of how many people should go to university. Should it be 5% of the population, 20%, 50% or 100%? There is a tendency among conservatives to say that too many people go to university.

I find the discussion pretty academic because it seems to me that governments should not set a target for university attendance. Instead, we should leave the percentage going to university up to the market. Let's leave individuals to make rational choices about whether to go or not, based on whether they think the cost is worth it. The Labour government is quite right to have introduced tuition fees, and the Tories have been frankly shameful in opposing the government's Thatcherist policies on this. If students have to pay the full economic cost of university tuition - in the form of loans they pay off when affluent - they make better choices than if the state just signs blank cheques. Instead, the Tories think they know better than the market how many people should go to uni. They don't.

Prince Charles was in Turkey last month. He said that it would be good if Turkey moved towards 'social justice' among other things.

The royals are meant to be above party politics, so he must think that 'social justice' is a non-political term. In that case, Prince Charles has been right royally tricked.

'Social justice' is a term which has been used by the Left for some years in preference to 'socialism' because they reckon, quite rightly, that 'socialism' has some unfortunate associations (poor, backward countries, Stalin, etc.). They also reckon that no one could object to the concept. After all, we are all in favour of justice aren't we? So presumably we are in favour of 'social justice'?

No. We are not. 'Social justice' is a dangerous term because it can mean anything the most socialist person can think of. It can mean 90% income tax rates, and 100% inheritance tax. It can mean unemployment benefit at £300 per week and a university education for all at the expense of those still working. It can readily mean a state utterly weighed down with taxes, benefits and 'rights' - one in which a dwindling number of increasingly highly taxed individuals work to support those tempted into a life on benefits. It can mean low-growth and a relatively low standard of living for the entire society.

The concept is highly political and Prince Charles should know better than to use it.

James Batholomew is author of The Welfare State We're In.

A fascinating insight into why communism and socialism fails appears on the website of the Foundation for Economic Education, which is based in the USA. It is an essay written by Henry Hazlitt in 1952. This is an extract:

Most of us have forgotten that when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the shores of Massachusetts they established a communist system. Out of their common product and storehouse they set up a system of rationing, though it came to "but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person." Even when harvest came, "it arose to but a little." A vicious circle seemed to set in. The people complained that they were too weak from want of food to tend the crops as they should. Deeply religious though they were, they took to stealing from each other. "So as it well appeared," writes Governor Bradford, "that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented."

So the colonists, he continues, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length [in 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves...

"And so assigned to every family a parcel of land... This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content.

"The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."

In other words, the Pilgrim Fathers were communists until they found out that it did not work. They reacted promptly to give a system that had failed. It is a pity that British society has not reacted as quickly to the failure of our communist-style healthcare and education.

James Batholomew is author of The Welfare State We're In.

Last night the ASI team celebrated Thanksgiving. We feasted on Clam Chowder, a Turkey roast, and pumpkin pie. Following tradition, the youngest ASI staffer got to decorate the tree (while being heckled), and he is pictured below admiring his handiwork.

An ICM poll released today shows that the UK population overwhelmingly rejects the Nanny State, preferring individual freedom instead. According to Reform, who commissioned the poll:

Asked in general about "legislation on things like hunting, smoking and parents' ability to smack their children", 71 per cent of voters agreed that "Too many infringements on personal liberty are being proposed on matters that should be for individuals to decide for themselves", while only 27 per cent agreed that "The Government should legislate on such things even if they mean restrictions on personal liberty."...

Opposition to legislation is consistent across all age groups and social classes. It is particularly high amongst Conservative voters (82 per cent) but remains high amongst Labour voters (62 per cent) and Liberal Democrats (66 per cent).

Which just goes to show that the UK population doesn't know what's good for them...

The UK government's legislative agenda - the Queen's Speech - captured headlines with its 'security agenda' of ID cards, a British FBI, etc. But that's all electioneering, aimed at tabloid newspaper readers.

Much more alarming is how triflingly technocratic are most of the 37 measures proposed. Reducing the National Lottery funds from three to one. Merging laws on animal welfare. Shortening school inspections. Modifying public-inquiry rules. Means-testing legal aid in minor courts. Shuffling the nature and countryside agencies. Setting up a Welsh transport users' committee. With maybe five months until an election, is this the best they can do?

