Stop Giving Aid

Today, an example of the waste that foreign aid becomes. The Telegraph reports that King Mswati III of Swaziland has just spent £450,000 - half Britain's aid to the state - on new cars for his many wives.

Last year the King spent almost £9 million on palaces, parties, and cars, nearly two-thirds the country's aid receipts.

Most of the population live in poverty and many are infected with Aids.

Why do we carry on giving the money? It props up bad government and aid fails to reach the people anyway.

What we should be doing is offering unrestricted trade, not aid. We would be better off too, but trade barriers support the EU's controlling and interventionist tendencies: policies of subsidy and high taxation, and keeping third world produce out.

Pupil Marries Teacher

The Times reports that an American former elementary school teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau, is to marry her lover, Vili Fualaau, after serving two sentences for child rape: they met and had a relationship when he was her pupil aged 12.

Their daughters, aged 6 and 7, are to be flower girls at the wedding.

Their relationship may not have been conventional, but I can't help wondering whether the law today treats such consensual relationships too harshly.

I hope they and their family have a happy life.