The National-led government was elected in New Zealand on a platform of less tax, less government, and less nanny statism. Theirs was to be a pragmatic government, free of leftist ideological social engineering. Nine months and one budget on, we still have a high taxing nanny state. Pragmatism, it seems, is not all it’s cracked up to be.

By all accounts, the message of Tim Soutphommasane’s forthcoming book (Seizing the Sauce Bottle, ‘Australian Literary Review’, 5 August 2009) is commendably clear. The book lays out the reasons why so-called ‘progressives’ should take patriotism seriously, as a political concept at least.

Top down approaches by western governments to end race segregation are dislocating well-functioning communities.