What about tackling our sclerotic school system? Sack the pen-pushers and give parents vouchers? Let heads run their schools and compete for customers. Education would be transformed.

Let hospitals run themselves too. Give patients vouchers, savings accounts, or competing social-insurance plans. Hospitals would be desperate to attract patients, not anxious to keep them out.

Fix our over-complicated tax system. Follow the example of four EU countries and five others: scrap all the complexities, and just have a 20% flat tax on incomes over a certain amount.

That's three do-able things that would do far more good than what our tired politicians are actually proposing.

For a century or more, people have been swimming in the ponds on Hampstead Heath. Some, like me, swim occasionally in the summer. Others swim all year round. It is said to be deeply therapeutic to get up at 6, make your way to the ponds, plunge into the icy water in total darkness, and then get to your city desk by 9.

Then came the Health and Safety Inspectorate. Now Health and Safety is only meant to apply to work places, but soon all swimming baths were classified as places of work, and then all ponds were classified as swimming baths. And all need two life guards to be on duty at all times.

There are three ponds on the heath, one (the best) for the ladies, one for the men, and one (summers only) mixed. This means that 4 (in summer 6) life guards need to be on duty for 12 hours or more a day. The cost is said to approach £500,000 a year. And naturally the Corporation of London wants to cut it back.

Now the solution is simple - do away with the guards. Before they came, people had been swimming for a century without a single fatal accident. Even if there were to be an accident, other swimmers would help before the guards could get there.

The United Swimmers Association have proposed that winter swimmers should form a self-regulating association to swim at their own risks without guards - thereby saving a huge amount of money. They are currently suing the Corporation of London for this to be allowed - but the Corporation is resisting this money-saving proposal and calling in lots of highly paid lawyers in order to oppose a proposal that would save them a lot of money.

Michael Foot, who introduced the original legislation, and is a local resident and Heath enthusiast, is said to be horrified at the unintended consequences of his legislation.

Andrew Selkirk is Editor of Current Archaeology.

Twenty years ago - 3 December 1984 - the UK government sold 50.2% of the state telephone company, British Telecom, the first of the many large-scale privatizations of the Thatcher era.

It was the largest stockmarket floatation in history. The first to use mass-market TV advertising. The first with public incentives - like phone-bill discounts, bonus shares, and requiring buyers to pay only a third of the share price upfront.

It marked a revolution in ownership. Before, just a rich few owned shares. But 2.4 million people applied for a stake in BT. They weren't disappointed: the 50p part-paid shares shot up to 95p right away. And the success gave Mrs Thatcher the encouragement to privatize gas, electricity, water, and more.

The privatization also introduced new competition, setting up Mercury to put competitive pressure on BT. And it brought new approaches to regulation: OFTEL was charged with increasing competition, and with keeping the pressure on through a simple price formula - RPI-X, meaning that prices had to keep falling in real terms.

Could we ever go back to having a phone monopoly, a three-month wait to get a line installed, a choice of just three handsets (black, ivory, or grey), faults remaining unfixed for weeks? I hardly think so. Today's super-competitive phone market is a world away. Indeed, perhaps it's time to work some of the same magic on our state health and education systems?

Truancy is a much neglected topic in the sociology of knowledge. It is mistakenly treated as irrational, even criminal. It is correctly linked with children's learning deficits. These usually arise, however, not from home, but from faulty curriculum and pedagogy.

People think truants hate school. They rarely do, though they often dislike particular subjects and certain sarcastic or rude teachers. My research in Britain and Bruce Cooper's in the US have revealed the huge scale of the phenomenon. In some secondary schools half the children truant regularly.

The American and British establishments blatantly gloss over the problem, along with all those educational difficulties originating in the school itself, echoing the way the old Communists concealed the truth about Communism. The American elite are even more defensive than their British counterparts. This is a disastrous mistake.

Truancy data constitute incomparably rich policy material. We already know that semi-literates truant because they cannot do the work, and that clever children do so because they find the work derisory. We know that a large minority hates games and PE. We know foreign languages are very badly done in both countries. We know that wrong methods of teaching reading have been practiced for 150 years in America, and in Britain for almost a century.

