Yesterday I put reason above partisanship. Today I show you how virtuous I am by defending Benson Pope!

As we know, the Government Minister's school teaching past methods have come back to haunt him. Allegations of his 'teaching style' are, everyone agrees, about to put an end to the ex-Otago PE instructor.

But over there at New Zeal and Bastable I've been thinking we're all making a big mistake. Back around then (1997) I was on camp too, not as a 14yo but as one of the senior student leaders helping to run the show. Nothing like 'The Benson Pope affair' happened at our camp, but I do have insight into how these things go.

The situation is that you've got a bunch of unruly kids let loose in a camping situation where dicipline needs to be gained and kept anew. It's not an hour in the classroom anymore, it's 24hrs a day for several days. There's a big programme to get through, learning to be done, and rules to follow for safety's sake. The kids have to hunker down, the leaders responsible need to be organised and in control. The students need to be ready and in their place on time, that means not staying up late so they're out of bed for breakfast ready for the day. If you don't get the brats "on task" it will be a huge waste of time, money, and resources and you may as well have stayed at school with the books. Benson Pope was in charge of seeing to all of that.

Nobody is saying Pope is some kind of sexual pervert. It is admitted he saw nothing, he never entered the shower cubicals. He only entered the girl's changing room after all attempts and shouting and banging on the door failed as warnings. Indeed, from all I've seen the "crime" is unstated. The allegation is merely that he broke a politically correct taboo. A professional adult woman in his place would make this a non-issue. It's only wrong because political correctness tells us so; because he's a bloke.

The girls were calling him out! Are we so politically correct that a male school teacher can't take responsibility for teenage girls anymore? But how can this teacher do his job if his authority is subverted by the missused power of woman's space?

If they get away with it on the first day that's the whole camp blown and what the girls have learned from camp and apply to their lives is that ultimate power in our society has its source in the power of a woman's body over all men. All else folds before it.

A responsible campmaster only needs to do what Mr Pope did once, and effectively, to break that bullshit spell once and for all. Nothing could match Mr Pope's voice comming from the other side of the screen wall of the girl's shower room to show who was bluffing who. That would end the farce once and for all. Authority that must endure brinkmanship, especially the unwinnable sort, with 14yo girls is no authority at all.

Now THAT is what I've been convinced is the truth of things. And a speech to this effect is all that can save Pope's bacon. But it's a defense he can never use. Not only are we all too much PC brainwashed but his own Government is the champion of PC. The PC brigade has put friendly-fire rounds into its very own Minister.

So don't be too happy about Pope's demise because the PC brigade is still out there and still armed and still aiming for the Not PC. Hurting Labour, cetus paribus, is a good thing. It's too late to stop it now, in 30mins the House will be in session and we'll see PC triumph again.

Napoleon Bonaparte may as well have been speaking for the forces of political correctness that rule us when he said "I may lose a man, but never a moment!"