A K Haart

Tuesday, 20 January 2026

China's population declines for a fourth straight year amid record low birthrates

China's population has shrunk for the fourth straight year as birthrates hit a record low, national data shows.

Xiujian Peng, senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University, said adjusting work expectations could help couples balance family life and have the energy to have more children.

She said allowing both men and women to work from home, and guaranteeing a woman's job after giving birth would help.

"Ensuring job security and preventing workplace discrimination against women who give birth can reduce the career costs of motherhood and encourage higher fertility," Dr Peng said.

However, she said these policies would not be enough to reverse the decline.

"These policies may stop the further decline of births or slightly increase the births number, but they can not change China's population decline trend," she said.

"Even if China's government could reverse the fertility decline immediately and increase its total fertility rate to a replacement level of 2.1, it will still take around 70 years for China's population to increase again.

"But many countries' experience in east Asia and Europe has told us there is no quick fix for a low fertility rate, so we will see China's total population will continue to decline in this century."

She added that in the long term, the population decline could lead to serious economic challenges for China.

And invading Taiwan won't make the slightest difference. Immigration isn't a solution either.

Monday, 19 January 2026

Carry on scheming

Robert Jenrick 'told Kemi Badenoch to kick Liz Truss out' of the Conservatives

The Reform defector claims the Conservatives are "never going to change", but admits he made mistakes as a Tory minister.

Robert Jenrick claims he told Kemi Badenoch to kick former prime minister Liz Truss out of the Conservative Party because of her "cackhanded" mini budget.

There may be some Tories who hope Nigel Farage has accepted one defection too many with Robert Jenrick.

There may be some Reform members who wish Nigel Farage had allowed Jenrick to carry on scheming within the Tory party.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Source

A Stunt Idea

While consuming my modest pensioner's breakfast this morning, I came up with this upbeat publicity idea for Sir Keir Starmer -

In view of his remarkable popularity plunge, he could rally his supporters by organising lunch in the grounds of Chequers for all UK voter who still think he’s doing a good job as Prime Minister.

He would have a lunch marquee erected in case of rain and arrange a dramatic Ed Davey type stunt where he arrives by helicopter once all the loyal voters have passed through security and assembled outside the marquee.

Some care would be required here because Sir Keir wouldn’t want the draught from the helicopter blades to blow the marquee away - it wouldn’t be a particularly big one.

Sunday, 18 January 2026

Excessively burdensome

The EU’s universal pension is on its deathbed

The EU is no stranger to one-size-fits-all regulation, from restricting Ireland’s ability to raise interest rates and avoid financial meltdown to absurd regulations on the shape of fruit and vegetables, which lasted 15 years before the “return of the curvy cucumber”.

Yet few policies have been as disastrous as its idea for an EU-wide pension, the Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP).

Four years after it was created, just 10,000 people have signed up from a working population of almost 260 million.

Despite its noble aim of boosting retirement planning among a sceptical population, the EU itself even described it as “excessively burdensome”.

It's the bureaucratic balancing act the EU has never achieved, staying clear of that zone where chair-polishers render life so excessively burdensome that economies flounder, systems crumble and funding falters.

Even if we put aside the ingrained problems of bureaucracy, the EU still has major problems over an ageing population and pension provision. Not specific to the EU, but it's one of those huge, steadily evolving problems the EU is poorly equipped to tackle at an EU level.

Europe is mired in an ageing crisis: by 2030, a quarter of EU citizens will be over 65 after decades of falling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Two thirds of workers have zero pension savings, adding a potential old age poverty epidemic to the unprecedented strain already facing health and social care services.

A related problem is that EU bureaucrats never seem to give up on dud ideas, never willing to learn from experience, change direction and move on. It's another of those obvious yet serious weaknesses EU enthusiasts tend to avoid.

Despite the extremely disappointing take-up figures, however, the EU is not giving up.

In November, it proposed a series of changes, including removing the advice requirement and 1pc fee cap from Basic PEPPs. A tailored PEPP, offering the more complex and potentially more lucrative investment options some savers seek, would also be available and the requirement to offer membership in multiple countries will also be scrapped.

The intention is also to make the product more suitable to workplaces in the hope that take-up is bolstered by auto-enrolment.

It won't work.

Or there is the digital approach

North Korea demands neighbors spy on neighbors in surveillance push

Authorities are offering rewards and threatening punishments to normalize citizen surveillance and reporting of "anti-socialist lifestyles"

According to a source in North Pyongan province, regional branches of the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea (SWUK) held year-end review sessions starting Dec. 20. The meetings evaluated how well members followed directives from above, including participation in political study sessions and compliance with neighborhood watch protocols.

Officials repeatedly instructed attendees to “keenly watch for behavior that goes against socialist lifestyles.”

“They kept emphasizing that we must raise each other’s awareness and immediately report non-socialist behavior so the enemies’ schemes don’t take root in people’s lives,” the source said.

Grim of course, but there is a flavour of old school totalitarian measures about this. It's a long way from facial recognition or China's social credit system.

And yet...

The UK pandemic debacle was merely one reminder that it is possible to encourage natural informers to indulge themselves when confected virtue is on offer. It's as well to be politically vigilant.

Which of course we aren't.