In both countries mathematics teaching is appalling. In both systems political correctness has raged through the curriculum, destroying the authority of the teachers. These indefensible school practices cause truancy and do, indeed, compound the effects of bad homes. Were it not for these poor practices, schools might combat unsatisfactory home life. Sad to say, huge vested interests stand in the way of the requisite reforms. And the related questions of compulsory education and home schooling have not even been brought into the truancy debate.

Dennis O'Keeffe is Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham.

Our Power Lunch with George Muir - head of Association of Train Operating Companies, which represents the firms like Virgin who run Britain's trains - coincided with the Queen's Speech, which unveiled a new government bill to 'streamline rail regulation'.

This means scrapping the haughty Strategic Rail Authority, which this same government created with great fanfare and hullabaloo just a few years ago. It also means that more decision-making will be done by civil servants in the Department for Transport.

This is even worse than the awful days of the nationalized British Rail. At least the BR board had a measure of independence from government. But now, ministers and officials will be calling the shots. Unfortunately, that means more things will be decided for short-term political convenience rather than long-term investment and improvement. It means more central control. It means more services are run to fit in with some abstract management model rather than what local passengers and managers know is needed. Look forward to the same old under-investment - but worse.

This article, on the government's retreat over liberalizing the UK gambling laws, shows just how weak and mindless our politicians are. Bowing to pressure from small slot-machine operators and moralists, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell decided that we can't be trusted to gamble sensibly and only eight new big casinos would be licensed.

Bizarre. Since there are already 130 small casinos in Britain, plus 8,500 betting shops (where you can gamble on the horses, the dogs, on virtual roulette wheels and one-arm bandits), not to mention the national lottery and thousands of internet poker sites, what difference will a few big new casinos make? The answer is that middle-class people go to Las Vegas and think it looks tawdry and vulgar. So it's about taste, not argument.

The small casino operators blatantly pressured the government to protect their own interests, demanding curbs on their new competitors. Fears of gambling addiction were stoked up (despite the fact that research shows low-payout machines are just as addictive is big-payout ones).

So eventually the government caved in, ignoring the evidence, ignoring the public's desire to liberalize things, ignoring the importance of open competition. Worried that gambling leads to crime? Wow, I'd kill to get my hands on one of those eight new super-monopoly licences, wouldn't you?

Some people argue that that, as part of trading ethically, we should avoid buying from countries that are oppressive. Others go further, saying that the government should prevent trade with such countries. It certainly seems sensible to impose sanctions on a country that we are at war with, preventing shipments that might benefit the other country's war effort. But it seems to me that, as a general rule, trade sanctions, whether done on an individual or governmental basis, might do more harm than good. I don't want dictators and oppressors to gain financially, but if jobs are lost in oppressive countries, does that help topple the leadership, or does it just help make the lives of the people even worse?

The UK parliament has voted to outlaw hunting with dogs. It did so by invoking the Parliament Act of 1911 (amended 1949). Normally a bill becomes law when it secures the approval of Commons and Lords and receives the Royal assent. The Parliament Act allows the Commons to have its will even against the opposition of the Lords. The lower House can invoke the 1911 Act to make its laws take effect, allowing the Lords to delay it by only a year.

Judicial review has not hitherto been part of British constitutional law. The principle has been that Parliament is sovereign, and since 1911 this has effectively meant the House of Commons. However, judges have chafed at this supreme power, and have encroached upon it by a series of rulings over the past 30 years. The late Lord Denning was a leading exponent of the view that judges should protect people from the unchallenged power of Parliament. Following his lead, recent judgments have begun to question the legality of parliamentary decisions. The addition of EU laws and recognition of European human rights have added impetus to this. Judges have sought the authority to rule Acts of Parliament illegal, just as the US Supreme Court can rule new US laws illegal.

The judges have looked not only to the language of the law, as in the US, but to the words spoken in Parliament by the government ministers who introduced it. They have sought to make the intention thus established have priority over the actual words used. The legality of the anti-hunting bill has been challenged because of the use of the Parliament Act. The language of 1911 makes it clear that it was intended for high matters of constitutional law, and not as a convenience to bring something into effect ahead of an election. The judges might well decide that the use of the 1911 Act, and therefore the law itself, is illegal.

Aside from the issue of hunting itself, it has left people in Britain wondering whether unelected judges should be able to strike down the will of the people's representatives. Since we did not put judicial review into our (uncodified) constitution, people wonder if judges should be able to put it there themselves.

I was recently giving a lecture at the University of St Andrews Liberty Club. One of the audience pointed out that she was wearing expensive clothes that she could have done without. Perhaps, she suggested, that we in rich countries are selfish by consuming so much. The question reminded me of Buy Nothing Day - each November there is a campaign to encourage us not to shop on a particular day. The people behind the campaign seem to think that we buy too much, and that this deprives others in the world.

Unfortunately, those who argue that we should consume less in order to help poor countries are suffering from sloppy thinking. When we go shopping, we buy products from all over the world, including from very poor countries. Refraining from engaging in this trade is bad for poor countries because it reduces their ability to create wealth and their income. To the extent that Buy Nothing Day has any effect, it is to hurt those in poor countries.

Dr Richard Ebeling spoke at an Adam Smith Institute seminar last night. His theme was that ideas move nations. He pointed out that the ideas of Adam Smith himself, notably those showing the benefits of free trade, took over half a century to work their way through society.

People spread those ideas at a popular level. Protection was gradually linked to poverty, and even to war, as nations fought for advantage. The free trade movement spread through Britain and eventually culminated in the repeal of the corn laws in 1846.

Dr Ebeling suggested that socialism had achieved a similar victory, managing over the course of a generation, to persuade people that capitalism worked against their interest instead of to their advantage. Now, he thought, was the time for people who supported freedom and free markets to educate and to explain, and to win once again the battle for support at all levels. We could do this, he thought, because the ideas are as valid now as when Adam Smith promulgated them.

The UK Treasury's Transatlantic Enterprise Partnership came under fire yesterday. The project gives starting entrepreneurs the chance of a business course at a top US university.

It was attacked my MPs who questioned the cost, by academics who think it belittles UK business schools, and by business and industry groups who would prefer to see the funds spent on helping with R & D, and in making public contracts more accessible.

The plan is part of a government charm offensive, reports the Times, to woo business back on side, having generated their hostility by its complex tax increases and the extra burden of red tape it has imposed on them.

"All the ills of the economy seem to be blamed on business owners' lack of management skills," suggests the UK's Federation of Small Businesses. They rate as more important such things as access to finance at reasonable rates.

The UK government seems to take a 'push' approach to entrepreurs, offering them schemes, grants and allowances to get them moving. Some suggest it might do better with a 'pull' approach, clearing obstacles out of their way instead. If taxes are sufficiently low, and the regulatory burden is sufficiently light, enterprise will probably happen anyway. Government does not need to push it along the way; it needs to get out of the way.

The flat tax momentum seems to be gathering...

Flat Tax - Fool's Gold or Economic Miracle?

The Rich Will Pay More..

Flat Tax Comeback

How the East went flat and blossomed

Scrap the tax code

Remove Reward and Punishment From the Tax Code

Flatly simple tax reform

Flat tax makes sense

Last night the ASI held a seminar on Democracy and the Blogosphere. The New Labour journalist and broadcaster Stephen Pollard pointed to the role of blogs in fact checking what journalists have written, potentially causing journalists to be more careful in what they write. Sandy Starr of Spiked was skeptical about whether blogs would have any influence in politics.

William Heath explained how he had been using a group blog, Ideal Government, to do an online brainstorm about how to improve government computing, which he had recently presented to the government's Chief Information Officer. However, he did say there was a danger that sometimes when governments get the answer they don't want they just ignore the feedback.

Perry de Havilland agreed with Pollard's view on fact checking, pointing out that bloggers had already managed to be the downfall of some major figures in the US. He said that blogs won't necessarily lead to the engagement with politics that some politicians think, instead questioning politics, rather than helping it.

I pointed out that the ASI Blog had enabled us to put up short pieces on the day of a news story, causing calls from journalists which might otherwise not have happened. There was much useful and vigourous discussion from the floor such as Jackie Danicki pointing out that it was not the format that matters but the content.

Highlights of the event are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour on Sunday evening at 10:45pm.

Because the UK government allows people to pay a limited amount of their earnings tax-free into a pension fund, it feels it has to control the subsequent use of it. One condition has been that people have been required to spend at least 75% of their fund on buying annuities before they reach the age of 75.

Annuities give a lifetime income in exchange for cash, and the government's intent is to stop people spending all their pension savings and then becoming dependent on the state. However, annuities convey entitlements in exchange for property. When you die there is no fund left to pass on.

Furthermore, the value of annuities varies at the time of purchase, and can give poor returns to someone forced by law to buy at an inopportune time. Government even affects their value by its borrowing. By issuing many bonds, they lower their value. There has been unrest in the UK at the injustice of the law, and at the poor values which it forces people to accept. Many would prefer to draw down their savings at a rate which will see them through, and to pass on any unused part when they die.

Yesterday the House of Lords voted to delete the annuity requirement of 75% by 75. Under UK procedure, this does not necessarily become law, as the government may use its House of Commons majority to restore the requirement. But it does sound the death knell for an unjust and out-dated law.

In the near future people will be able to save what they want, and because there will be no tax concessions, there will be no state limits on it, or state control of the savings. And because tax has already been paid, any future growth will be tax-free, as will any income drawn from the fund. That day was brought a little nearer by yesterday's vote in the House of Lords.

Junk-food, smoking, casinos - Britain's super-nanny government has really excelled itself recently. On Sunday we learnt that TV would be banned from advertising salty or fatty foods until after 9pm. On Monday we discovered that smoking would be banned in public places (except, mysteriously, in pubs that do not sell 'prepared food'). Today we hear that the planned relaxation of gambling laws would be scaled back, with only 8 new casinos allowed (nice little monopoly earner there, if you can get a licence).

I've no problem with people being told that an excess of fat or salt might be bad for you. In fact, we all know that. We still consume these things because we enjoy them. So there's an upside too, let's not forget. But it's no business of the elite groups in power to force us all to conform.

Nor do we need it. Pubs and restaurants already have no-smoking sections, others have highly effective air conditioning, others have chosen to be smoke-free. Drinks firms are marking their bottles with the number of units of alcohol they contain, so we can see if we're overdoing it. Food packaging contains information about fat and salt.

People invariably think they know what is best for everyone else. But now, government has sprawled so far over the human landscape that politicians now think it is not just their responsibility, but their duty, to make the rest of us conform to their world-view. Well it isn't. Butt out, please, and let us make our own lifestyle choices. Don't tell us how to live.

Today the ASI publishes Andrei Grecu's report of flat tax. Tried in 9 countries so far, it has achieved impressive results. It involves setting a single rate of income tax and doing away with all of the allowances and exemptions. The threshold is set high enough so that low earners pay no income tax at all, and everyone else pays a fixed rate.

Because the flat tax is paid on all income above that threshold, the rate can be very low. It ranges between 13% and 33%. The low rate encourages payment. There are no tax loopholes, nor the need for them, given the low rate. Instead of paying accountants to shelter income and move it offshore, people find it cheaper just to pay the tax. And a low rate makes it more worthwhile to earn more, which brings economic expansion.

The countries doing this have found the low flat rate produces more tax revenue than the complex system which went before. When tax rates are cut the richest people end up paying a higher share of the total. The top ten percent stop avoiding and evading taxes and put their effort into earning more instead. The result is that they pay a higher proportion of the total. And economic expansion produces higher revenue from the lower rate.

Hong Kong brought in a flat tax in 1947. Other flat tax adherents include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia, all EU members. They also include Russia, one of the G8 countries. Even the US is interested, with some of the Bush team looking at the possibility of a flat tax during his second term.

In Britain the flat rate might be about 20%. Estonia, which brought in a 26% flat rate a decade ago, is lowering it to 20%. At 20% few people would object to paying the tax, so out would go the exemptions and allowances, and in would come an economic boom. Out, too, would go a legion of tax inspectors; flat tax is simpler and very much less costly to collect.

A flat tax is simple, letting people understand their obligations. It is fairer, with low earners paying nothing and the rich paying their due. And it unleashes all the talent and enterprise being held back by a devious and complex system.

Few market analysts make unequivocal predictions, preferring to hedge their forecasts along with their investments. An exception this week is Clem Chambers, CEO of ADVFN. Writing in The Business, he says we have entered a long-term bull market.

The reason is simple. We are experiencing huge global progress. I am using progress in the Victorian sense, progress being the improvement of humanity’s lot. This progress will make the world a rich place.

He sees this as an historic, long-term event.

This bull market is likely to run until a new bubble appears which could be 10 years, perhaps even 20. By the time it is over, share prices, index levels and participants will present an almost unrecognizable landscape.

Of course, it could all be derailed by a major disaster, as he admits; but, barring that,

Everywhere, except perhaps Africa, countries are catching up, in the way Europe caught up with Britain in the 19th century. Anyone seeing Russians and Chinese shopping in London are experiencing the first drops of a monsoon of wealth that will be unleashed by billions of people. This process will run for decades and we will all benefit from it. Of course the Malthusians will predict doom, but history suggests otherwise.

Could it happen like this? In the past the stock markets have tended to accompany the expansion of wealth, and wealth is expanding rapidly on a worldwide basis. If it does turn out like this, the changes it brings could dwarf the political events which occupy so much of our attention.

Tuesday November 16th sees the ASI’s evening discussion on Democracy and the Blogosphere. It starts at 6.15 pm (jacket & tie) in the ASI’s offices at 23 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BL, and is followed by a champagne reception.

The speakers will be William Heath, Perry de Havilland, Stephen Pollard and Sandy Starr.

Space is limited, so those wishing to attend should e-mail us (events@adamsmith.org) for an invitation.

More good news from rapidly developing economies. This time it is India, close behind China in its push to achieve growth through market economics and trade. Gary Duncan, Economics Editor of the Times, reports that:

Radical free-market reforms since the early Nineties have helped to make India one of the world’s most dynamic economies. In recent years, India has seen growth which, if it continues at present rates, could allow the sub-continent to overtake Britain, France, and Italy in terms of GDP by the end of the next decade.

The elections earlier this year replaced the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) by a Congress-led coalition, and were briefly hailed by Western left-wingers as a defeat for the economic reforms. However, Sonja Gandhi chose Manmohan Singh, the original architect of those reforms, as prime minister. This makes it unlikely that India will return to its traditional economy (and traditional poverty). Duncan tells us that:

Growth is expected to slow to a pace of about 5 to 6 per cent over this year owing to patchy monsoon rains, which are crucial to India’s agricultural sector, and high global oil prices. However, leading economists expect that India will continue to grow strongly at average rates of 5 per cent or more over the long term.

Anne Krueger, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, is reported as saying that India could enjoy growth as fast as 10 per cent for a number of years. Continued growth will lift more people out of poverty each year. The rise of India and China to the status of major economic powers tends to be overlooked by those reacting more to political news, but it promises to bring far-reaching changes to the world as it spreads the benefits of wealth to such a huge chunk of humankind. The wealth-creating power of the market offers the prospect that poverty could become the exception, rather than the norm, for most of humanity.

Britain's Conservatives have got themselves into a right stew over higher education. Not content with making university places free, now they propose to actually pay students to take unpopular courses like chemistry, physics, and modern languages. Barmy.

Going to university should be a market choice, just like any other. The state doesn't run a chain of supermarkets offering free food to all comers. And it certainly doesn't pay people to walk out with the kinds of food that most people don't care for. Food is no less essential than education - so why the difference in policy?

The answer is that we are distorting, disastrously, the entire education sector in the name of access. The fear is that students from less wealthy backgrounds would not be able to pay university fees: that would be unfair, and the country would lose good talent.

But instead, we should be subsidizing the people who need help, not ruining the market. Universities should charge whatever they like for academic courses. Some universities and some courses would be in worldwide demand, and would be expensive. Others may be less in demand, and would be cheaper. But students could make a rational decision - perhaps they believe they would have more fun, derive more intellectual value, or improve their work prospects more, by choosing an expensive course. It's really up to them. And not much different from the same young people taking out a mortgage on a more expensive home because it is nearer where the jobs are than some cheaper place out in the sticks.

That will give us a competitive world-class university system. If the state has a role, it is to give help to deserving students who can't afford to buy access. But ideally, the universities themselves should build up scholarship funds for that purpose. So that's ideal: a solid higher-education sector, students making rational decisions about investing in themselves, nobody left behind. The Tories know they are wrong. Why can't they admit it?

Modernization, the replacement of muscle by machines, is a universal social solvent. Even when resisted, it erodes established social and economic patterns, and threatens ecosystems.

The reason is compelling and pervasive; peasants and tribal members ultimately succumb to mechanisms yielding enhanced productivity. They rapidly scrap traditional practices in favor of those more materially productive. Many Greens argue the market process fosters these changes. They're correct. Hence, they insist, it must be stifled.

Here they are wrong. Given strong, nearly universal propensities toward improving material conditions, solutions to many environmental problems lie in fostering responsible wealth creation and broad distribution. Rich societies are cleaner, healthier, and ultimately greener.

This transition toward modernity disturbs many people, especially deep Greens. They are annoyed that so many people want what they consider the "wrong things", e.g. radios, motorized vehicles, refrigeration, hot water on demand, and TV.

Watching the Chelsea vs Newcastle United football match last night, I wondered why it is that people persist in supporting teams other than Chelsea. After all, Chelsea is top of the league and has the best players.

It could be that people support other teams simply because they are depraved or stupid. Since Chelsea is objectively the best team, surely we experience market failure when someone chooses to support another team - such as Liverpool.

The problem with this argument is that we do not make choices according to some top-down ruling of what's best. We make them based on a range of criteria that is unique to each of us. To some people, supporting the local team is very important. It may be that some people supported Manchester United because they like David Beckham as a player, and now also support Real Madrid now that he has moved there.

This subjective theory of value applies not just to football teams, but to the marketplace more generally. When buying a tumble dryer, one that takes 7.5Kg of washing is on one level better than one that takes only 6Kg. But if you don't need to do much drying, it might well be a waste of money getting the bigger one. Indeed, a customer might not be bothered about size at all, but very concerned about how quiet the machine operates. The 'best' product is different for different consumers.

I hope other bloggers will ping this, because James Bartholomew has just produced an excellent hard-hitting book called The Welfare State We're In. I went to the launch party yesterday at the United Westminster Almshouses - one of a number of buildings in Westminster created for welfare purposes, but before the inception of the Welfare State.

Bartholomew starts the book with a quiz: How many children had 5-7 years' education before state schooling came in? (95%) How many adults today are functionally illiterate? (25%) How many of London's famous teaching hospitals were created by the NHS? (None) How many cancer patients die each year because NHS treatment is inferior to other EU countries? (10,000).

He argues that social security has produced alienation and crime, unemployment, and more poverty; that means-testing has discouraged work and saving; that the high taxes required have made work less attractive. That the NHS is 'like a train crash every day'. That old people would be better off if the state pension had never been created. That the UK could have been a rich country, but the postwar welfare state killed any chance of it.

I'm not the only one who likes this splendidly robust and commonsense assault on political correctness. Nobel economist Milton Friedman says: "A splendid book... A page-turner, yet also extensively sourced. Demonstrates how attempts to achieve good intentions have led to horrible results... I congratulate Mr Bartholomew on how thoroughly he has marshalled the evidence and how effectively he has presented it."

A World Bank report says that rapid growth in East Asia has lifted 250m people there out of extreme poverty within the last five years, some 40m last year alone. The region, which includes China, includes emerging market economies such as Malaysia and Thailand, plus Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as small island economies such as the Solomons and Fiji. It does not include India, which has also seen rapid growth lift millions more out of poverty.

This is excellent news. It supports the idea that poverty is best fought by creating wealth, not by transferring it. Now that most of the world has stepped onto that upward path leading to wealth via market economics and trade, we can look forward to increasing numbers escaping from the cycle of subsistence and starvation which has been humankind’s lot for millennia.

No doubt people will still lobby for more foreign aid to be given to the governments of poorer countries, but if we invest in their economies and buy their goods, we will probably be doing more to help them.

(The World Bank report is covered in the Times, CNN and the BBC.)